IR or World/Global Politics?

International Relations
Kaufman – decisions made within a country that have implications for relationship
outside
Grieco – relations between two countries or among many countries (what’s important is
its scope)
World/Global Politics
Heywood – conducted at a global
Baylis – power (political) relations among state or non-state actors
Espena – study of political relations between and among state and non-state actors,
which entails global consequences
End of World War I
- The rise of IR started after WWI; British Foreign Office assigned UNIVERSITY
OF ABERYSTWYTH, Dept. of IR (Wales, UK)
- First ever uni in the world offering IR, c. 1919
- What to study: What causes wars? How to prevent wars?
First Debate: Is the world necessarily bound to a state of conflict or perpetual peace?
(1919-1939)
- National interest is bigger than the collective interest
- Idealist vs realist
- Idealist: more civilized, more industrialized, less tolerable for war (League of
Nation)
- Realist: nature of people didn’t change, national interest is far important
- Realists were vindicated because three countries were dissatisfied after WWI
(Japan, Italy, Germany)
Second Debate: Is there a system? Should we use history and philosophy or we use
scientific method in our study of IR?
- Adopted scientific method
- Anarchaic = self help
- 1950’s start polsci
- Positivists were vindicated
- Is there such thing as international system?
- “there is a system but not hierarchical but anarchaical” – it is orderly manner
Third Debate: Can states cooperate on something with one another? If yes, under what
conditions? Are non-state actors relevant in that question?
 - Neo liberals – there is a system and it’s anarchaic but we should not fight,
cooperation is possible if it will be advantageous to their self interest
- Neo realist – not unless they see the need for cooperation to fulfill self-
interest, they will defect
Fourth Debate: Is our knowledge of IR biases? Did we reflect so much? Are women and
included? Are the colonized/indigenous included? Is there even a point in reflecting
these so much?
- Anarchy is made
- Still ongoing

How to analyze IR?

International (and Regional) – focus on the int’l system (all actors ‘coexisting and
interacting at some point in history)
- “people are not bad because they are bad but because the system” –
Kenneth Waltz
- Lack of centralized authority – anarchy
- Recognize constraints and incentives
- Polarity: bipolar, unipolar, multipolar?
- Geography: can be a curse or a blessing

National (and subnational) – arguments drawn political characteristics of states

(democracy vs authoritarian)
Individual – national leaders as decision-maker of foreign policy, psych capacities of
leaders, biographies, their advisors and influential ciricle/events, could the world been
better if someone else handled/addressed the issue/crisis/event?
NO PEACE AND WORLD DOMINATION!
Peace has to be enforced
Actors in IR
1. nation-states – primary actor in int’l sytem
State – political actor with legal entity
Nation – collection of people with common history and culture in a given geography
2. non state actors – IO’s, NGO, transnational terrorists/violent extremists, multinational
companies
Foreign Policy – refers to attempts by governments to influence or manage events
outside the state’s borders, usually, but not exclusively, through their relations with
foreign governments.
Considerations:
1. Indiv – personal priorities, psych and cognitive dispositions
2. State – nature of gov’t, political system, bureaucratic structure, lobbying
3. IS – power balances between countries, intensity of economic interdependence

States keep national interest in mind in doing FP.

National interest – core, secondary, peripheral
Foreign Policy does not occur in a vacuum but in a system.

Process of doing FP: global influence – state or internal influences – indiv influences –
foreign policy