Introduction: international political theory as a European theoretical tradition

This introduction casts International Political Theory (IPT) not as a narrow niche production at the margins of the discipline of International Relations (IR) but rather as a key dimension of theorising international relations that challenges disciplinary, theoretical, method- ological, and geographical boundaries and inseminates other theoretical IR traditions. The chapters in this volume approach IPT as a theoretical tradition that emphasises and interrogates the philosophical, historical, ethical, normative, institutional, and aesthetic dimensions of international relations and world politics. In so doing, they explore IPT as a European theoretical tradition to stress that, paradoxically, it is only by provincial- ising Europe and its intellectual traditions that one may finally appreciate what is truly universal in them.