Theories of international relations which claim objectivity inevitably harbour subjective biases. Elucidate. (2026, 15 Marks)
The statement restates Robert W. Cox‘s dictum that “theory is always for someone and for some purpose” (1981), echoing Max Horkheimer‘s 1937 contrast of traditional and critical theory. It targets the positivist self-image of mainstream IR and sits at the centre of the third debate, which Robert O. Keohane in 1988 framed as rationalism against reflectivism. Bias enters through the very choices that make a theory possible.
The claim to objectivity
Positivist IR rests on naturalism (society studied like nature), the fact–value and subject–object splits, and the search for regularities that permit prediction. From its 1954 edition, Hans J. Morgenthau‘s Politics Among Nations spoke of “objective laws” rooted in human nature; Kenneth N. Waltz (Theory of International Politics, 1979) built a parsimonious science of system structure.
How bias enters
- Standpoint and purpose. Cox separates problem-solving theory, which takes the existing order as given and makes it run smoothly, from critical theory, which asks whose interests that order serves. E. H. Carr had already exposed the harmony of interests as the ideology of satisfied powers.
- Selection of cases. Waltz held that a theory built on Malaysia and Costa Rica would be “ridiculous”: theory is about great powers. Stanley Hoffmann called IR “an American social science” (1977). Mohammed Ayoob‘s subaltern realism shows that post-colonial states fear internal threats more than external ones, which the canon never modelled.
- Gendered categories. J. Ann Tickner (1988) reformulated Morgenthau’s six principles to show that his “objectivity” is coded masculine and therefore partial. Cynthia Enloe (Bananas, Beaches and Bases, 1989) asked “where are the women?”.
- Eurocentric universals. Edward Said‘s Orientalism (1978) showed knowledge of the colonised serving empire. Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan asked why there is no non-Western IR theory (2007), and Navnita Chadha Behera (2007) showed Indian IR importing Western categories instead of theorising from its own history.
- Self-fulfilling discourse. Richard K. Ashley (1984) argued that realism’s anarchy is an interpretation presented as fact. For Alexander Wendt, “anarchy is what states make of it” (1992), so a theory that teaches self-help helps produce it.
A contemporary illustration
Liberal theory presents the rules-based order as a neutral public good. Seen from the Global South, selective enforcement (Iraq 2003, Libya 2011) raises Carr’s question: satisfied for whom? In January 2026 the United States announced withdrawal from 66 international bodies, treating the order as an instrument rather than a commons.
The limits of the claim
- Relativism. If every theory is biased, the critique is too. Cox accepted that critical theory is itself historically situated and conscious of its own relativity.
- Bias is not falsity. Waltz’s partial theory still explains great-power balancing.
- The remedy is reflexivity. Theorists can declare their standpoint and test claims beyond the great powers. Acharya’s Global IR answers with pluralism, not abandonment.
Conclusion
In IR objectivity is an aspiration, not an achievement, because every theory chooses its actors, questions and cases from somewhere. “Inevitably” holds for the existence of bias, not its size: reflexive, plural theorising can expose and reduce bias but never remove it.