Overview

Introduction to IR; Theories & Approaches

States are independent of each other, at least legally: they have sovereignty. But that does not
mean they are isolated or insulated from each other. On the contrary, they adjoin each other
and affect each other and must therefore somehow find ways to coexist and to deal with each
other.

Five basic social values:

• Security
• Freedom
• Order
• Welfare
• Justice
IR as a discipline largely generalizes from the European state system that eventually became the
first global state system in history.
States can both defend and threaten people’s security. That paradox of the state system is
usually referred to as the ‘security dilemma’. In other words, just like any other human
organization, states present problems as well as provide solutions.
To ensure that no great power succeeds in achieving a hegemonic position of overall
domination, based on intimidation, coercion, or the outright use of force, history indicates it
may be necessary to construct and maintain a balance of power. This approach to the study of
world politics is typical of realist theories of IR (Morgenthau 1960).
International Conventions _ Common Interests in maintaining order & Justice. Principle of pacta
sunt servanda (‘agreements must be kept’), which lies at the very core of international law.
Human rights—civil, political, social, and economic.
Life inside properly organized and well-managed states is better than life outside states or
without states at all. This was the fundamental insight of the English philosopher Thomas
Hobbes in Leviathan.
‘Men may, of course, have order without liberty, but they cannot have liberty without order.’
Samuel P. Huntington (1968: 8)

•Realism ( Security power politics, conflict, and war)

•Liberalism ( Freedom cooperation, peace, and progress )
•International Society ( Order and justice shared interests, rules, and institutions )
•IPE theories ( Welfare wealth, poverty, and equality )
•Social constructivism ( Ideational factors ideas, norms, and intersubjective awareness)
•Post-positivist approaches ( The way the world is represented power, emancipation, identity,
and speech acts)

Views of the state

• TRADITIONAL VIEW : States are valuable and necessary institutions: they provide
security, freedom, order, justice, and welfare People benefit from the state system.
• RADICAL OR REVISIONIST VIEW : States and the state system are social choices that
create more problems than they solve The majority of the world’s people suffer more
than they benefit from the state system.

Colonialism and imperialism have led to problems of dominance and underdevelopment in

postcolonial countries that continue to this day. It was a time when people began to settle
down on the land and form themselves into separate territory-based political communities.
This process has been described as ‘caging’, that is, agriculture made people settle down,
cooperate, and develop new complex forms of social organization.

Medieval wars were more likely to be fought over issues of rights and wrongs: wars to
defend the faith, wars sparked by perceived transgressions of traditional liberties of elite
groups, wars to resolve conflicts over dynastic inheritance, wars to punish outlaws, wars to
collect debts, and so on. Wars were less likely to be fought over the exclusive control of
territory or over state or national interests.

Papal Revolution (1075–1122) was the conflict between the church and the emperor
bolstered the state system by ensuring that the later nation-states would be competitors. To
weaken the emperor, the Church recognized the maxim that kings were ‘emperors’ in their
own realms.

The emergent state system had several prominent characteristics, which can be
summarized. First, it consisted of adjoining states whose legitimacy and independence were
mutually recognized. Second, that recognition of states did not extend outside of the
European state system. Non-European political systems were not members of the state
system. They were usually regarded as alien and politically inferior and most of them were
eventually subordinated to European imperial rule. Third, the relations of European states
were subject to international law and diplomatic practices. In other words, they were
expected to observe the rules of the international game. Fourth, there was a balance of
power between member states which was intended to prevent any one state from getting
out of control and making a successful bid for hegemony, which would in effect re-establish
an empire over the continent.
Essentially secular basis of the new state system was strongly reaffirmed when the principle,
Cujus regio, ejus religio (Such government in a state, such religion in a state) first
enunciated at Augsburg in 1555, was enshrined in the Peace of Westphalia and extended to
cover Calvinism in addition to Lutheranism. Wilkinson (2007: 15)

Carvalha Revisionist Interpretetion there is no solid basis in the historical evidence for the
traditional claim that the modern, post-medieval system or society of states emerged out of
the Peace of Westphalia and successive epi sodes, such as the Congress of Vienna (1815) or
the Peace of Paris (1919) _ "Demolished these Myths". Traditional view _ Historicist
+ Empiricist approach, Revisionist view _ Constructivist + Critical approaches.

The system of sovereign states emerged in Europe at the start of the modern era, in the
sixteenth century but its roots stretch deep into the Middle Ages. Modern political authority
is centralized, residing in the government and the head of state. The state system was first
European; now it is global. The global state system contains states of very different types:
great powers and small states; strong, substantial states and weak quasi-states.

