Introduction

The present chapter discusses the account of historical change and the (seeming) rejection of theory in Friedrich Kratochwil’s Praxis (Kratochwil, 2018). It argues that Kratochwil’s sophisticated account both of historical change and of theory leads him to treat them as different sides of the same coin, resulting in the fact that when tossing that coin, usually only one side can be seen in the end, but not the other. The argument to be made in the following is that this conceptualization of historical change and theory as basically mutually exclusive is not necessary, although at first glance it might seem to follow from some of Kratochwil’s basic assumptions. Of course, making an argument in order to show that one would have arrived at different results if only one had started out on the basis of different assumptions would be fairly superfluous. However, the point to be made here is a different one: I argue that the conclusions drawn by Kratochwil would not be necessary were he to add a few ingredients to his account and become a little more relaxed regarding the use of others – a few tablespoons of theories of social differentiation and social evolution in order to describe modern society and its development, a little less baking time in the oven of law, and a consideration of how the dish should best be presented if it were to be sold where it rightfully belongs, that is, in a Michelin-starred restaurant rather than the eclectic mix of fast-food fare so often savoured around the International Relations (IR) campfires. This is another way of saying that probably one of the issues with Praxis is that when it comes to theory, its biggest problem might be that it mainly has in mind that special fare called ‘IR theory’ – but that this is exactly the fare not to Kratochwil’s liking, that is, the one that might have filled generations of IR students with academic carbohydrates, but which often doesn’t even pass muster for a decent home-cooked meal (Hausmannskost).