TRIPping Constructivism

The Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) surveys have become the authoritative source for making sense of the discipline of inter- national relations (IR) as a global field of practice. At relatively regular intervals they provide snap-shots of the discipline based on the self-reporting of IR schol- ars from 20 countries around the world. The TRIP project also includes assessments from “a new journal article database that includes every article published in the field’s 12 leading journals” (Maliniak, Oakes, Peterson and Tierney 2011, 438). That the TRIP project has thus filled a significant void by providing very useful sociological information about the discipline is indisputable. In this brief forum essay, however, I want to highlight some more critical insights that emerge from the TRIP project in the hopes of generating a productive conversation about how the surveys should be understood.