Introduction

The concepts of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ may not figure as centrally in everyday life as they figure in academic life. Yet, as the title of Kant’s essay from which the introductory quote has been taken indicates, ‘common sayings’ such as that something ‘may be true in theory, but is of no use in practice’ also reveal that the duality of theory versus practice shapes our most fundamental ways of sense-making in everyday life. It also goes without saying that the practice of theorizing is nothing that practitioners beyond the ‘sciences’ worry too much about because their praxis is usually defined in terms of some practical choices which do not, at least in the first instance, relate to thinking about thinking. Academics, however, have to come to terms with ‘theory’ one way or another – or risk being spurned as an ‘ignoramus’ if they don’t. This is especially true for International Relations (IR), which, ‘even in the West … did not become a predominantly academic, formally theoretical discipline until after 1945’ (Buzan, 2018: 393) and has defined itself in ‘theoretical’ terms ever since (Wæver, 2013).