William C. Wohlforth is a distinguished American political scientist, serving as a faculty member in the Government Department at Dartmouth College since 2000. He holds a degree in international relations from Beloit College and has experience working as a legislative aide in the U.S. House of Representatives. Dr. Wohlforth completed his graduate studies at Yale University, where he earned both an M.A. in international relations and a Ph.D. in political science. He has previously held academic positions at Princeton University and Georgetown University. Dr. Wohlforth’s scholarly expertise encompasses international security and foreign policy. His most recent publications include America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2018), co-authored with Stephen G. Brooks, and the forthcoming A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion (Oxford University Press, December 2024), co-authored with Jill Kastner.

The article examines the process of knowledge formation about Russia in American academia since the end of the Cold War. The article’s hypothesis is that knowledge formation largely reflects the social and national and cultural conditions of the country and its research community. Although many scholars strive for objectivity and ethical detachment from the object of their research, they most often approach its study from positions that reflect and project the interests and values of the societies in which they work. This hypothesis is formulated within the framework of the sociological approach to knowledge formation undertaken in the article, which involves understanding the conditions of its formation and the social demands that it meets. American knowledge about Russia, which they have long viewed and continue to view as a threat and challenge to the interests and values of the United States, bears the stamp of national assumptions, preferences, beliefs, and emotions. In studying reality, they are far from always able to free themselves from the American understanding of what should be, projecting into their research how, in their opinion, Russia should develop. Since the second half of the 2000s, this gap has been widening. Compared to the Cold War, knowledge about Russia in America has lost its former status of priority and privilege, and has become more politicized, especially in matters affecting international security and the politics of values. In addition, this knowledge has been integrated into generally accepted theories of international relations and comparative politics in the West.

These changes reflect Russia’s declining status in the international hierarchy compared to the United States and the growing conviction of American social scientists in the universal validity of their approaches and theories. Contemporary Russia is increasingly perceived as developing in the wrong direction, threatening Western “liberal democratic” values and security, and, with its desire to be an “empire,” the very structures of modern society. Although not all American researchers share such concepts and theories, the latter express the mood of the mainstream in both politics and science. The final part sums up the results and discusses the possibilities of forming less biased and ideologically loaded knowledge about Russia. Approaches to obtaining such knowledge in the United States exist, although they do not dominate.

The 2010s witnessed intensified debates in international academia on the relationship between theory and forecast, but Russian scholarship remained detached from these discussions. This article intends to examine the contribution of theory to forecasting in IR, identifying prospects for combining the prescriptive, explanatory, interpretive and predictive functions of science. It reveals the origins of both theoretical skepticism about prediction and the countercriticism of futile theorizing. The article reveals the limitations of both the hypothetico-deductive model of scholarship, which dominates  the discipline, and the statistical inductivism that opposes it. The analysis begins by identifying the different classes of theories in international relations studies. It demonstrates that the basic assumptions of normative, deconstructive, and interpretive theorizing are poorly compatible with prediction. The article further scrutinizes the ambivalent attitude of explanatory theories towards the matter, claiming the fundamental unpredictability of social interactions. It explores the growth in expectations since the late 2000s that the accumulation of big data and the advancement of methods for processing them will provide predictions without relying on explanatory inferences. Nevertheless, the value of scholarship for foreign policy practice requires a combination of theoretical explanations and predictive studies. This article suggests that for theory to play a major role in forecasting, forecasts must play a major role in theorizing. In this sense, reluctance to test their logical inferences with predictions exemplified by scholars poses a barrier to the development of IR studies.

This article is devoted to the problems and prospects for the development of international relations science in Tropical Africa. The study examines the phenomenon of African agency (subjectivity) at two levels: foreign policy expertise and practice, with a special emphasis on the first level. African agency is a conceptualization of the continent’s dependent development in the context of the agent-structural problem in international relations, which allows, through a constructivist approach, to more realistically convey the main features of international relations on the continent.

The article presents the instrumental and even manipulative aspect of the “African agency” narrative, with special attention paid to the limits of agency. Among them is the insufficient level of distribution of high-quality secondary and higher education, especially in national languages.

The Soviet experience of Mali’s social science emerging from the “intellectual cocoon” of the former metropolis is shown. The problem of financing leading African think tanks on international relations, including their dependence on Western and Chinese sources, as well as the increasing hierarchy of international relations science, which negatively affects the state of affairs on the continent.

An analysis of the participation of African researchers in international conferences, including within the framework of the International Studies Association (ISA), is conducted. Much attention is paid to positive examples of the development of African agency, e.g. five International Congresses of Africanists in the 1960–1980s, as well as the activities of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). The main elements of the successful development of CODESRIA in the 1970–1980s are presented. Conclusions are made on the prospects for strengthening agency in international studies of Africa in the context of modern geopolitical transformations.

The current social organisation of academic science in China has created special conditions for the development of theoretical knowledge in the country. Classical Chinese philosophy, as well as the rich historical experience of interstate relations in East Asia, remains an important component of the successful development of Chinese theories of international relations. At the same time, issues of theory development have for many years occupied a central place in the scientific community of the People’s Republic of China, as has the system of motivation of research personnel and methodological training of researchers. The article examines the main stages in the development of the Chinese school as a non-Western approach to the theory of international relations, playing particular attention to institutional aspects from the perspective of the sociology of science.