There is a link between the expansion of the state system and the establishment of a world
market and a global economy. Some developing countries have benefitted from integration
into the global economy; others remain poor and underdeveloped. Economic globalization
and other developments challenge the sovereign state. We cannot know for certain
whether the state system is now becoming obsolete, or whether states will find ways of
adapting to new challenges.
Further Readings
Getachew, A. (2019). Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-determination.
Grzymala-Busse, A. (2020). ‘Beyond War and Contracts: The Medieval and Religious Roots
of the European State’.

There have been three major debates since IR became an academic subject at the end of
the First World War, and we are now well into a fourth.
1. Utopian liberalism VS Realism.
2. Traditionalist VS Behaviouralism.
3. Neorealism/Neoliberalism VS Neo-Marxism.
4. Traditionalists VS Post-positivist.
The utopian liberalism of the 1920s and the realism of the 1930s–1950s represent the two
contending positions in the first major debate in IR. The first major debate was clearly won
by Carr, Morgenthau, Yet it is important to emphasize that liberalism did not disappear.
Once the investigator has mastered the existing knowledge, and has organized it for his
purposes, he pleads a ‘meaningful ignorance’: ‘Here is what I know; what do I not know
that is worth knowing? . By a process which we are compelled to call ‘intuition’ . . . we
perceive a possible correlation, hitherto unsuspected or not firmly known, between two or
more elements. At this point, we have the ingredients of a hypothesis which can be
expressed in measurable referents, and which, if validated, would be both Explainatory &
Predictive. According to behaviouralists, facts are separate from values. Unlike facts, values
cannot be explained scientifically.
(BEHAVIOURALISM)

Traditional approaches Focus _ understanding, norms and values, judgement, historical

knowledge, Theorist inside subject.
Behaviouralist response Focus _ explaining, hypothesis, collection of data, scientific
knowledge, Theorist outside subject.
They also led the way in setting a research agenda focused on the role of the two
superpowers, especially the United States, in the international system. That paved the way
to new formulations of both realism and liberalism that were heavily influenced by
behaviouralist methodologies. These new formulations—neorealism and neoliberalism—
led to a replay of the first major debate under new historical and methodological conditions.

• Sociological liberalism _ Cross-border flows, common values.

• Interdependence liberalism _ Transactions stimulate cooperation.
• Institutional liberalism _ International institutions, regimes.
• Republican liberalism _ Liberal democracies living in peace with each other.

An influential version of the theory of democratic peace was set forth by Michael Doyle
(1983). Doyle finds that the democratic peace is based on three pillars: the first is peaceful
conflict resolution between democratic states; the second is common values among
democratic states—a common moral foundation; the final pillar is economic cooperation
among democracies. Republican liberals are generally optimistic that there will be a steadily
expanding ‘Zone of Peace’ among liberal democracies even though there may also be
occasional setbacks.

The debate between neorealism and neoliberalism can be seen as a continuation of the
first major debate in IR. But unlike the earlier debate, this one resulted in most neoliberals
accepting most of the neorealist assumptions as starting points for analysis.

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY: ENGLISH SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

Martin Wight & Hedley Bull
Stanley Hoffmann made the point that the discipline of IR was ‘born and raised in America’,
and he analysed the profound consequences of that fact for thinking and theorizing in IR.
The United Nations system demonstrates how both elements—power and law—are
simultaneously present in international society. The Security Council is set up according to
the reality of unequal power among states. The great powers (the United States, China,
Russia, Britain, France) are the only permanent members with the authority to veto
decisions.(pseudo-institution)

Focus of theory
Understanding - Power, national interest (realist element)
Judgement - Rules, procedures, international law (liberal
element)
Values - Universal human rights, one world for all
(cosmopolitan element)
Norms and historical knowledge ____Theorist inside subject

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

Neo-Marxism(3rd Major Debate)
Focus:
Capitalist world system, Dependency, Underdevelopment
Statist IPE doctrine is often referred to as ‘mercantilism’ or ‘economic nationalism’.
Three important and related issues
Economic globalization; that is, the spread and intensification of all kinds of economic
relations between countries. Does economic globalization undermine ‘national’ economies
by erasing national borders and by subjecting national economies to the exigencies of the
global economy?
The second issue is about who wins and who loses in the process of economic globalization.
The third issue concerns how we should view the relative importance of economics and
politics and how the rules of the game are formulated and maintained in international
affairs.

REALISM Liberalism
MAIN PROPONENTS
1. Thucidydes 1. John locke
2. Nicholo Michiaveli 2. John betham
3. Thomas Hobbs 3. Immaneul Kant
4. Hans J. Morganthau 4. James Rosenau
5. Thomas Schelling 5. Robert Keohane
6. Kenneth Waltz 6. Joseph Nye
7. John J Mearsheimer 7.Woodrow Wilson