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Understanding International Relations: The new world era

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Understanding
International
Relations: The new
world era

Desire Gonzalez
School of Business
Los Angeles Valley College
Abstract:
The content, purpose and structure of the concept of International Relations is very difficult to specify.
In this sense, there are several schools of thought that have not agreed when defining the concept of
International Relations.
The objective criterion is used: it depends on the concrete nature of those relationships, which
inevitably leads to anarchy. It is what Thomas Hobbes called the State of nature. It is the study of brute
force between States. While international society is anarchic, internal is to an extent, since there are
control measures exercised by governments that do not occur in international society. However, there
are certain rules that govern international society, for example, the basic instinct of conservation, of
perpetuation through which a community extends over time. Hobbes' phrase "Man is a wolf for man"
perfectly defines the evolution of International Relations for centuries.

Keywords: International Relations, globalization, communality.

Introduction

States are fundamental. Every political community that considers itself a nation and segregates
from another of which it was a part, becomes a State (right to self-determination and self-
determination). It creates, then, a State with all the prerogatives and rights. International organizations
are defined as a system of social organization endowed with special organic and technical
characteristics. The international bodies are divided into: 1) governmental -directed by the government-
and 2) non-governmental. International organizations are considered together with the states the
primary subjects of International Relations. Below are lobbyists or interest groups (transnational
subjects). They are multinationals with a central body and a network of branches in other countries that
form an economic, social and political fabric. They are companies with great international economic
power or it can be a single person who directs the pressure group, for example, the president of
Microsoft, Bill Gates. They are subjects of International Relations because they have a great impact on
them. Then there are the professional or corporate groups. They are formed by workers, merchants,
doctors, etc., who are grouped internationally to exert pressure, for example, the World Industrial
Federation, the International Chamber of Commerce, and so on. Its objective is to obtain adherent
liberties to its professions. Political parties are subjects of International Relations, since there is an
internationalization of all of them.
Another subject of International Relations is the Church. The ramifications of the
institutionalized Church go beyond the borders, that is, they are international in themselves. Finally,
another subject is the public opinion that acts on governments. The purpose of International Relations is
to study a very complex system of relations that exist in international society between primary and
secondary subjects, taking into account the factors that constitute that society and that influence it and,
in addition, in the behavior among the subjects. These factors influence the subjects and these, in turn,
do so in the factors.
International Relations have always been subject to rules of international law (treaties,
protocols, agreements, etc.), which is why they have long been part of International Law. Nevertheless,
and despite the fact that they are related, as well as with History, it is necessary to distinguish
International Relations from these Social Sciences. On the one hand, History is essential to explain
International Relations even though they have different subjects. On the other hand, International Law
cannot be explained without going to International Relations for what is necessary to know the
functioning of society. International Law is a set of rules that attempts to regulate international society.
For Professor Arroyo, the Law is accessory because it is modified according to the transformations of the
society in which it is applied. These social transformations have an immediate reflection in the Law. At
the same time, all International Law regulates society. Therefore, International Relations and
International Law complement each other in an indispensable way.
Theoretical analysis

A discipline acquires autonomy when a determined scientific community acquires awareness

that other fields do not respond to certain questions about this theoretical discipline. It is difficult to fix
the moment in which International Relations acquire autonomy as a discipline. In this sense, the first
teachings on International Relations were given from the First World War at Princeton University, in the
United States. These teachings were driven by President Thomas W. Wilson (1856-1924) who was
obsessed with knowing the why of wars. Thomas Wilson was an idealist who believed in understanding
between nations and in world peace, even though he was the one who introduced the United States to
the Great War of 1917 (on April 2, 1917 Wilson asked the US Congress to intervene your country in the
European armed conflict). For President Wilson, one could live in peace as long as Germany and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire allowed it, enemies of the allies. However, Wilson was mistaken in his idealist
conception of International Relations by not distinguishing them from the Political Sciences. On January
8, 1918, Thomas Wilson delivered a list of the fourteen points in the United States Congress with the
aim of obtaining peace in the European conflict. These fourteen points are:

1) the end of secret diplomacy;

