international relation course

international relation course

The Evolution of International Relations in the University Setting

1. Introduction to International Relations in the Academic Context

Thus, International Relations have served as a mirror and a compass to the international changes of the last one hundred years. As a practical assumption, history and concepts are important to understand the various thoughts, assumptions, and theories that exist today. The goals and objectives of this essay are clear. Firstly, to trace the evolution of International Relations as an academic topic, with its main authors, subjects, and methods. Secondly, to realize that the birth of International Relations is intrinsically related to the contemporary history of the last century, and how contemporary new actors and new interests are focusing the discipline today. Since history and concepts share such an integrative relationship, this essay assumes that a review of the history of the discipline can be quite graphic in the life of concepts within this area. A brief conclusion will finish the text.

International relations in the academic context have developed and changed significantly throughout the last hundred years. This evolution has taken place with the foundation of these academic thoughts, in the context of the vast international change that has taken place throughout the last century. The first waves of professors and studies came between the two world wars, with the international situation itself fully collaborating towards the foundation and studies of International Relations. The post-second world war world, along with post-colonialism and neocolonialism, initiated and consolidated the scientific nature of International Relations. The most recent trends of globalization and the new importance of the individual in IR are refocusing the object and the methods of this discipline.

2. Historical Development of International Relations Programs in Universities

The Colombian academic setting is not foreign to the intensification of interest in the broad debate on International Relations (IR) and is the Wilsonian perspective or school the driving force behind the reforms to global structures that would facilitate a peaceful transition towards a globalized international scenario. On this occasion, the recognition and acceptance of the particular relevance of Colombian foreign policy for the interests of the emerging global powers, echoed by the proposal of a group of specialized scholars from the Defensa Nacional section housed in the School of War, was the element that pushed the National Government to assume as its own the burning demand for the creation of an academic professional university career specializing in international relations, which was intended to become a generator of ideas and strategies for the country. It is under these considerations that Law 954 of 2005, through which the creation of the “Specialization in International Relations Law and Diplomatic Practices” at the Externado de Colombia University, was endorsed.

The process of including the study of international relations (IR) in contemporary university settings is not exclusively the result of an interest which has emerged in recent decades. In the US and some European countries, the study of different aspects related to external politics, understood as international politics or La politique internationale, is a recurring theme since the origins of higher education, particularly in those colleges and universities with a Catholic orientation. Given the prevailing academic teaching and learning goals based on a general preparation, and not so much on the development of specialties or specialties, the students of International Relations acquired their knowledge in general Faculties of Law, Social Sciences, or Arts and Philosophy. As a response to these specific realities, the most consolidated centers or schools specializing in the teaching and learning of International Relations began to emerge either as independent institutions or as specialized sub-units of Law and/or Political Science departments positioned both in Europe and in North America.

3. Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching and Research in International Relations

In many cases, this is occurring with the collaborations of friends, colleagues of other related disciplines and students, and by inviting colleagues from other countries for lectures and workshops. The thematic approach of the reform initiative of the international relations curriculum must be seen from two points of view: firstly, according to the division of activities within university collectives and between other social actors within the national state, and secondly in a framework of global change to the extent that international relations engage the national dimension as well the overall systemic dimension. The proposed reform is based on the assumption that the national state is the key actor within our actual civilization. The concern for retaking and restructuring the university to participate actively in policy formulation and form agents to take part in this process involves immediate and more fundamental concerns about the reduction of academic fragmentation and alienation of the various fields of knowledge within universities.

Discussions about opportunities and challenges of teaching and researching international relations at the university seem to be lacking in the academic community. Professors appear to have organized their curricula according to their individual preferences and regional acceptability of a particular subject, rather than predicated on a systematic approach based on global dynamics. For example, in Latin America, the organization of academic courses is based predominantly on Anglo-Saxon paradigms. In Southeast Asia, these are related mostly to issues of regional cooperation and human security. The specific curricula are part of regional conditions and should, of course, be respected. However, in addition to their national concerns, they must also be placed within a framework of global analysis and must come under examination based on interdisciplinary approaches in line with the global dynamics of our times. Faced with the systemic crisis—economic, political, and environmental, for example—that began toward the end of the last century and which continues today, some professors of international relations began to reflect more keenly on the possibilities of reorienting their subjects both in terms of teaching and in scientific research, with the aim of responding in a more holistic manner to global challenges.

4. The Role of Universities in Shaping Global Diplomacy and Policy

What may be the next historical moment in this process? Perhaps the wrench will come as access to data and to the means of exploring innovation and communication becomes essentially global, addressing fewer and fewer of the urgent global agendas of the world from within the stopped current paradigms of traditional national policy-making arenas. What are some concrete evidence of change? They take the forms of employers’ explicit early expectations of the requirements of a “global education,” of students’ leverage on graduates’ lifetime earnings to reshape an institution’s curricula to include significant international components, and, increasingly, of graduates’ own engagement in global political networks and issue-related organizations.

In the beginning, universities were often instrumental in doing the practical work of international relations directly. They were involved in promoting and sustaining agreements among the territorial powers of the time, for example, either through formal agreement at the University of Paris in the 12th century or through informal cohesion among scholars from many different institutions, for example, who gathered around the greatest scholar of 16th-century Europe, Albrecht Dürer. In the 18th century, international cooperation among scholars began to take the form of academic exchange, as modern universities in post-Reformation Europe took on this practical agenda. Exchanges of data, of specimens, and of staffs became possible in the 19th century with the growth of steam technology and postal systems.

5. Future Trends and Innovations in International Relations Education

Many other potential innovations seem probable. Interdisciplinary programs can be expected to proliferate. The establishment of new programs, or the rejuvenation of existing ones, that emphasize the cognitive skills demanded in international negotiations and decision-making, is not unlikely. Similarly, the advancement of quantitative and computer-based methodologies designed to analyze international issues is likely to proliferate. There is also reason to suspect that the largest programs of the future will be developed cooperatively with international constituents. Interdisciplinary degree programs, such as specialized development studies, may be conceived, designed, and even financed by international agencies, and specific private-sector firms may play a significant role in the development and support of IR programs based on training for international relations in a governmental or non-governmental setting. Clearly, however, the changing demands of a burgeoning international sector and advancing scholarly capabilities will result in many more significant changes in IR programs in the coming decades.

The future of international relations education is not likely to be a simple extrapolation of what has characterized the field in the past. In at least two major respects, innovation and change are much more probable. First, the expansion of IR studies to new programs and institutions at many educational levels results from both internal cues, such as the continued pressing demand for professional foreign service officers and development experts, and external developments, such as the growing acceptance of interdisciplinary approaches to complex, multifaceted issues. Second, the consistent growth of IR as an academic pursuit is leading to an increasingly distinctive body of scholarship and more sophisticated scholarly tools.