Abstract/Summary

This paper evaluates the present understanding of the heart-pump model as a fact of life and the mechanisms that sustain it to examine parallels to and implications for the study of politics and international relations. It argues that the heart-pump model is a unique metaphor and model for the development of important concepts of political order and the study of war and peace. Yet the evidence at the core of the heart-pump model shows it to be outdated, sustained by political and economic incentives and the nature of scientific research practices, reinforcing existing power structures. The same observations hold for key concepts and assumptions in politics and IR. Jointly, they demonstrate parallels in thinking that raise concerns over the present emphasis of making the social sciences more ‘scientific’. There is a need for politics and IR to examine political forces that shape the production of knowledge and to critically evaluate rather than merely adopt allegedly objective scientific methods.