1 Approaches to International Relations
2 The Historical Context of Contemporary International Relations
3 Contending Perspectives: How to Think about International Relations Theoretically
4 The International System
5 The State
6 The Individual
7 Intergovernmental Organizations, Nongovernmental Organizations, and International Law
8 War and Strife
9 International Political Economy
10 Globalizing Issues

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Chapter 1: Approaches to International Relations

Chapter Summary

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I. International Relations in Daily Life

  • Seemingly remote international events quickly can become both highly related and personally salient to any or all of us
  • International activities have historically been the results of decisions taken by central government and heads of state. Increasingly, these activities involve different actors, some of whom you influence directly
  • The variety of actors in international relations today includes not only states, their leaders and government bureaucracies, but for-profit and non-profit organizations, and you.
  • International relations is the study of the interactions among the various actors that participate in international politics. It is the study of the behaviors of these actors as they participate individually and together in international political processes

II. Thinking Theoretically

  • Prominent international relations theories developed in depth in this book are liberalism and neoinstitutional liberalism, realism and neorealism, and radical perspectives whose origins lie in Marxism. Also introduced is the theory of constructivism
  • Liberalism: human nature is basically good. States generally cooperate and follow international norms and procedures that have been mutually agreed on.
  • Realism: states exist in an anarchic international system. Each state bases its policies on an interpretation of national interest defined in terms of power.
  • Radicalism: actions of individuals are largely determined by economic class; the state is an agent of international capitalism; and the international system is dominated by the capitalist system
  • Constructivism: the key structures in the state system are not material but instead are intersubjective and social. The interest of states is not fixed but is malleable and ever changing.
  • Different theoretical approaches help us see international relations from different viewpoints and competition between theories helps reveal their strengths and weaknesses and spurs subsequent refinements

III. Developing the Answers

  • History: history invites its students to acquire detailed knowledge of specific events, but it can also be used to test generalizations and explain the relationship among various events
    • Thucydides described the patterns leading up to war; he found that what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power
    • History may be a bad guide; the "lessons" of Munich and Allied appeasement of Germany before World War II or the "lessons" of the war in Vietnam are neither clear-cut nor agreed upon
    • Stephen Biddle argues that comparing Vietnam to the current war in Iraq is an oversimplification that is misapplied in a historical context. Such inaccurate application of the "lessons" of historical comparison occasionally leads to poor policy prescriptions, yet history cannot be ignored.
  • Philosophy: from the beginning of time, scholars interested in international relations became grounded in diplomatic history as a substantive focus and also became thoroughly versed in philosophy, posing the foundational questions.
    • Much classical philosophizing focuses on the state and its leaders
      1. Plato, in The Republic, concluded that in the "perfect state" the people who should govern are those who are superior in the ways of philosophy. He introduced two ideas seminal to the discipline: class analysis and dialectical reasoning both of which were bases for later Marxist analysis.
      2. Aristotle, Plato's student, looked at the similarities and differences among states, becoming the first writer to use the comparative method of analysis. He came to the conclusion that states rise and fall largely because of internal factors.
    • Philosophers after the classical era focused on the notion of the basic characteristics of man and how those characteristics might influence the character of international society
      1. Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, imagined a state of nature where men ruled by passions, living with the constant uncertainty of their own society. In the absence of international authority, society is in a "state of nature," or anarchy.
      2. Jean-Jacques-Rousseau described the state of nature as an egocentric world, with man's primary concern being self-preservation. Rousseau's preference was for the creation of smaller communities in which the "general will" could be attained. Only the general will can direct the forces of the state.
      3. Immanuel Kant, in both Idea for a Universal History and Perpetual Peace, envisioned a federation of states as a means to achieve peace. Sovereignties would remain intact, but the new federal order would be more effective and realistic than Rousseau's small communities. Kant believed that man can learn new ways of cosmopolitanism and universalism.
    • The tradition laid by these philosophers has contributed to the development of international relations by calling attention to fundamental relationships: those between the individual and society, between individuals in society, and between societies.
    • History and philosophy permit us to delve into the foundational questions-the nature of man and the broad characteristics of the state and of international society. They allow us to speculate on the normative (or moral) element in political life:
      1. What should be the role of the state?
      2. What ought to be the norms in international society?
      3. How might international society be structured to achieve order?
  • Behavioralism: proposes that individuals, both alone and in groups, act in patterned ways. The task of the behavioral scientist is to suggest plausible hypothesis regarding those patterned actions and to test those hypothesis. These scholars hope to predict future behavior.
    • The Correlates of War project was developed to collect data on international wars between 1865 and 1965 in which 1,000 or more deaths had been reported.
    • The ultimate goal of the Correlates of War project is to connect all the relationships that are found into a coherent theory of why wars occur. Such relationships are:
      1. Which groups of factors are most correlated with the outbreak of war over time?
      2. How are these factors related to one another?
    • If the project finds consistently high correlations between alliances and war, then it can explain why wars break out, and perhaps policymakers may be able to predict the characteristics of the actors and the location of future wars.
    • During the 1980s and 1990s, scholars have seriously questioned the behavioral approach. The foundational questions-the nature of man and society-are neglected by behaviorists because they are not easily testable by empirical methods.
  • Approaches to Alternative Theories
    • Postmodernists seek to deconstruct the basic concepts of the field by searching the texts for hidden meanings in the subtext. Once these hidden meanings are revealed, the postmodernist seeks to replace the once-orderly picture with disorder, to replace the dichotomies with multiple portraits.
    • Postmodern deconstruction of sovereignty has resulted in research that finds that conceptualizations of sovereignty are constantly shifting and are conditioned by time, place, and historical circumstances.
    • Postmodernists also seek to find voices of "the others," those individuals who have been disenfranchised and marginalized in international relations.
    • Constructivists trace the impact of ideas on shaping identities, analyze culture, norms, procedures, and social practices and show how social and cultural factors shape national security policy. They probe how identities are shaped and change over time.

IV. In Sum: Making Sense of International Relations

  • The major theories of international relations, including the liberal, realist, radical, and constructivist, provide frameworks for asking and answering core foundational questions.
  • To answer these questions, international relations scholars turn to disciplines such as history, philosophy, behavioral psychology, and alternative approaches.