Introduction to
International Relations
The Study of International Relations
• International relations pertains to the
study of state and non-state actors and
their relationship to each other in the
international system. Narrowly defined:
The field of IR concerns the relationships
among states (or governments).
• International system:
– A patterned set of interactions among the
major political actors on the international
stage.
IR and Daily Life
• IR profoundly affects your life as well as that of
other citizens.
– Prospects for getting jobs
• Global economy
• International economic competition
– Jobs entail international travel, sales, or
communication.
– Rules of the world-trading system affect what you
may consume.
• War is among the most pervasive international
influences in daily life, even in peacetime.
• World is shrinking year by year.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR COOPERATION
• Information Revolution: Growing accumulation of
human knowledge; and the accessibility of new
knowledge through rapidly spreading technologies
• Increasing Global Productivity: efficiency of economic
output is enhanced through the introduction, spread, and
improvement of computer-based technologies, spread of
MNCs (economic enterprises with operations in two or
more countries), and the mobility of global capital
• Rapid Rise of Newly Emerging Global Economies:
China, India, Brazil; augers the potential for reduction in
global poverty
• Development of Renewable Energy Sources: new
research and technology investment in energy sources
of sun, wind, and biomass etc.
• Global Spread of Democracy: unprecedented adoption
of democratic ideas and institutions around the world
OPPORTUNITIES FOR COOPERATION
• Continued Growth of Authoritative Global and
Regional Institutions: WTO, WHO, EU, OPEC—these
coordinate national policies with regional and even
global norms and practices
• Proliferation and Networking of NGOs: Growth of
global civil society through people organizing across
borders to address global threats, humanitarian crisis
and aid, technical information, cultural, political, and
social cooperation.
• Growth of international regimes: formal and informal
coordination and collaboration in certain issue areas to
maximize global security and prosperity
• Decline of interstate Warfare
• Rapid Proliferation of International Law protecting
the individual: codification of human rights, spreading
norms or racial and gender equality
POSSIBILITIES FOR CONFLICT
• Global Environmental Degradation: these global
threats include
1. global warming, the thinning of the protective ozone
layer of the atmosphere accompanied by rising rates of
skin cancer;
2. destruction of the world’s rain forests (global lungs) and
denuding of other forested areas;
3. rapid urbanization owing to peasant flight to megacities
in countries like China and India with accompanying
pollution and urban poverty;
4. Spread of deserts into formerly fertile regions of Asia,
Africa, and Latin America;
5. The elimination of species of plants and animals and
reduction in biodiversity;
6. Accumulation of radioactive debris and nuclear waste
POSSIBILITIES FOR CONFLICT
• Overpopulation: in developing world may contribute to famine,
spread of disease (AIDS), land hunger, political unrest, and largescale migration to rich states with aging and shrinking population
• Resource Depletion: energy demands outstrip known reserves of
petroleum and natural gas as growing populations and economic
development places ever greater stress on finite sources of fresh
water and fertile land
• Proliferation of Religious and Ethnic Extremism: identity
construction in the age of globalization prompts fragmentation, the
questioning of authoritative governmental and social structures from
below; target often innocent civilians
• Global Proliferation of WMD: spread of nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons to countries divided by profound political
differences, f.ex. Pakistan and India
POSSIBILITIES FOR CONFLICT
• WMD may spread into rogue states (Iran, North Korea) and nonstate actors, such as global terrorist networks
• Collapse of states: spread of socio-political disorder in selected
regions
• Global spread of disease: rapid spread of pathogens that threaten
humans, livestock, and plant life and the threat of new pandemics
such as the avian influenza
• Growing North-South wealth discrepancies: rising disparities in
wealth between winners and losers in the course of globalization
• Threats to the LIEO: established by the West after WWII,
responsible for much of western wealth and prosperity, by
increasing trade demands from poorer countries
• Resistance by the U.S. to work with international and
multilateral organizations: global threats cannot be managed
unilaterally
Core Principles
• IR revolves around one key problem:
– How can a group – such as two or more states –
serve its collective interests when doing so requires
its members to forego their national interests?
