Theories in International Relations
REALISM
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
•
•
•
In the context of
the 30s, to
response to the
perceived
delusions of
idealism
To be sanguine
and realistic about
the frailty of human
nature and to trace
the implications for
the conduct of IR
To render IR a
rigorous and
dispassionate
science of world
politics
Intellectual
Forebears
Thucydides
Hobbes
Machiavelli
Key assumptions
Key themes
•
The realm of IR is
governed by objective laws
which is rooted in human
nature
•
Study of IR is the study
of the interaction
between sovereign
states
•
The pursuit of power by
individuals and states is
ubiquitous and unavoidable
--- thus, conflict and
competition is endemic
•
The self-interested
behavior of states in
the absence of any
overarching authority
on a global scale
produces a condition of
anarchy
•
The state is sovereign and
the natural unit of analysis
in IR since states recognize
no authority above
themselves and are
autonomous of non-state
actors and structures
•
States are unified actors,
motivated exclusively by
considerations of national
interest
•
National interests are
objective
•
The principal national
interests are
survival/security
•
There is total separation of
domestic and international
politics with the former
subordinated to the latter
•
In so far as conflict is
avoided, this is not
because of the pacific
intentions of states but
precisely because of
the balance produced
by the aggressive
pursuit of power and
security by states
•
It is naïve to assume
that cooperation rather
than conflict is the
natural condition of
world politics
•
The evolution of world
politics is cyclical,
characterized by
timeless laws rooted in
human nature
Key concepts
Silences& limitations
•
•
•
•
limited attention to
the role of nonstate actors
•
little or no
consideration to
economic
processes
•
relies on an
impoverished
conception of
human nature and
implausible
assumptions
•
narrowly statecentric
•
less an accurate
theory of world
politics that the
image in and
through which
world politics was
made --- hence,
‘nothing but a
rationalization of
CW politics’
(Hoffman, 1977)
•
Security
Sovereignty
National
interests
Power
politics
Seminal Works
EH Carr,
The Twenty
Years Crisis
(1939)
Hans
Morgenthau,
Politics Among
Nations (1948)
NEO-REALISM
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
Key assumptions
To produce a more
systematic, rigorous
and structural
account of IR in the
realist tradition
•
To liberate realism
from essentialist
and universal
assumptions of
human nature
•
To provide a
deductive science
of world politics on
the basis of
parsimonious
assumptions about
the international
system
•
World politics can be
analyzed if states were
unitary rational actors
seeking to maximize their
expected utility
The context in which states
find themselves --- a
condition of anarchy --determines the content of
the rationality they exhibit
The behavior of states can
be explained exclusively in
terms of the structure of the
international system itself,
since states are rational and
in any given setting there is
only one optimal course of
action open to them
•
The state is again sovereign
and the natural unit of
analysis in IR
•
However, the role of
international institutions in
the governance of IR cannot
be overlooked
Intellectual Forebears
Same as realists
•
States are, again, unified
actors, motivated solely by
considerations of national
interests
•
States seek relative rather
than absolute gains
Key themes
•
•
•
•
•
The anarchical structure
of the international
system compels states
to act as they do:
ordering principle;
identical character of
units in the system;
differences in capabilities
Accordingly, conflict is a
consequence not of
state belligerence but of
the pursuit of national
interest under conditions
of anarchy
Though states are
inherently conflictual and
competitive, actual
conflict can be averted in
situations in which there
is a balance of power
Though there is always a
tendency to instability in
the international system,
this can be attenuated if
a dominant state
assumed a leadership
(or hegemonic) role
Under such conditions of
hegemonic stability
international institutions
can serve to provide a
secure basis for
cooperation between
nations, such as is
evidenced in the
international economic
system which developed
in the post-war period
Key concepts
•
Balance of
power
•
Relative (as
opposed to
absolute)
gains
•
Silences& limitations
Seminal Works
•
lacks clarity about
the conditions of
cooperation and
conflict in the
international system
Charles
Kindleberger,
The World in
Depression 19291939 (1973)
•
incapable of either
predicting or
explaining the end of
the CW despite its
focus on BOP within
the international
system
Kenneth Waltz,
Theory of
International
Politics (1979)
Hegemonic
stability
•
state-centric
•
displays very limited
and impoverished
notion of state
agency
•
relies on a series of
implausible
assumptions about
the unity and
rationality of the
state
Robert Gilpin,
War and Change
in World Politics
(1981)
JL Mearsheimer,
“Back to the
Future: Instability
in Europe after
the Cold War”
(1990)
LIBERALISM
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
To provide a more
positive (though
contrasting) view
of human nature:
ethical view: man
as enjoyer &
exerter of his
uniquely human
attributes or
capacities (liberal
democracy & HR)
market view:
individualist
concept of mas as
essentially
