Redeeming international relations traditions: Begriffsgeschichte as a hermeneutic opportunity

International relations (IR) is replete with intellectual traditions that connect our past experiences to future expectations, such as the Machiavellian-Realist tradition, the Kantian-Liberal tradition, and the Grotian tradition. However, contextualist scholars like Beate Jahn and R. B. J. Walker have criticised IR “traditions” as fictional “perennial debates” concocted by the false imposition of contemporary assumptions on historical concepts. This article counters this critique by exploring the methodological implications of Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte for IR. It aims to show conceptual history as offering IR a possibility to combine tradition with temporality by situating Begriffsgeschichte in a reflective debate with the Cambridge School.

This article argues that Begriffsgeschichte enables IR historians to investigate intellectual traditions without neglecting linguistic temporality by examining historically contingent concepts diachronically. The contextualists consider IR traditions lasting for centuries as ahistorical because they maintain that concepts can only be understood synchronically under their respective historical contexts. This perspective overlooks the hermeneutic possibility of evaluating concepts diachronically, which can be found in conceptual history. Following Koselleck’s approach, we can identify the dynamic continuity and change of different concepts across different historical periods through temporary layers and examine their interrelatedness through conceptual pairings. By charting concepts’ linkages and changes across historical periods, we can redefine IR traditions as stories about interconnected concepts travelling from the past to the present. In this way, Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte offers IR an opportunity to preserve its historical consciousness by redeeming its traditions in our age of critique and crisis.