The article looks at how the approaches to the definition of the disciplinary status of International Relations (IR) developed in the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. The author analyzes specific features of interdisciplinary influences and the way IR’s autonomous and academic status was determined within the «great debates» framework. Three peculiar historical phases are identified: the first, up to the mid-20th century, leads to raising an issue of self-conscious determination of IR’s disciplinarity; the second is concerned with achieving consensus about autonomous and academic status during and in the aftermath of the «second great debate» in the mid-20th century; and the third phase coincides with a new delineation of academic parameters during the «post-positivist great debate».
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