'IR's Bad Habits - Theorising International Relations and Foreign Policy'

07 March 2016

The Seminar with Professor Günther Hellmann took place on Wednesday March 9th 2016, 16:00-18:00 in the Department of International Politics in Aberystwyth

The DDMI was delighted to welcome Professor Günther Hellmann from Goethe University in Frankfurt, for a seminar and round-table discussion on: ‘IR's bad habits - Theorising International Relations and Foreign Policy’. The seminar was introduced by the guest speaker, who offered a genealogy of his own research, which today predominantly lies in (German) foreign policy analysis and US pragmatism. Contextualized in debates over the current European ‘refugee crisis’ and the European financial crisis, Professor Hellmann offered a thorough exploration of the development of German foreign policy following reunification in 1990. In this context he articulated his puzzlement over the assumption that International Relations Theory, compared to Foreign Policy Analysis, is considered less messy in analyzing phenomena of global politics. This, he claimed, has in past years led to an avoiding of the former within the discipline, much to its own disadvantage. Thus, while Hellmann stressed the importance of theories as methods and tools to think-about-thought, he urged that new tools be developed for new problems. Alternatively, International Relations will remain stuck in a debate about its ‘-isms’. This introduction was followed by a discussion, involving all those present. Each briefly presented themselves and their own research area, and was then given opportunity to pose Professor Hellmann a question, which addressed the topic of his presentation. This resulted in a stimulating intellectual debate on topics such as the role of culture in diplomacy and international foreign policy, comparative analyses of Germany’s internal- and foreign policies, as well as its role in the European Union, particularly in relation to its regional neighbours.