approaches to the study of international relation

approaches to the study of international relation

Exploring Diverse Approaches to the Study of International Relations

1. Introduction to International Relations

This focus on these perspectives hinders the progress of a bona fide applied discipline of International Relations. It stands to be enriched thoughtfully by a respectful treatment of International Relations as one aspect among Political Science, Economics, Anthropology, Geography, or Sociology. In the nature and on suitable questions for attention in an increasingly interdependent world, the growth of these subspecialties of process and outcome is best understood when we finally embrace interdisciplinary answers. The nature of the problems, issues, and challenges that arise in the country and question about some emerged, as well as the complex manifestations of human nature in global and international politics, need to be considered. A firm interdisciplinary base that draws upon the strengths of many other fields for cross-input and enlightenment output will provide a stronger framework for the study of international methodology. Rigor and discernment are needed to help us towards implications for sound national and indeed global decision-making about the end of foreign assistance or the forecast of national security strategy.

2. Theoretical Foundations in International Relations

Domestic legislatures and interest groups would be called upon to express their preferences over international issues to limit implementation problems affecting the demands from winning and losing political coalitions in other countries. Domestic influences within the coalition of power could be tempered by constitutional rules pertaining to the foreign policy roles held by institutional strong executives or monopolistic parties. Powers would seek regional or international free rider bargaining coalitions of domestic groups that would still receive the international benefits with lower costs than any controls under the predominant tailor or her method of trade protection.

These institutionalist programs—although far from united in their analysis of the impact of institutions on governing capabilities or the requirements of significant institutions—are in contrast to a structural approach based on power politics. According to this program, power struggles among states are constrained by identifying units that cannot commit each other to international agreements or to negotiated settlements. In the absence of uniform responsibilities or institutions or agents to enforce restrictive bargains, fears of destructive power games among states are well-founded.

In recent years, however, this short list of domestic restrictions has been joined by a growing number of factors that qualify to any degree as “domestic,” even as these factors’ connection to domestic politics has become increasingly distant.

For the study of foreign policy, liberalism emphasizes the elimination of constitutional and statutory barriers to information and seeks to limit the uncertainty of implementing norms in an international environment that lacks supporting institutions. Such a regime of information defines the scope of bargaining over private goods, limits the ability of domestic groups to influence the outcome of this bargaining, and apparently also provides a mechanism for overcoming “commitment” problems that arise when state interests are defined prior to negotiations.

In political science, several research approaches exist that focus on different theoretical foundations of international relations. The goals of realism and liberalism—the two traditional research programs—are different for the study of foreign policy behavior than they are for the study of foreign policy. For the study of foreign policy behavior, each program tends to assume its own set of institutional arrangements.

3. Comparative and Historical Approaches

The serious inductive challenge to case studies concerns aggregation and replication. Counting cases of an observed phenomenon allows one to assess its scope. A case is unlikely to be unique, but exhaustively documenting its attributes and context may take most of a scholar’s profession. Furthermore, if examples are too heterogeneous, comparisons may confound across-doubt, and whether across-case variability indicates causally significant differences (within ideologies, content, or other) rather than the likely influence of organizational, societal, or situational variables themselves is ambiguous. Nonetheless, inductive studies can critique and challenge general theories. They can reveal whether conceptual linkages are upheld in ‘how to’ situations. The norm was like those analysts say, does one find the same process of national-interest definition and coalition building?

The use of examples draws attention to variety, presents problems through real cases, establishes plausibility, disarms criticism, and suggests implications. A survey of U.S. national-interest behavior that uses the Cuba crisis and the 1920s Nicaragua intervention as if they were similar allows one to focus on the patterns and differences of application of national-interest norms over time. Are they stable (over time or situations) in their direct and reciprocal applications? Within a single policy domain, do leaders deviate from their own behavior or from governing notions? If so, when and under what domestic and international conditions? Are such origins important? The use of counter-examples to substantiate theories is one test of their explanatory and predictive credibility.

4. Critical and Post-Colonial Perspectives

To this end, contemporary liberal internationalist scholarship justifies the status quo and fragments politics by problematizing the military, economic, and institutional dynamics as separate issues. Meanwhile, non-critical scholars produce normative texts called ‘scientific’ or ‘the study of’. Made to look better than statist daydreaming, scholars raised on the ideological platitudes of liberal and realist theories learn to supplement the formalism of these theories with the real-world spoils of scientific objectivism. Consequently, they design complex networks of interrelated theorems which, when taken together, suggest that the world is a normal place occupied by normal people who act and are acted upon by something called “The System.”

Finally, critical and post-colonial perspectives on international relations challenge the European and American-centric nature of the field. As the world wars were dubbed “World Wars,” scholars of international relations have generally treated the activities of these great powers as direct influences on the rest of the world. With rare exceptions, the effect of international relations on the social and political structures elsewhere is also ignored. These biases are standard features of how the field is typically presented. Critical perspectives begin to expose these biases, while offering alternatives. More critical writings are political essays which highlight the manipulative character of liberal scholarship. They argue it emphasizes questions that protect the global superpowers from too much responsibility.

5. Emerging Trends and Interdisciplinary Studies

In order to enhance their scientific rigor and effectiveness, scholars devoted to interdisciplinary research programs within the same broad research field should frequently validate their inquiries and conclusions to out-of-home forensic expertise, whenever possible. In fact, ‘sustainable interdisciplinary’ research and education that aims at effectively integrating results across disciplinary divides is a process of inquiry that is confined to those institutional environments that contain bridging institutions and boundary organizations that have built structures and routines that make it worthwhile to bring about and maintain interfaces between research cultures.

Emerging trends and interdisciplinary studies. IR’s interdisciplinary character and its inclusion within political science has had more influence than any other attribute on the development of the field. The broad variety of shared intellectual exercises between IR and other social disciplines, from economics and sociology to history and geography, has the two-fold function of keeping alive the continuous methodological and theoretical variability that is a desirable characteristic to all IR-powered research activity. Within IR, manifold broader and narrower subgroupings of inquiry fields offer IR its necessary dose of the widely embraced forms of division. Any discipline dependent on material support from professionals coming from diverse social or natural disciplines or research cultures performs an obligatory meaningful job by originating research specialties that meet interdisciplinary needs; mainly, the subset of those tasks that use those external materials optimally, in terms of each of their hosting discipline’s canonical standards.