Abstract

The current paper gives emphasis on a neglected issue of IR theory analysis measurability as well as whether and how this can be feasible within a qualitative analysis. Undoubtedly, the scientific main aim of IR theorists refers to their capability to measure and even predict specifying, in this way, their cause-and-effect analyses about international phenomena. Causality is fully identified with measurability and thus, it is added to the notions making the second a continuous scope to be reached. On this line of thought, certain questions are answered with regard to the ontology of the international system, the epistemological aims as well as the methodological context of IR theory and the potential contribution of an orientational approach setting aside the deterministic inclinations of mainstream IR theory but, at the same time, analyzing in correlation with the theoretical legacy of classical realist figures. In the term of orientation the whole spectrum of immeasurable aspects of interstate relations is summarized and so does states birth procedure.