Where are the idealists in interwar International Relations?

Abstract

International Relations (IR) textbooks often make reference to an idealist paradigm in interwar IR. This article argues that an idealist paradigm did not exist, and that interwar references to idealism or utopianism are contradictory and have little to do with defining a paradigm. Not only is there no idealist paradigm in IR at this time, but authors from the interwar period that have since been dismissed as idealists rarely share the attributes assigned to idealism or utopianism by later writers. If IR scholars are serious about understanding the history of their discipline then they will have to stop applying misleading and anachronistic terms like idealism.