This article has two fundamental aims. The first is to evaluate how political regimes, and most notably the democratic character of some states, have been incorporated in debates on IR theory. We will evoke the traditional narrative of disciplinary evolution, with a specific focus on the systemic-positivist North-American tradition. The idea is to offer a critical reading of the way theoretical strands of International Relations face this 'democratic' element, as well as its peculiarities and implications to the debate at large. We argue, in this sense, that the 'political regime' variable loses explanatory power as the 'third-image' approaches reach the center of the disciplinary debate. The second aim, linked to the first one, is to suggest that considering democracy as a relevant political variable in relations between states is not incompatible with systemic approaches to international politics, especially when looking at the concept of identity in the Wendtian constructivism. On the contrary, cleavages such as democracy versus autocracy may enhance the explanatory power of theories when facing current phenomena.
Democracy; International System; International Relations Theories; Collective Identity