• Example: Problem of global warning. Solving it can only be
achieved by many countries acting together.
– Collective goods problem
• The problem of how to provide something that benefits all
members of a group regardless of what each member
contributes to it
Core Principles
• In general, collective goods are easier to provide
in small groups than large ones.
– Small group: defection (free riding) is harder to
conceal and has a greater impact on the overall
collective good, and is easier to punish.
• Collective goods problem occurs in all groups
and societies but within a state, gov’ts provide
public or collective goods.
– Particularly acute in international affairs
• No central authority such as a world government to enforce
on individual nations the necessary measures to provide for
the common good
Core Principles
• Three basic principles offer possible
solutions for this core problem of getting
individuals to cooperate for the common
good without a central authority to make
them do so.
– Dominance
– Reciprocity
– Identity
Table 1.1
Dominance
• Solves the collective goods problem by establishing a
power hierarchy in which those at the top control those
below
– Status hierarchy
• Symbolic acts of submission and dominance reinforce the hierarchy.
• Hegemon
• The advantage of the dominance solution
– Forces members of a group to contribute to the common good
– Minimizes open conflict within the group
• Disadvantage of the dominance solution
– Stability comes at a cost of constant oppression of, and
resentment by, the lower-ranking members of the status
hierarchy.
– Conflicts over position can sometimes harm the group’s stability
and well-being.
Reciprocity
• Solves the collective goods problem by
rewarding behavior that contributes to the group
and punishing behavior that pursues selfinterest at the cost of the group
– Easy to understand and can be “enforced” without
any central authority
– Positive and negative reciprocity
– Disadvantage: It can lead to a downward spiral as
each side punishes what it believes to be the negative
acts of the other.
• Generally people overestimate their own good intentions and
underestimate those of opponents or rivals.
Identity
• Identity principle does not rely on self-interest.
• Members of an identity community care about
the interests of others in the community enough
to sacrifice their own interests to benefit others.
– Family, extended family, kinship group roots, clan,
nation, religious and ethnic groups
• In IR, identity communities play important roles
in overcoming difficult collective goods
problems; while at times identity construction
can intensify the collective goods problem
– Nonstate actors also rely on identity politics.
IR as a Field of Study
• Practical discipline
• Theoretical debates are fundamental
• IR is about international politics, but the field is
interdisciplinary: economics, history, sociology,
anthropology, geography etc.
– Usually taught within discipline of political science
– Domestic politics of foreign countries, although overlapping with
IR, generally make up the separate field of comparative politics.
• Issue areas: political, economic, environmental, social
• Conflict and Cooperation
• Subfields
– International security
– International political economy
Actors and Influences
• Principal actors in IR are states
• IR scholars traditionally study the
decisions and acts of those governments,
in relation to other governments.
• Individual actors: Leaders and citizens,
bureaucratic agencies in foreign ministries,
multinational corporations, and terrorist
groups
State Actors
• Most important actors in IR are states.
• State: A territorial entity controlled by a
government and inhabited by a population.
• Theoretical assumptions:
– State government exercises sovereignty over
its territory.
– Recognized as sovereign by other states
– Population forms a civil society; group identity
– Seat of government with a leader – head of
government or head of state
State Actors
• International system
– Set of relationships among the world’s states, structured
according to certain rules and patterns of interaction.
– Modern international system has existed for less than 500 years.
– Origin in Treaty of Westphalia 1648
– Nation-states
– Major source of conflict: Frequent mismatch between perceived
nations and actual borders.
– Populations vary dramatically.
– Great variation in terms of the size of states’ total annual
economic activity
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
– Great powers
• Most powerful of these states are called superpowers
Figure 1.2
Figure 1.1
Table 1.4