Ideological Foundations of International Relations Theories: Analysis in the Context of Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge

This article examines the relationship between scientific objectivity and ideological commitment in International Relations Theory through the application of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. By applying the concept of “total ideology” to the analysis of theoretical discussions, ideological elements in scientific discourse are identified without reducing theoretical knowledge to ideology. The study demonstrates how various approaches in IR reproduce Mannheim’s mechanisms of competition: the pursuit of epistemological monopoly and sys-tematic criticism of opponents’ conceptual apparatus. Using the discussion between neo-Marxism and neoreal-ism as an example, it is shown how theoretical synthesis becomes a strategy of “epistemic intervention” in the struggle for hegemony in scientific discourse. The narrative of the “Great Debates” is interpreted as a manifes-tation of disciplinary field fragmentation. The results open new perspectives for reflexive analysis of the epis-temological foundations of International Relations as a discipline and understanding the socio-political condi-tioning of theoretical knowledge.