2) freedom of navigation and commerce;
3) the disappearance of economic barriers;
4) the reduction of military armaments;
5) the regulation of colonial rivalries;
6) the evacuation of Russia;
7) the restitution of sovereignty in Belgium;
8) the restitution of Alsace and Lorraine to France;
9) the readjustment of Italy's borders;
10) the autonomy of the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire;
11) the evacuation of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro;
12) the autonomy of the peoples of the Ottoman Empire;
13) the restitution of sovereignty to Poland;
14) the creation of a League of Nations

All these points served to establish the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which meant the end of the
First World War. In 1921, Thomas W. Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his drive to the
League of Nations and for the promotion of peace after the First World War through the Treaty of
Versailles", which, paradoxically, some historians consider the main cause of the Second World War.
 The Jewish-German theorist Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980) affirmed in 1948 with a more
realistic criterion than that of President Wilson, that in International Relations the contributions of other
disciplines cannot be ignored. Sociology, Economics and Political Science, for example, are the nuclei on
which both the discipline of International Relations and their methods of study are going to revolve.
While it is true that International Relations can become a discipline with a specific content and its own
methodology -with which it reaches its autonomy-, it is also true that it will cover aspects of other
disciplines such as Economics, Sociology, Law, etc. Along with Edward Carr, Hans Morgenthau is one of
the most important authors of the Royalist School. This school postulates that the State is the most
important actor in International Relations, and that the main object of study in this matter is Power. His
book Politics Among Nations (1948), which emphasized power relations, was one of the key works in the
field of post-war American international relations, and helped to displace idealist tendencies -the case of
Thomas Wilson- that predominated until the Second World War.
Morgenthau formulated the six principles of Political Realism in his work Politics between
Nations:

1) Politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws rooted in human nature, which is
invariable; therefore, it is possible to develop a rational theory that reflects these objective laws;

2) the main feature of Political Realism is the concept of interest, defined in terms of power that
infuses a rational order to the object of politics, and thereby makes possible the theoretical
understanding of politics. Political Realism emphasizes the rational, the objective and the non-
emotional;

3) Realism assumes that the interest defined as power is a universally valid objective category, but
not with a fixed definition once and for all. Power is the control of man over man;

4) Political Realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. He is also aware of the
tension between moral control and the demands of effective political action. Therefore, Realism
is not immoral, but its object of study is not moral;

5) Political Realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the laws
that govern the universe. It is the concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us
from moral excesses and political clumsiness;

6) The political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere. He asks: "How will this policy
affect the power of the nation?" Political Realism is based on a pluralistic conception of human
nature. A purely and exclusively political man would be no more than a beast, since he would
have no moral limits. However, to develop an autonomous theory of political behavior, political
man must abstract from other aspects of human nature.

Morgenthau argued that international politics, like all politics in general, is a struggle for power,
and that political power is a psychological relationship between those who exercise it and those over
whom it is exercised. It gives those who wield power a control over certain actions of those who do not
have it through the influence of their minds. This influence can be exerted through orders, threats,
persuasion, and so on.
The systemic theorists: Quincy Wright and Morton Kaplan

The most important theory of International Relations is System Theory or Systemic Theory since
it offers a vast field of experimentation. The theory of the system tries to study irremovable parameters,
that is, a fixed framework within which there are specific fields in continuous evolution. In 1931, Quincy
Wright (1890-1970) was the first to propose a system on International Relations. In 1955 he publishes
"The study of International Relations" that will become the script of the systemic method of
International Relations. In that book, Wright determined the theoretical field of International Relations
through mathematical language, because he understands that this language is the only one that can fix
the infinite values that act in International Relations. Wright established a coordinates a, b, c ... that
could be economy, politics, etc., that crisscrossed in different epochs of history allowed to obtain data.
Therefore, Wright reduces the field of International Relations to the world of mathematics because it
allows obtaining exact data. Quincy Wright is really the introducer of the Systemic Theory in
International Relations, but the true promoter was Morton Kaplan, Professor of Political Science at the
University of Chicago and author of "System and Process in International Politics" (1957). According to
Morton Kaplan, a theory must meet two conditions:

1) that the proposals of that theory are logical, that is, that they are reasonable; and

2) that the propositions of that theory can be demonstrated. When he applies this to International
Relations, Kaplan encounters two problems:

- The demonstration of propositions is difficult, although not impossible.

- The almost absolute impossibility of isolating the international social system.

