The Significance of "History" and "Theory" in International Relations Studies

This article investigates the significance of “history” and “theory” in the international relations studies’ educational system in in Iran. The structure of IR studies in in Iran is centered on a maximal use of history in its traditional form that is a descriptive, extensive, and generalized way of apply history, which unnecessarily adds to the content of an article. At the same time, such an educational system gives too much weight to theory in conducting a research. The author, however, argues that history and theory are only two important means of framing and simplifying a research for readers.in this respect, using of them should be minimal and merely for helping to understand the author’s hypothesis, with a specific approach aimed at understanding accurately the existing political, security and economic trends and particularity of any individual society. In this approach, applied history is used to explain why an event occurred and continued to the present time and possibly in the future. To this end, the author suggests a serious researcher should use a quick and liberal way of using historical flash backs throughout the text. Likewise, theory should be used only to frame the argument and operationalize the discussion in the context of policy. Keywords: History, Theory, Applied International Relations, Policy, Global Politics