In this chapter we offer some reflections, as well references for further study, for scholars engaged in research and knowledge production in the field of International Relations (IR), that is those “doing IR”. We may think of research methods as the strategies and tools that allow us to acquire knowledge about international relations. To make the most of the research techniques available to us, it is first useful to consider the objects of our study, as well as the nature of the disciplinary context in which knowledge production takes place.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to examine the impacts of system-wide crises on key supply sectors such as water, energy and food. These sectors are becoming increasingly interlinked in environmental policy-making and with regard to achieving supply security. There is a pressing need for a systematization of impacts and responses beyond individual disruptions. This paper provides a holistic assessment of the implications of COVID-19 on the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus.

A powerful dissection of one of the fundamental problems in American governance today: the clash between presidents determined to redirect the nation through ever-tighter control of administration and an executive branch still organised to promote shared interests in steady hands, due deliberation, and expertise.

John Rawls (1921–2002) and his work are now squarely a subject for history. In the more than fifteen years since his death, a rich body of scholarship has emerged which attempts, in different ways, to understand the nature, development, and impact of Rawls's thought from a variety of historical perspectives. With 2021 marking fifty years since A Theory of Justice (1971) was first published, this special forum examines what we here call the “historical Rawls.”

This article explores Rawls's evolving orientation to “the tradition of political philosophy” over the course of his academic career, culminating in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). Drawing on archival material, it argues that Rawls's fascination with tradition arose out of his own pedagogical engagement with the debate around the “death of political philosophy” in the 1950s.