ABSTRACT

My primary aim in this chapter is to consider the value of sociological method, theories and concepts to the analysis of International Relations (IR) and to the emerging field of international political sociology. I will centre my discussions around a discussion between ‘relational’ and ‘substantive’ accounts of social reality (Emirbayer 1997; Guillaume 2007). I do so because this reflects certain recent debates in international political sociology and IR, even if the same conceptual terminology is not always used. These are debates that centre on understandings of the state and its sovereignty and politics and how all these relate to social spaces. Dominant in these are reflections on the hegemony of an inside/outside dichotomy in IR (Rosenberg 2006; Bigo and Walker 2007).