The relationship of theory and practice: a position on theory and practice is directed by a meta-theoretical and theoretical framework; and the way one conceives of the relationship of theory and practice has important consequences for how one views the purposes of IR theorizing itself.
- Wallace argued that for some the purpose of social inquiry is togain adequate knowledge of social reality to ground and direct policy-making. In the traditionally dominant perspectives of realism and liberalism, along with their neo-variants, tend to lean towards Wallace’s point of view.
- Booth and Smith, and alongside them many critical theorists, argue that theory can in itself be a form of practice according to many of the newer perspectives, especially feminism, post- structuralism, and postcolonialism, tend to put an emphasis on the role of theorizing itself as a form of world political practice.
- Wallace and others, Booth and Smith argue, make too much of a separation between theory and practice: they assume that theory is not practice and that ‘practice’ entails ‘foreign policy- making’ devoid of theoretical groundings.