The article analyses the current state and development of International Relations research in Turkey, with an emphasis on the possible causes of its periphery status and the growth points for the formation of independent theoretical approaches. The author considers the features of the development of International Relations study and education and the reasons for the lack of attention given to local theories. The analysis uses official statistical data, results of surveys, biographical profiles of leading Turkish researchers in International Relations, and their reflections on the identified problem, as well as Turkish publications in the field of International Relations with theoretical novelty. The author concludes that the prospects for Russian-Turkish relations are determined, among other things, by the ability of the Turkish International Relations school to defend its independence and develop original theoretical approaches, or to begin with, adapt non-Western theories. At present, Turkey in theoretical terms still remains in the Western orbit, but demonstrates a strong political demand to overcome this dependence. The Turkish academic community has not yet overcome the phase of critical rethinking of Western-centrism; it is only preparing to show an interest in non-Western theories of International Relations, and searching for grounds for constructing theories based on their own local environment, history and culture. The underdevelopment of theoretical research in International Relations in Turkey, despite the negative influence of its pro-Western dependence, provides scope for cooperation and positive integration for the Russian and Turkish academic environment. The acquaintance of Turkish researchers with Russian traditions and approaches to International Relations is essential for the successful development of Russian-Turkish relations.

This paper examines the epistemological approaches employed by Georgian researchers in the field of Political Science over the past five years. It is grounded in an initial, generalized study of a topic that has been largely overlooked by both local and international scholars. Through a review of the literature and an analysis of the research conducted by leading local scientists, the paper posits that there are no well-established or deeply rooted political schools of thought in Georgia, as traditionally understood, due to the country’s Soviet past. As a result, universities and the entire field of Political Science are products of the democracy proliferation reforms.

These reforms were implemented with strong support from Western strategic allies, particularly the United States and the European Union. Currently, the field is heavily influenced by dominant Western theories of Political Science and International Relations, such as liberalism, neoliberalism, and liberal institutionalism. Moreover, the discipline is inherently oriented toward Civic Education, with a primary focus on democracy promotion rather than critical studies. Georgian scholars tend to research topics and apply theories that align with mainstream Western narratives. This tendency is significantly influenced by financial and logistical dependence on Western grants and scholarships.

In recent years, researchers of far-right radicalism have shown interest in the contribution of radical conservatives to the modern theory of international relations. This study focuses on the ideas of the German intellectual movement of the New Right in the FRG in relation to the challenges of world politics. The aim of the study is to analyze the evolution of the political language of the movement’s representatives according to two stages: the Cold War phase of the second half of the 20th century; and the modern stage of development from 2013 to the present. The methodological basis of the paper is the analysis of political texts within the framework of the Cambridge School of the History of Ideas. This method allows us to identify the political problems and opponents of the New Right, to reproduce the political contexts in which the theorists acted, and to identify the cultural resources of the ideologues’ political language. The findings of the study illustrate that the main challenge of the New Right throughout its existence is to ensure national security and increase the political power of the Federal Republic of Germany. The fulfillment of this goal required the development of a foreign policy concept that would ensure the dominance of the FRG in Continental Europe. Despite the fact that the intellectual sources of the ideology of the New Right were not directly related to the theory of international relations, the theses of the theorists are closest to the school of political realism. At the same time, the pro-European ideological positions of the New Right appear to be constrained and, as a consequence, irrelevant among right-wing populists of Europe and the United States. This conclusion allows us to reject the assertion that the goal of the New Right is to revolutionize the existing system of international relations.

International studies have recently witnessed a renaissance of interest in the study of decision-making patterns related to the influence of individual and group actors and the resulting need to understand their deep psychology, the nature of their incentives and motivations. Such studies update the application of behavioral and cognitive sciences in the field of international relations and foreign policy, and encourage the adaptation of the methodology of specialized disciplines to solve complex socio-political problems. The present paper is an attempt to inventory key research subject areas and related literature, as well as to demonstrate the application of existing theories to the analysis of current political issues.

This study examines the landscape of Russian International Relations (IR) scholarship, offering a quantitative analysis of thematic trends in Russian IR publications using data from the OpenAlex bibliographic database. We employed Structural Topic Modeling (STM) on 13,705 articles published between January 2000 and May 2024, ensuring methodological rigor through language standardization, text preprocessing, and exclusion of irrelevant texts. While prior research on Russian IR has mostly been descriptive, often focusing on typologies or prescriptive arguments, our study uncovers several underexplored attributes. Notably, Soviet-era legacies persist thematically rather than paradigmatically, and developmental issues such as inequality and justice are disproportionately represented. The systemic approach remains dominant, with Russian scholarship striving to integrate regional perspectives into the global context. Traditional focuses on Russian foreign policy and its great-power status persist, with a shift from identity issues to reinforcing this status. Despite strained relations with Europe, it remains a key focus in Russian works. Interestingly, topics on education and culture now surpass those on conflict and security, although this may be influenced by data characteristics or OpenAlex indexing.