At different points in his intellectual journey, the Kenyan-born academic Ali Mazrui (1933-2014) had been described as “reactionary,” “radical,” “conservative,” “realist,” “liberal,” “idealist,” and even “extremist.” Such labels reflected both his intellectual eclecticism and his prominence in public debate. Yet they also revealed a deeper tension. The questions Mazrui chose to explore, and the methods he employed, often placed him at odds with the mainstream discipline. Nevertheless, he neither altered his intellectual agenda nor joined the positivist mainstream. This essay seeks to defend both Mazrui’s approach and IR by showing that, in important respects, Mazrui was ahead of his time.

More than half a century ago, John Nellis (1974: 831-32) observed in the 1970s that Mazrui was “frequently and severely criticized by radical social analysts who find his traditional scholarship irrelevant and his liberal principles infuriating. At the same time, many mainstream scholars regarded his work as lacking analytical rigor, seeing him more as a political essayist than a political scientist.” Yet what critics called “traditional scholarship” was Mazrui’s style of social inquiry that was grounded in historical analysis, skeptical of methodological fetishism, and accommodates ethical considerations by integrating questions of justice, legitimacy, and moral credibility into its concepts, and merges empirical theory (observation) with value theory (moral judgement). The criticisms directed at Mazrui in the 1970s closely resemble the contemporary divide between positivist and post-positivist approaches. In this sense, we may probably say that Mazrui anticipated debates that would later reshape the discipline.

The distinction often drawn between political scientist and political essayist is itself questionable. It assumes that erudition and disciplined inquiry are incompatible. Mazrui’s work suggests otherwise. From the mid-1960s onward, Mazrui cultivated an intellectual style that combined historical depth, conceptual innovation, and public engagement. He identified controversial issues, examined them dialectically, and exposed their internal contradictions (see, for instance, Mazrui 1980). His fascination with paradox and ambiguity bears a striking resemblance to approaches that later emerged under the broad rubric of post-structuralism.

Mazrui was also ahead of prevailing trends in substantive inquiry. In an article published in the American Political Science Review, Mazrui (1963: 88-97) explored questions of collective identity formation in the African context........

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