consumer of
utilities, an infinite
desirer and infinite
appropriator
(liberal capitalism
& free markets)
Intellectual Forebears
•
•
Kant
Grotius
Key assumptions
•
Liberal internationalism:
internal effecting external
•
Liberalism institutionalism:
external affecting internal
where states are drawn to
think in rational terms
because institutions
impinge them to do so
Key themes
•
War is the cancer of the
body politics and can
only be cured by
democracy and free
trade
•
Comparative
advantage
•
Democratic peace
•
Obsolescence of war
Key concepts
•
•
•
HR
Free
markets
Cooperation
Silences& limitations
Seminal Works
Doyle,
“Liberalism in
World Politics
(1986)
Mueller, Retreat
from Doomsday
(1989)
Giddens, The
Nation-State and
Violence (1985)
Rawls, The Law
of Peoples
(1991)
NEO-LIBERALISM
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
To counter the
state-centrism of
realism and neorealism and to reinsert economic
dynamics in IR
To explore the
possibilities for
cooperation within
the international
system
To explore the
implications of a
more flexible and
positive view of
human nature
Key assumptions
•
individuals and states,
though rational, have the
capacity to solve problems
through collective action
•
international cooperation for
mutual advantage is both
desirable and possible
•
actors other than states play
a central role in international
events
•
KEY CONCEPTS
•
•
•
•
•
interdependence/
complex
interdependence
absolute (as
opposed to relative)
gains
cooperation
international
regimes
trading state rather
than military state
(Rosecrance)
•
power within the
international system is
diffused and fluid
•
liberal democratic states do
not wage war upon one
another (the doctrine of
democratic peace)
•
•
Intellectual Forebears
same as liberals
states cannot be
conceptualized as unified
actors but are themselves
multi-centric and subject to a
variety of competing
domestic and international
pressures
military force is by no means
the only, or the most
effective, instrument of
foreign policy
states seek absolute rather
than relative gains
Key themes
Silences& limitations
Seminal Works
•
an advanced international division of labor
within the world economy encourages
relations of interdependence and
cooperation between nations which are
mutually advantageous
•
Lack clarity about
conditions under
which we should
expect cooperation
and conflict
Robert Keohane
and Joseph Nye,
Power and
Interdependence
(1977)
•
the condition of complex interdependence
which characterizes the international system
renders national economies ever more
sensitive and vulnerable to events in other
countries
•
For realist and neorealists, liberalism
and neo-liberalism
adopt a naïve and
utopian conception
of both human
nature and
possibilities for
international
cooperation
James Rosenau,
Turbulence in
World Politics
(1990)
•
this entails a significant loss of state
capacity an autonomy
•
there is complex relationship between
domestic and international politics with no
clear or consistent hierarchy
•
international institutions and organizations,
though in some sense themselves the
product of state action, may come to
assume an independent identity and display
agency in their own right; institutions may
assume the role of encouraging cooperative
habits, monitoring compliance and
sanctioning defectors
Tend to exaggerate
the role of
international
institutions, the
extent of
globalization and the
limited capacity of
the state
•
Tends to legitimate
the status quo
•
The empirical
evidence does not
seem to confirm the
democratic peace
thesis --- democratic
states can be quite
belligerent
•
•
rational calculations (rational choice and
game theoretics) where cooperation can
occur without a hegemon
•
neoliberalism as economic liberalism on a
global scale; favors free play of market
forces, minimal role of the state in economic
life, roll back welfare state
•
challenge to comparative advantage:
internationalization of production, mobility of
capital and dominance of TNCs
Joseph Nye,
Understanding
International
Conflicts (1993)
MARXISM
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
To provide a
second image of
IR which believed
that the rise of
socialist as
opposed to
capitalist regimes
would end conflict
between states
(Linklater)
•
To study global
inequality with an
emphasis on the
internationalization
of relations of
production and on
the forms of global
governance which
perpetuate
inequalities of
power and wealth
•
Ushered in neoMarxism (via
dependency
theory and WST)
as well as critical
theory, Gramscian
and neoGranscian thinking
Intellectual Forebears
•
•
Key assumptions
Marx
Engels
Through revolutionary
action, the international
proletariat would embed
the Enlightenment ideals
of liberty, equality and
fraternity in an entirely new
kind of world order which
would free all human
beings from exploitation
and domination
Combination of a powerful
analysis of the whole
development of human
history with a detailed
study of the evolution of
capitalism and the
prospects for universal
emancipation
Key themes
•
•
•
•
The logic of
expansionism: ‘to
conquer the whole
earth for its markets
International
sentiments are largely
normative or a
visionary project that is
based on actual
observations of
domestic reality
Study of imperialism as
a critique of the liberal
proposition that late
capitalism was
committed to free trade
internationalism which
would lead to peace
between nations
Fate of capitalism is to
