After Theory Before Big Data

<p>This book’s key purpose is to contribute to the ongoing theoretical discussion in the field of international relations (IR) concerning the status of grand theories.</p><p>However it also has a wider critical mission: to challenge mainstream social science and its dominant methodology as well as the unfettered optimism that the problem of social order can be solved by the application of scientific knowledge to our practical problems. The author uses rigorous philosophical analysis to focus on the unexamined assumptions that form the bedrock of many contemporary scholars in IR and demonstrates the unavailability of a universal scientific procedure for finding the facts when we face practical choices and issues of social reproduction.</p><p>This book will be of interest to upper-level students of IR sociology history and philosophy of science; it will also speak to students of security foreign policy making migration and political economy in addressing the basis of their attitudes in thinking about the world and the role of scholarship.</p>