‘At Daggers Drawn’: History, Political Science and the ‘Soul’ of International Relations Discourse in Nigeria

The emergence of International Relations (IR) after the First World War as a distinct field, separate from diplomatic history was primarily conditioned by the need to build a special body of knowledge aimed at unravelling the causes of war as well as the prescriptions for peace. In order to arrive at something close to a systematic knowledge of the varied relationships among states, a positivist methodology was found for IR. At the same time,...