Theory Across Time: IR's Privileging of Time-less Theory.

Various theorists of international relations have engaged in the process of de-naturalizing nearly every epistemological concept within the discipline. The concept of time, however?the temporality that informs IR?s theorizing of international politics?remains outside the boundaries of analysis. This paper analyzes the temporal conceptions that inform and orient IR analysis in an attempt to demonstrate how IR?s particular conception of temporality privileges those forms of analysis that attempt to make time-less claims that apply across history. This paper will utilize the insights of those who have already engaged in this process in sociology?William Sewell and Andrew Abbott?and extend this critique to the particulars of IR theory, demonstrating how IR theory is informed by a linear notion of time that shapes and constrains our epistemological commitments. In the end, this paper will offer possible alternative formulations that would more effectively take into account the multiplicity of temporal experience that exists in practice, rather than rely on the a-temporal, backward view of the analyst. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]