Symposium: The "Third Debate" 25 years later

[This is a post-publication review symposium.] In 1989, Yosef Lapid published an article in International Studies Quarterly that became a touchstone for a variety of theoretical and methodological debates in the field. "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-Positivist Era" (click on the link below to access the original article) generated quite a bit of discussion about the potential contribution of a variety of alternative approaches to international studies, and contributed to a generally self-reflective moment in the field. Lapid's piece, although certainly not the only call for questioning the foundations and direction of the field in the post-Cold War era, managed to knit together the "Great Debates" narrative of the field's origins and development with a call for diversity and pluralism that struck a responsive chord with many.[...