experience frequent
crisis
Key concepts
•
class
struggle
•
national
bourgeoisie
that
controlled the
various
systems of
government
•
cosmopolitan
proletariat
•
emancipatory
intent of
international
political
economy
Silences& limitations
Seminal Works
Underestimated the
impact of nationalism,
the state and war, BOP,
IL and diplomacy on
the structure of world
politics
V. Lenin,
Imperialism: The
Highest Stage of
Capitalism
(1972)
Antonio Gramsci,
Notes from
Prison
Notebooks
F. Halliday,
Rethinking IR,
1994
J. Maclean,
“Marxism and IR:
A Strange Case
of Mutual
Neglect” (1988)
J. Derrida,
Spectres of
Marx: The State
of Debt, the
Work of
Mourning and
the New
International
(1994)
Alternative Theories in International Relations
Rational (English School of IR)
Aim/contribution
•
To occupy a middle
ground between
realism and
idealism
•
To view
international
politics as a
society of states
•
To advance the
idea of IR as a
game that is partly
distributive and
partly productive
•
To argue for the
multidimensionality
of international
society that can
find some common
ground between
radically different
and mutually
suspicious states
Key assumptions
•
•
domestic politics as the
sphere of the good life and
international politics as the
real of security and survival
(Wight)
The world is composed of
several political
organizations: statesystems, empires, society
states
•
the international system is
not a state of war
•
the international state
system becomes
international societies
because members develop
common culture and
mutual interests
•
the key parameter would
be the common culture
among states in the system
as maintained by
diplomacy, international
law, institutions and
commerce
Key themes
•
•
•
•
The primary actors in
the international system
are sovereign ‘states’
--- city states or nation
states
In IR, there is a ‘system
of states’ whenever 2 or
more states have
sufficient contact
between them and
have sufficient impact
of each other’s
decisions
There is ‘anarchy’ in the
international system,
meaning there is no
common government
States in the
international system
exist in an ‘international
society’ in which they
recognize the common
interest and common
values forming a
society in a sense that
they conceive
themselves to be
bound by a common
set of rules governing
relations with one
another and share in
the workings of the
common institutions
Key concepts
Silences& limitations
state system
(conflict)
Seen as the British
variant of realism
international
society
Offers an apology for a
society of states which
safeguards the
privileges of leading
powers
world society
(where people
are bound by
ideas,
ideologies and
interests
Intellectual Forebears
Grotius (solidarism;
distinction between just
and unjust wars)
Vattel (pluralism; states
do not exhibit solidarity
but are capable of
agreeing for minimum
puposes
Seminal Works
Martin Wight,
Why there is no
International
Theory (1966)
Hedley Bull, The
Anarchical
Society: A Study
of Order in World
Politics (1984)
Adam Watson,
“Hedley Bull,
State Systems
and International
Societies” (1987)
Alternative Theories in International Relations
Critical Theory
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
•
•
•
To draw attention
to the relationship
of knowledge and
society
To recognize
theories as always
embedded in
social and political
life
To take society as
the object of
analysis
To recognize the
political nature of
knowledge claims
and thus need to
reflect on theory
itself
‘Knowledge
(theory) is always
for someone and
for some purpose’
(Cox)
To radically rethink
about the
normative
foundations of
global politics
Key assumptions
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
the purpose of being critical is
to improve human existence
there is a need to react to
dogmatism
informed by the traditions of
hermeneutic and
ideologiekritik
theory as an emancipatory
project
must critique dogmatism of
traditional modes of
theorizing
starts from the conviction that
cognitive processes
themselves are subject to
political interests and ought to
be critically evaluated
rules out the possibility of
objective knowledge and in
its place is the promotion of
theoretical reflexivity
the task of the political
theorist is to explain and
criticize the present political
order in terms of the
principles presupposed by
and embedded in its own
political, legal and cultural
practices and institutions;
‘immanent critique’ or critical
engagement with the
background of normative
assumptions that structure
our ethical judgments
(Linklater)
Key themes
•
Society itself as its
object of analysis
•
Reflection on theory
(self-reflexivity)
•
Epistemological
questions regarding
the justification and
verification of
knowledge claims,
the methodology
applied, the scope
and purpose of
inquiry, and ontology
questions regarding
the nature of the
social actors and
other historical
formations and
structures in IR
Key concepts
critique of
particularism
and social
exclusion
Silences
-
sociological
dimensions of
states, social
forces and
changing world
orders
Seminal Works
Robert Cox,
“Social Forces,
States and World
Orders: Beyond IR
Theory” (1981)
Karin Fierke,
Changing Games,
Changing
Strategies: Critical
Investigations of
Security (1998)
discourse
ethics
Stephen Gill,
Gramsci, Historical
Materialism and IR
(1993)
IntellectualForebears
Frankfurt school:
- Adorno
- Marcuse
- Lowenthal
- Habermas
- Horkheimer
Kimberly
Hutchings,
International
Political Theory:
