International relations

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"Foreign affairs" redirects here. For other uses, see Foreign affairs (disambiguation).

International relations (IR), a branch of political science, is the study of foreign affairs of and relations among states within the international system, including the roles of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). It is both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative as it both seeks to analyze as well as formulate foreign policy.

IR draws upon such diverse fields as political science, economics, history, law, philosophy, area studies, sociology, cultural studies and other social sciences. It involves a diverse range of issues, from globalization and its impacts on state sovereignty to the environmental movement, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, foreign aid, economic development, terrorism and human rights.

Contents

International relations theory

Main article: International relations theory

International relations theory attempts to provide a conceptual model upon which international relations can be analyzed. Each theory is reductive and essentialist to different degrees, relying on different sets of assumptions respectively. As Oli Holsti describes them, international relations theories act as a pair of colored sunglasses, allowing the wearer to see only the salient events relevant to the theory. An adherent of realism may completely disregard an event that a constructivist might pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa.

The number and character of the assumptions made by an international relations theory also determine its usefulness. Realism, a parsimonius and very essentialist theory, has less explanatory power, but greater predictive power. Liberalism, which examines a very wide number of conditions, is less useful in making predictions, but can be very insightful in analyzing past events. Traditional theories may have little to say about the behavior of former colonies, but post-colonial theory may have greater insight into that specific area, where it fails in other situations.

Major schools of thought include:

History

Main article: History of international relations

The history of international relations is often traced back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 where the modern states system was developed. The Westphalia settlement marked the start of a novel premise in international affairs: armed struggle was no longer defined as a contest between varieties of confessional truths, but rather, a dispute among secular "sovereigns". The final settlement of armed disputes, after Westphalia, was no longer the province of military contractors and theologians - but the termination of war fell within the purview of an identifiable coterie of a new class: Professional diplomats and warriors sworn to the service of a state.

Before the Westphalia settlement, there was no recognizable diplomatic profession. Spies, irregular envoys, and heralds citing scripture or handing out ringing declamations were the usual route that princes chose to alert one another to each other's demands and to sound the start of war. After Westphalia, the diplomatic craft was practiced by a kind of well-born guild, with members who were adept at melding reason, precedent, and law with quiet allusion to the implication of armed compunction.

Before Westphalia, soldiers were led by contractors, private entrepreneurs who garnered pay from their won estates or from the lands they plundered. After Westphalia, soldiers were led by military bureaucrats who raised armies year-round and paid for their keep through levies and taxes. After Westphalia, diplomats and warriors began to share a kind of regulatory synergy. Both diplomat and warrior sought less "victory," and more, the achievement of a favorable peace. War, after Westphalia, as the great observer Carl von Clausewitz put it, came to be a "stronger form of diplomacy," and the battlefield an extension of the conference chamber.

It was not until 1919 that the first university department devoted to 'international politics' was founded by David Davies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. The first university to found an international relations department was Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, also in 1919.

See also: Diplomatic history
Criticisms

Critics of this interpretation of history argue that it is inherently eurocentric; some non-European territories recognized states in a manner resembling the Westphalian system before 1648 whereas others had wildly different systems. Others (such as Andrew Linklater) argues that today's system is post-Westphalian due to the expansion of the political community into supranational governance through projects such as the European Union.

Mechanisms of international relations

International relations do not exist in an abstract vacuum—each state (and sometimes sub-state actor) utilizes institutions, traditions, identity, force, rhetoric, and other channels to influence the other actors in the international system.

Official

  • Summits, diplomacy, international organizations, supranational organizations, armed conflict, treaties, trade policy, visa policy.

Unofficial

  • Business communities, cultural exchange, ethnic diasporas, transnational groups, NGOs, epistemic communities.

Covert

  • Coups, espionage, subterfuge, sabotage, terrorism.


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References


  1. Edward Said (1979), Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books (see also: [1])
  2. The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: Hegemonic Country, Hegemonic Discipline?, International Studies Review, Vol 4 (2), 2002, pp 67-86

See also

Journals
IR Schools
Associations

External links

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