Citing International Relations: Beyond the Boundaries of Disciplinary IR

Using citation data from Google Scholar (GS), this article situates IR within a much larger field of scholarship. This article compares Google Scholar citations numbers from influential publications within the traditional boundaries of disciplinary IR to publications which have influenced disciplinary IR using literature from outside its theoretical heartland. These citation numbers reveal a disciplinary geography in which the theoretical centre of the discipline is occupied by rationalist, neoliberal, realist, and increasingly, constructivist texts. The citations numbers also suggest that the theoretical hinterland of IR's disciplinary landscape is settled by post-colonial and feminist IR theory. However, when IR is treated as an inter-discipline and situated with a broader field of scholarship through Google Scholar, it becomes clear that a much larger body of the academy turns to literature from beyond IR's disciplinary gates as they grapple with and explore the effects and repercussions of international politics. On this interdisciplinary view, it is IR which occupies the theoretical periphery.