Replication Data for: Assessing the Renaissance of Individuals in International Relations

The study of microfoundations, especially individuals, is enjoying something of a renaissance in international relations (IR) scholarship. Yet, this rise is harder to find in publication data. Using the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) journal article database, we show that only 13.7% of IR articles in twelve leading journals employ the first image; this proportion remains roughly the same from 1980 through 2018. Interrogating the data, we show that this distribution does not stem from epistemological or methodological commitments, such as positivism, quantitative analysis, or formal modeling. We suggest several reasons for this apparent disjuncture between qualitative assessments of the rebirth of first image theorizing and the quantitative data which implies a slower, or perhaps more limited, return.