Sociological Imagination in Historic Perspective

Abstract

This article explains how the origins of Sociology and International Relations have become closely related over the last twenty years. This new phenomenon is explained by the double approach in International Relations to History (English School) on the one hand, and to Sociology (Constructivism) on the other. After a brief look at the essential literature on Historic Sociology, Lawson presents the potential main results of such new approach to IR: the rejection of eternal and universal categories; the possibility to establish periods in International Relations; and the capacity that International Relations Historic Sociology could provide in order to eliminate given suppositions related to some central concepts and myths.