Question: What do you know about conflict and cooperation in

IR? Elaborate it with IR theories.

INTRODUCTION:
The world we live in always seems to contain wars and conflicts.
Just by looking back over 100 years, history is filled with major
wars like the two World Wars, the constant scare of escalation of
threat during the Cold War and more recently The Afghan and
Iraq War. Despite the fact that people always talk about the need
for peace, the world is instead filled with fear and constant
security threats. Since the First World War many theorists and
political scientists have tried to come up with a solution on how to
create a peaceful international environment but with no real
achievement. This leads to a natural conclusion that there are
certain obstacles that prevent cooperation between states.

CONFLICT:
Conflict can be defined as an actual or perceived opposition of
needs, values and interests. It also refers to wars, struggles
which may use the force as in the term armed conflict. Conflict is,
in other words, a competition in its more occasional, personal and
hostile forms. It is a process of seeking to obtain rewards by
eliminating or weakening the competitors.Through it, one party
attempts to destroy or annihilate or at least reduce to a
subordinate position the other party. Further, though normally
violence is associated with conflict.
Conflict is universal. It occurs in all times and places. There has
never been a time or a society in which some individuals or groups
did not come into conflict. There are many causes which leads to
conflicts. It emerges mainly from a clash of interests between
groups and societies. Conflicts often occur as a consequence of
the differences seen between speed of progress in a society’s
moral and religious standards and men’s expectations, ambitions,
dissatisfactions and demands.
TYPES OF CONFLICTS:
There are main two types of conflicts such as :
A conflict can be internal (with oneself)
A conflict can be external (with two or more individuals)
The most difficult types of conflict, in which intangible elements
such as ethnic hatred, religious fervor, or ideology come into play
are conflicts of ideas.

COOPERATION:
Cooperation is the process of groups or individuals working
together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as
opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Cooperation
basically should lead to rewards for all states, not necessarily
equal rewards, but everyone should benefit. Cooperation between
and among parties is often referred to as a cooperative
relationship. Cooperative relationships can result in a one-time
collaboration between parties to achieve a goal or can involve
recurring meetings and events to allow the parties to continue
working with each other.
There are mainly two types of co-operations such as
Direct cooperation
Indirect cooperation

Cooperation and conflict are universal elements in social life. They

occur among animals as well as among human beings and they often
come together. As in the physical world where there are forces of
attraction and repulsion simultaneously operative and determinant
of the position of bodies in space, so in the social world there is a
combination of cooperation and conflict revealed in the operations
of men and of groups.

REALISM:
Realism’s roots are often said to be found in some of humankind’s
earliest historical writings, particularly Thucydides’ history of the
Peloponnesian War, which raged between 431 and 404 BCE.
Thucydides, writing over two thousand years ago, was not a
‘realist’ because IR theory did not exist in named form until the
twentieth century. However, when looking back from a
contemporary vantage point, theorists detected many similarities
in the thought patterns and behaviours of the ancient world and
the modern world. They then drew on his writings, and that of
others, to lend weight to the idea that there was a timeless
theory spanning all recorded human history. That theory was
named ‘realism’.
Realism is an approach to the study and practice of international
politics. It emphasizes the role of the nation-state and makes a
broad assumption that all nation-states are motivated by national
interests, or, at best, national interests disguised as moral
concerns.
Realism is the most dominant theory and has been so since the end
of the Second World War. Even though in the last few years it
has been criticised heavily for not being able to explain certain
issues in international relations like the peaceful end to the Cold
War, it still provides a thorough theory. At its most fundamental
level, the national interest is generic and easy to define: all states
seek to preserve their political autonomy and their territorial
integrity. Once these two interests have been secured, however,
national interests may take different forms. Some states may
have an interest in securing more resources or land; other states
may wish to expand their own political or economic systems into
other areas; some states may merely wish to be left alone.
Classical realism has shaped the way in which the relations
between states over the centuries have been understood and still
influences policy makers today.Realists believe that their theory
most closely describes the image of world politics held by
practitioners of statecraft. For this reason, realism, perhaps
more than any other IR theory, is often utilised in the world of
policymaking.