This article discusses some controversies over the relations of the academic discipline of International Relations to policy. The article argues that, while our ultimate goal may be to have some impact on the world, the immediate goals can be more abstract. International Relations consists, and should consist, of a set of Lakatosian Research Programmes, some conflicting, some complementary, which range from the abstract to the directly policy-relevant. Effective intervention in social systems depends on analyses in more than commonsense terms. The article looks sceptically on recent disciplinary history, doubting both the supposed positivist hegemony and the supposed novelty of normative debate.