Introduction to

International
Relations

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 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. 2
 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.

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 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: 4
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
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 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 6
 POSSIBILITIES FOR
CONFLICT
• Overpopulation: in developing world may
contribute to famine, spread of disease (AIDS),
land hunger, political unrest, and large-scale
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
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 POSSIBILITIES FOR
CONFLICT
• WMD may spread into rogue states (Iran, North
Korea) and non-state 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

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 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

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 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
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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

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Table 1.1

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 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.

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 Reciprocity

• Solves the collective goods

problem by rewarding behavior
that contributes to the group and
punishing behavior that pursues
self-interest 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.

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 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 15

– Nonstate actors also rely on identity

 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

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 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

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 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
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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

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Figure 1.2

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Figure 1.1

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Table 1.4

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