Questions regarding the political significance of international relations (IR) and how scholarly practice relates to/constitutes a political practice appear newly resonant, but are longstanding concerns. This article utilizes the growing literature on temporality within international politics to analyze the political potential of these intellectual interventions and generate new ways of framing scholarly practice. We observe two trends within the field. First, IR as a discipline remains largely—although not exclusively—imagined as an English-language discipline generated by scholars in the Global North. Each area's political discourse is currently dominated by fears surrounding foundational political and institutional change due to the rise of racialized authoritarianism within these self-imagined democratic societies. Despite these purportedly dramatic developments, there has not been a similarly dramatic shift in the scholarly relationship with politics. Scholars continue to successfully intervene in their collective presents, but scholarship itself remains oriented toward enduring claims that accumulate knowledge and resist the possibility of “failure.” This paper theorizes the temporality of critical intervention to better relate positively to the bodies that co-constitute our political present. Ultimately, this paper concludes by arguing for a reconsideration of contradiction and failure as frames for thinking scholarly practice in time.

中文翻译：

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失败不是一种选择，而是唯一的选择：作为矛盾和失败时期的批判政治

关于国际关系（IR）的政治意义以及学术实践如何与/构成政治实践的问题似乎新近引起了共鸣，但却是长期关注的问题。本文利用越来越多的关于国际政治中时间性的文献来分析这些智力干预的政治潜力，并提出构建学术实践的新方法。我们观察到该领域的两个趋势。首先，国际关系作为一门学科在很大程度上——尽管不完全是——被想象为由全球北方的学者创造的一门英语学科。由于在这些自我想象的民主社会中种族化威权主义的兴起，每个地区的政治话语目前都被围绕基础性政治和制度变革的恐惧所主导。尽管有这些据称是戏剧性的发展，但学术与政治的关系并没有发生类似的戏剧性转变。学者们继续成功地干预他们的集体呈现，但学术本身仍然面向持久的主张，即积累知识并抵制“失败”的可能性。本文对批判性干预的时间性进行了理论化，以更好地与共同构成我们政治现状的主体建立积极的联系。最后，本文最后主张重新考虑将矛盾和失败作为及时思考学术实践的框架。但学术本身仍然面向持久的主张，即积累知识并抵制“失败”的可能性。本文对批判性干预的时间性进行了理论化，以更好地与共同构成我们政治现状的主体建立积极的联系。最后，本文最后主张重新考虑将矛盾和失败作为及时思考学术实践的框架。但学术本身仍然面向持久的主张，即积累知识并抵制“失败”的可能性。本文对批判性干预的时间性进行了理论化，以更好地与共同构成我们政治现状的主体建立积极的联系。最后，本文最后主张重新考虑将矛盾和失败作为及时思考学术实践的框架。