Based on this idea, Kaplan says that a social scientist cannot predict what will happen, but can predict
trends, that is, can describe the behavior of the social system you are studying and predict the
consequences globally. In a global system, all subsystems tend towards equilibrium, that is, there is a
parameter of greater prestige (for example, the United States today) and the rest tend to be balanced. A
warlike conflict, for example, tends to unbalance the system that immediately rebalances. That system is
stable on the outside and dynamic on the inside. In addition, it undergoes a constant process of action-
reaction and has a constant tendency to perpetuate itself. This explains the political changes and the
implicit hierarchy of the system. The set of subsystems gives place to the great world system. Any failure
in the system causes conflicts, for example, political, economic, and other imbalances, which give rise to
the imbalance Kaplan develops an initial theory of social policy that is based on what he calls action
systems and adds the History that would be the demonstration material. That is why there is not an
international system but several that explain the changes of power, the balance of power, the bipolar
world, unilateral, the hierarchical system between states, and so on. The history of each system does
not demonstrate the veracity of each one of them. Subsequently, the theory of systems of action has
had representatives in the United States, for example, Professor Richard Rosecrance that makes it a
unique system of action in which each actor occupies a place in the pyramid or a row of columns. A
unipolar system would occur, for example, when he who holds the hegemonic power does not share
that power and is the system only as it is today with the
United States. For example, during the cold war, this system was bipolar since the hegemony was shared
by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The theory of the decision and the so-called theory of the game

The theory of the decision began to be applied in situations of international crises, for example,
in the Korean War or in the conflict of the Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. The difference between the
systemic theory and the theory of the decision is found in that the pure systemics want to explain the
global framework in a scientific way, while the theory of the decision only studies what factors help the
decision-makers, that is, how decisions are made by the rulers, the main subjects of politics
international. The theory of decision explains the problems of foreign policy from the point of view of
each state. In this sense, the state is the actor in a given situation caused by a decision. The study of the
organs and their actions in these concrete situations offers us an idea about the foreign policy of a state,
so that, in this way, we can predict the ways of acting of a government and, therefore, of A state.
Example. In the conflict of the Soviet missiles in Cuba (1962), President Kennedy adopted the decision to
establish a blockade of the Caribbean island and the Soviet Union because he believed it was the most
successful. However, if Cuba and the Soviet Union had faced the blockade, World War III could have
taken place. Therefore, despite the fact that President Kennedy made an "accurate" decision, nothing
prevents these decisions from carrying some risks. International Relations should not say how to act, nor
what should be the correct decision; They only have to explain what the decision was and how it was
taken. Many decisions of governments are taken by psychological or irrational factors, that is, not
following some logical rules that are the fruit of each historical moment. For example, in our historical
context the invasion of Iraq was the result of an irrational decision. A variant of the theory of the
decision is the theory of the game of the Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957)
based on the games of hall. According to Neumann, war is like a card game in which each player wants
to get the maximum for himself by conceding to his opponent the minimum; therefore, earn more by
conceding less.
Currently, the theory of the game in international politics is applied by computer simulation
techniques. Scientists resort to computer simulation to solve very complex problems that have a
number of variables and infinite decisions. With the computer, from the introduction of these variables,
you can get the most appropriate decision. In practice, the Americans did it in the Pentagon after the
Second World War. A multinational was commissioned to design an international policy game in which
different groups of national politicians could play. These were given a theoretical assumption, they
adopted decisions according to these assumptions and the situation was modified. The rest of the
participants acted accordingly and also made decisions taking into account those of their adversary and
so on. With the advance of computer science, the results that could be obtained were spectacular. The
military was thrilling because they could introduce multiple variables into the game, which multiplied
the possible results. In addition, based on the decisions that were made, it was possible to see what
consequences they could bring, that is, the results could be foreseen. Unfortunately, the limitations of
the game are enormous. For example, the computer system is capable
of receiving hundreds of data, but it escapes a very important fact: the psychology of those who enter
this data. In this way, crazy results can appear. A computer can not foresee a coup because
psychologically it cannot think as individuals do; they are only influenced by who or who program it.

The theory of telecommunications

This theory comes from the Social Sciences and includes a) the entire process of information, b)
the mass communication system and c) the creation of public opinion. Communication has importance
in International Relations in two very different planes: Analysis of the media and communication, that is,
analysis of the information process -how the media act, how they shape public opinion, the importance
they have, and so on-. This analysis was already made in the twenties by two theorists:

a) Clark was the first to study communication systems and their influence on international politics; and

b) Lasswell studied propaganda techniques in World War I - both those of the allies and those of
Germany.

