Discourse Analysis and the Production of Meaning in International Relations Research: a Brief Methodological Outline

Abstract

Discourse analysis has become a mantra for many young international relations scholars that would like to place their research within the camps of postmodern theorizing, increasingly fashionable yet still marginal enough to be attractive to those that do not set for the usual mainstream topics or methods. However, their work has been frequently put under much methodological pressure by positivist social scientists that sometimes reject the discourse analysis framework as too fluid to be a “proper” social research tool. Premising that discourse is a social practice, this paper proposes a non-Marxist argument for pushing forward this debate and for helping especially social constructivists in advancing their methodological concerns beyond the positivist-interpretativist dichotomy.