Rethinking Ethics
in a Global Era
(1999)
Mark Neufeld,
“Thinking Ethically
--- Thinking
Critically” (2000)
Richard Shapcott,
“Beyond the
Cosmopolitan/
Communitarian
Divide” (2000)
Alternative Theories in International Relations
Constructivism
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
•
•
•
Key assumptions
reinvigorated
normative theorizing
in IR
•
To open up a ‘middle
way’ (Adler) between
rationalism (rational
choice theory) and
postmodernism
•
To explore the
implications of
acknowledging that
potential realities are
socially constructed
and of according
ideas an
independent role in
the analysis of IR
To explore the
implications of
replacing
rationalism’s logic of
instrumental
rationality with a
more sociological
conception of
agency
To explore the
implications of
treating interests and
preferences as
social constructions
rather than as
objectively given
•
•
•
our beliefs play a crucial
role in the construction of
our reality
Key themes
•
the social and political
world is not a given but
an inherently
intersubjective domain --a product of social
construction
there is no objective
social or political reality
independent of our
understanding of it --there is no social realm
independent of human
activity
ideational factors may be
accorded as significant
role in IR as material
factors
for most constructivist,
positivism cannot be
reconciled with an
emphasis upon the
significance of
intersubjective
understanding
•
•
•
‘Anarchy is what states
make of it’ (Wendt) – the
structure of the
international system
does not dictate state
behavior; it is the
interaction and
intersubjective
understandings of states
which gives rise to the
condition of anarchy
assesses the
transformative impact of
novel social
constructions (i.e. EU)
on the state system
emphasizes the
importance of national
norms on international
politics and international
norms on national
politics
emphasizes the
importance of discursive
construction and naming
in the identification and
response to security
threats --- threats are
perceptions rather than
realities that are
responded to
Key concepts
•
•
•
social
construction
intersubjectivi
ty
identity
Silences
•
•
unified more by
what they
distance
themselves from
than by what they
share
for rationalists,
much of what they
claim theoretically,
though plausible,
remains either
untestable to
untested
•
may be seeking to
reconcile the
irreconcilable --the choice
between
rationalism and
postmodernism
may be starker;
no middle ground
as proponents
eventually
gravitate to poles
•
despite theoretical
appeal, its
promise is still
unrealized
Seminal Works
Friedrich
Kratochwil, Rules,
Norms and
Decisions (1989)
Nicholas Onuf, A
World of Our
Making (1989)
Alexander Wendt,
Social Theory of
International
Politics (1999)
Alternative Theories in International Relations
Postmodernism
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
•
To cast on
modernist
assumptions about
the ability to
generate objective
knowledge of social
and political world
To draw attention to
the conceptual
prisms in and
through which
supposedly
dispassionate and
neutral theories are
formulated
To expose the
silences, implicit
assumptions and
universal
pretensions of such
theories and to
reveal the power
relations in whose
reproduction they
are complicit
To explore the
implications of an
IR which does not
rely on universal
claims, privileged
access to
knowledge or the
possibility of
liberation or
emancipation from
Key assumptions
•
•
genealogical approach:
knowledge is situated at a
particular time; as a
consequence of
heterogeneity of possible
contexts and position, there
can be no single truth --only competing
perspectives
there is no neutral vantage
point from which the world
can be described and
analyzed objectively
•
all knowledge is partial,
partisan and power-serving
•
knowledge claims are never
neutral with respect to
power relations which are,
as a consequence,
ubiquitous and diffuse
•
•
there are no facts about the
social and political world,
only interpretations
advanced from a particular
vantage point
the social and political world
is characterized not by
sameness and identity but
by difference, diversity and
‘otherness’
Key themes
•
•
the identification and
exploration of the way
power operates in the
discourses and
practices of world
politics
the celebration of
difference, diversity and
plurality
•
a challenge to the notion
of history as ‘progress’
•
the attempt to establish
universal conditions for
human emancipation
can only serve, in
practice, to replace one
set of relations of
domination with another
--- there is no escape
from tyranny
•
•
Key concepts
•
power and
knowledge in
IR
•
incredulity
towards metanarratives
•
deconstruction
•
difference/
otherness
•
problematizing
the sovereign
state:
violence,
boundaries,
identity,
statecraft
•
the universal
pretensions of general
theories and
emancipatory projects
(metanarratives) is
mythical
power relations often
function through the
construction, in
language, of hierarchical
distinctions of
identity/difference,
sameness/otherness
•
•
beyond
sovereignty:
problematizing
the political
Silences& limitations
Seminal Works
•
tendency towards
nihilism, fatalism
and passivity --- an
abstention from
judgement
RK Ashley, “Living
on the
Borderlines: Man,
Poststructuralism
and War” (1989)
•
is not
postmodernism’s
normative respect
for ‘difference’ in the
end self-defeating
--- precluding the
taking of action to
protect that
difference?
