Of Syllabi, Texts, Students, and Scholarship in International Relations: Some Data and Interpretations on the State of a Burgeoning Field

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Abstract
Based on a content analysis of 2,915 paragraphs randomly selected from 26 introductory international relations (IR) textbooks and syllabi for 178 introductory IR courses given in the United States during 1972–1973, the article probes the dimensions of world politics to which undergraduate students are introduced, the analytic skills to which they are exposed, and the incentives with which they are provided for investigating the subject. It was found that no single text dominates the teaching of IR; that the available texts do not differ greatly in their coverage and emphases (though some exceptions were identified along a few dimensions); that they depict IR as state-centered and founded on conflict; and that they are not conspicuous in their effort to equip students with modern analytic skills or to motivate them to view IR as an exciting subject worthy of intense and careful investigation.