关键词: 国际关系学, 世界政治学, 批判实在论, 中美关系；研究议程；研究单元

Abstract: Traditional international relations theory has long been trapped in a predicament, and the deepseated structural changes in world politics brought about by “the profound changes unseen in a century” have further exposed its limitations in explanatory power. The advantage of world politics is fully demonstrated in explaining why ChinaUS relations have plummeted; that is, the dramatic changes in ChinaUS relations are the result of deepseated structural changes in the world order, rather than stemming from other factors. World politics, grounded on critical realism, has proposed a new research agenda with stratification: the world politics theory based on “domain of real/mechanism”, the world politics history based on “domain of actual/event”, and the international relations theory based on “domain of empirical/experience”. It also takes the world market and political thoughts as two major research units, thus surpassing the traditional international relations studies based on the research units of the status quo structure, Westerncentric historical view, and “power politics”. The enlightenment obtained from this is that the innovation of Chinese international relations theories cannot occur within the established framework of traditional international relations studies, but must instead be brought about by the “discovery” of the new discipline. Disciplines arising from their respective histories inevitably have different historical perspectives, and the view of global order in world politics is completely different from that in traditional international relations studies.

Key words: international relations studies, world politics, critical realism, China-US relations, research agenda, research units