IR Descant: Alternate, Recurring, and Novel Theories in the IR Discourse regarding
Democracy Promotion by International Organizations
John Allphin Moore, Jr.
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Prepared for the 2009 WPSA Conference
Vancouver, March 19-21, 2009
“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks
“To interpret is to impoverish.”
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
Longings for “shared ground” and genuine borderlessness inhabit the dreams of many
international relations scholars today. In a delicate finesse of classical- and neo-realism –
still overpowering in the public intellectual discourse – recent thoughtful contributions to
IR theorizing (including some in this panel) in large part breathe renewed vigor into
Kantian yearnings and bring hope to the Prussian philosopher’s many idealistic disciples
and upgraders.
My brief, modest, contribution to this particular panel will go like this: first, I sweep
through the well-known panoply of theoretical approaches to IR, many of which are
addressed, and certainly more adequately, elsewhere at this conference. My aim is to gird
these constructs around our panel’s urgings to effect certain worthy public policies. I end
with a consideration of Barbara Weinstein’s 2008 presidential address to the American
Historical Association’s annual conference and of ruminations by an honored scholar of
IR theory – Seyla Benhabib – which I trust will elevate my pedestrian remarks into a
suitable, if derivative, heuristic.
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