David Campbell,
Writing Security
(1992)
•
Are its implications
profoundly
conservative --deconstruction
without the
possibility of the
reconstruction of al
alternative?
•
Internal
contradictions --- is
not postmodernism
itself a
metanarrative to
end all
metanarratives and
hence a
contradiction in
terms?
Tends towards pure
descriptive narrative
as opposed to
Intellectual
Forebears
Nietzche
Foucault
•
RJ Walker,
Inside/Outside
(1993)
Cynthia Weber,
Simulating
Sovereignty
(1995)
power
political analysis
Alternative Theories in International Relations
Feminism
Aim/contribution
•
•
•
•
To introduce
gender as a
relevant empirical
category and
theoretical tool for
analyzing global
power relations
as well as a
normative
standpoint from
which to
construct
alternative world
orders (True)
Not just to add
women in the
study of world
politics but to
contest the
exclusionary,
state-centric and
positivist nature
of IR
To deconstruct
and subvert
realism as the
dominant ‘power
politics’
explanation for
post-war IR
To unmask the
gendered
dimension of
forms of
Key assumptions
•
•
•
Key themes
Gender refers to the
assymetrical social
constructs of
masculinity and
femininity as
opposed ostensibly
‘biological’ malefemale differences
•
Exclusion of
women’s lives and
experiences in IR
•
Women as a
disadvantaged
group on a world
scale
Contesting the
privileging of the
masculine over the
feminine
•
Gender is a
relational concept
based on the
analysis of
masculinity and
femininity, men as
well as women, by
foregrounding the
study of mane and
masculinities in IR
•
Focus on the
gender dynamics
of capitalist
expansion in the
South: economic
globalization being
accompanied by
worldwide
expansion in the
use of female
labor
Gendered
construction of IOs
with initiatives to
mainstream
gender in global
governance
institutions
Key concepts
•
Gender as constitutive of
IR
•
Contesting the gendered
dimension of sovereignty,
the state, rationality
•
Liberal feminism: reform;
equality of women with
men
•
Radical feminism:
patriarchy
•
Marxist feminism:
capitalism
•
Socialist feminism:
combines the dual system
of class and patriarchy as
sources of oppression
•
Postmodern/poststructura
l feminism: deconstruction
and rejection of the state;
the state as a discursive
process
Silences& limitations
•
•
Liberal feminism: unclear
in dealing with the
abstract state or the
actual state; failure to
understand women in
varying situations;
provided formal equality
and not substantive
equality
Radical feminism:
naturalizing patriarchy as
the single cause of
women’s oppression and
thus homogenizing the
oppression; failed to see
the difference of nonwhite women’s
experiences
•
Marxist feminism:
subsumed women in the
category of class
•
Postmodern/poststructura
l feminism: too focused on
discourses and lacks
specificity; deconstructed
category of women
Seminal
Works
Betty Friedan,
Feminine
Mystique
(1962)
Kate Millet,
Sexual Politics
(1970)
Catherine
MacKinnon,
Feminism,
Marxism,
Method and
the State
(1987)
Zillah
Eisenstein,
Developing a
Theory of
Capitalist
Patriarchy and
Socialist
Feminism
(1979)
Judith Allen,
Does
Feminism
Need a Theory
of the State
(1990)
oppression
prevalent on
world politics