international relation major

international relation major

Exploring the Role of International Relations in Shaping Global Politics

1. Introduction to International Relations

More fundamentally, however, IR has long appreciated that international politics can only be understood with an examination of international relations and diplomacy at multiple levels of analysis. At the same time, neither IR students nor non-IR students consider that the discipline uses theoretical approaches and concepts and subject matter dialogue with classmates and scholars who are concerned about common problems that concern scholars in political science. Indeed, many scholars who are not political scientists, such as economists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, and women’s studies specialists, write and teach international relations. Given all of this, why do these questions continue to be asked? What explains students’ expressed difficulty in locating international relations within the larger universe of post-secondary social science disciplines? How representative are students’ views?

The course International Relations, as a standard text for students and scholars, has reflected the quest of linking the study of international relations to the broader concerns of political science and to the distribution of political power by focusing on the nature and behavior of states. To be sure, IR has recognized the meaningfulness of non-state and sub-state actors in international relations, particularly in the last several decades. Students and scholars have analyzed a wide array of them, including non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, and other private actors, national and local government officials, civil servants, and private individuals, such as the intermediaries that individuals and groups use to reach policymakers.

2. Theoretical Frameworks in International Relations

Realist theories look at the relations between different parts of the system within which foreign policy is made; we explain the policy by reference to the policy-makers and the system within which they interact, emphasizing that rational leaders of states will tend to predict, if not conform to, the theory. The rational decision-making approach, on the other hand, looks at the behavior of states without attending in great detail to their internal composition, trying to determine whether or not the states’ behavior is what we should expect given their needs and possibilities.

Theories of international relations can be classified in a variety of ways, but we focus principally on two traits. Do theories of international politics predict what states want to do, assume that it is agreed that states want to do it, or argue that it is states’ interests themselves which dictate their behaviour, so that, for example, the more powerful states must act in the ways predicted by the theory? And how wide is the scope of the theory: that is, does it apply to only one foreign policy area – trade, for example – apply to all aspects of the behaviour of particular sets of states or to all aspects of the behaviour of the entire range of states of the international system? No general consensus has emerged about the best way to categorize theories of international relations: as with all theoretical exercises, different classifications are insight in different respects.

3. Key Actors in the International System

Given the worldwide expansion of important international behavior, the traditional concept of international relations is inadequate to serve as an encompassing analytical tool. Until recently, international relations existed primarily among governments or states. Of course, leaders of governments or corporate bodies – whether as heads of states, such as presidents or monarchs, or as heads of foreign office staffs – have dealt with other key actors in the international system.

While international relations tend to be selective in their coverage of those who make foreign policy, diplomats, statesmen, representatives, and a few privately visible leaders come to mind most frequently. Beyond the traditional foreign affairs community, international relations scholars like Richard L. Merritt and Bruce Russett emphasize that military officers, business leaders, and agency experts also engage in world politics. Moving beyond “politics” in the narrower sense of the term, attention must be paid to the roles of scientists, educators, athletes, entertainers, terrorists, and criminals in the international system. Interest in non-democratic cultures and in the range of sources of behavior can be explained by changing patterns of worldwide interaction.

4. Major Issues and Challenges in International Relations

States have reacted to these challenges in diverse ways. They have established structures and institutions at the domestic and international level with the primary aim of continuity of the political system. However, these structures have not been completely successful, not only because of their different aspirations of power, but because of the very situation and environment under which these structures operate, as revealed by the collective behavior of individuals who control them. It is clear that the ambitions of the states clash, in part, because their pursuit of the maximum fulfillment is pursued through the exercise of power in the international political arena where there is not someone in authority. At the national level, power is bound by rules and by the dispensation of authority, whereas in the international level, the pursuit of capabilities operates without checks and balances. With the emergence of new powers espousing ambitions foreign and defense policies appear to be at variance with the state’s ethics and national interest, there is no doubt that the world is not in equilibrium politically, economically, and socially. These problems at the domestic level manifest themselves at the international level and are grist to the mill of international relations.

The world of international relations, more than ever before in the past fifty years, is faced with a diversity of challenges. The challenges that face the broad discipline of international relations are mind-boggling in their scope and complex in their dimension. Overarching them all and demanding a closer scrutiny of international relations is the nature of global politics, in which nation-states integrate their interests in the pursuit of capabilities. Against this backdrop are issues that border on the behavior of states as they seek fulfillment – both in their domestic existence and in the international environment. Hence, the character and the dimension of the participation of the state in international relations. The scope and complexity of these issues of international relations have been accentuated by the fact that all of them have direct or indirect impact on the society, the economy, and the governance process of the state, not only at the national, sub-national, and supranational level but also at the local level.

5. The Future of International Relations

The predilections in the behavior of various actors involved in international relations have led to multiple conflicts. These conflicts have made major contributions to investigating the world operating through multiple sets of causes. The path of one historical event can be different from another because the background variations may be different for different constituencies. However, international relations continue to be the study of the political interaction of distinct social units, including multinational democratic societies, as the seemingly fixed and immutable laws of science somehow fail to apply. Nor do they prove that widely different outcomes can occur even with a minimum of persuasion and control function of similar parameters. If history has taught us something, it is that things can and often do not happen without a cause. The immense diversity of human societies historically has not kept them from interacting with each other. Neither has it kept them from developing an amalgamation of rules whose knowledge can only be understood by embracing the concept of international relations.

A lot has been changed in the last 200 years of world politics. It is believed that changes have been substantial and have opened up multiple venues for the development of a diverse range of international relations. Feasibly, such a multitude of shocks would lead to a sense of short run in international relations. There has been no short run, and the field has thrived with constant change. Realists argue over the relevance of dominant powers in the rise of new powers and the concomitant tensions regarding competitive power transitions. As a prospective theory, arguments addressed to the relative decline of dominant powers are speculative, for they would need to encompass new and vehemently opposing trends of economic imperialism.