On the other hand, the first theorist of communication was the German Karl Deutsch (1912-
1992) who considered that International Relations were conditioned by the channels of information,
communication and command, an idea that he collects in his book "The Nerves of the Government ,
communication models and political control ". The density of communication allows measuring the
degree of cohesion of a political community. In this sense, the greater the density of communication,
the more integrated a specific political community will be. In addition, through communication it is
possible to mobilize the population towards very specific options. For example, Karl Deutsch explains
the War of Cuba (1898) through the theory of telecommunications. In this armed conflict, the media and
the US government came together with the intention of creating a public opinion favorable to US
intervention on the island. Something very similar happened with the Vietnam War. The less
communication there is, the less power a country will have. Communication includes quantity but not
quality. The more communication there is, the more stable a State will be, for example, the European
Union. The opposite occurs, for example in the African continent where the scarce amount of
communication that occurs in it irremediably determines the instability of Africa.
The theory of functional interdependence

This theory defines what interdependence is and how it works. It is the most relevant and
revolutionary thesis of the last third of the twentieth century. Its authors begin to raise it from 1975,
therefore, relatively recent. These theorists are Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, who wrote in 1977 the
work called "Power and interdependence. The world politics in transition ". Both belong to the North
American realistic school that advocates that the states move by their national interest and by the
political power - real factors by which a State moves. Realism was formulated in the year 1948 and,
therefore, since then factors that were not known when this school appeared, for example, the concept
of transnationality that implies, on the one hand, recognize that there are other elements and subjects
apart from the State that have a relevant role in international processes or in International Relations. On
the other hand, transnationality implies contacts, coalitions and interactions transcending the borders of
the State that are not controlled by central organs of the Government. These contacts include the
bureaucracy of other states and non-governmental subjects such as NGOs. There are many
interconnected subjects and factors in international society that need to cooperate with each other. This
interdependentist current starts interconnections with the economy, the environment and any human
activity. Interdependence does not mean that the State can be replaced by other subjects, but it would
be on the side of other subjects.

Systemic structuralism

Systemic structuralism implies that International Relations are always marked by a strongly
asymmetric interdependence. In this sense, in International Relations there is constantly a purchase-
sale, that is, someone sells and another purchase, and one of those two parts is the one that always
takes the benefit. Normally, whoever sells does not give to whoever produces the same value that the
product has at the point of sale, hence a profit is obtained. Systemic structuralism is based on the
unequal exchange that occurs in the economic, social, cultural and political fields. In this sense,
economic transactions are necessary for a system to work. Dependency is a situation in which several
countries have their economies conditioned by the development and expansion of other countries,
placing dependent countries in a backward position. The State will always be considered a dominant
subject, and its role is conditioned because the ruling class uses it for its own benefit. In addition, there
is a basic structural distance in the interest of the states and between the states themselves: center and
periphery. That explains the nature of international politics and economics that are interdependent.
Underdevelopment, expansionism and imperialism spread outwards from within the State.

Sociology as a theoretical foundation

Sociology thinks that International Relations are another branch of social studies. However,
there are theoreticians such as Max Weber, founder of Sociology, who claim that it is impossible for the
social to be studied because it is something indeterminate. Among the political communities there has
always been a network of internal and external relationships that are social relations. These social
relationships are developed in a medium called international society. These social relations occur
between subjects of international society and can be studied through social facts, that is, all activity that
a subject produces in relation to another subject. International Relations can be produced between
reduced political communities or between all the political communities of all States, that is, in each
State relations are established. Sociology in France was studied by Raymond Aron who understands that
only International Relations can be studied from the point of view of Sociology. However, if we make the
International Relations depend on the social, between whom are those International Relationships
given? Basically between political communities. However, Sociology does not study political
communities. These are studied by the Political Sciences that determine who are the subjects of the
social fact. The political community is also immersed in a specific historical context of which History is
concerned, and Sociology will deal with the social characteristics of that political community. Therefore,
there is a political, sociological, historical analysis along with a legal and economic analysis to be able to
talk about International Relations.
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