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

摘要： 传统国际关系理论早已陷于困顿之中，世界百年未有之大变局所带来的世界政治深层结构性变化更加彰显其解释力的局限性。世界政治学的优势在解释中美关系为何断崖式下滑上得到充分展现，即中美关系的剧变是世界秩序深层结构变动的结果，而不是源自其他因素。以批判实在论为基础的世界政治学提出了新的层次性研究议程，即“实存/机制”的世界政治理论、“实现/事件”的世界政治史和“实证/经验”的国际关系理论，并以世界市场和政治思潮作为两大研究单元，从而超越了基于现状性结构、西方中心主义史观和以“实力政治”为研究单元的传统国际关系研究。由此得到的启示是，中国国际关系理论的创新，不可能发生在传统国际关系学的既定框架内，只能去“发现”新学科。产生于各自历史的学科必然具有不同的历史观，世界政治学对于世界秩序的看法完全不同于国际关系学。

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