Chapter 1: The Study of International Relations 1

Introduction

International Relations (IR) include all sorts of interstate activities (activities between states): trade, travel, war, peace, the environment, social interactions, religions, natural resources, diplomacy and many more exchanges of various types.

International relations emerged as a formal academic discipline just after the World War I, when the first International Relations professorship was founded in 1919: the Woodrow Wilson Chair of Aberystwyth, University of Wales. The oldest International Relations faculty in the US is Georgetown University’s Edmund A.Walsh School of Foreign Service.

The frameworks and analyses of International Relations consider a range of concepts. Individual, state and the international system, which are some initial frameworks still remain valuable. Alliances, cooperation, the collective goods problem, the clash of civilization argument, socialism, terrorism, and the political spectrum are some important concepts.

International law is now a key element of international relations. International governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations are now part of International Relations. Environment and human rights are issues to which more attention is being paid.

The Discipline of International Relations

The discipline of International Relations is basically about how states behave. Our world is increasingly both interconnected and independent; certain development/changes (economy, technology, wars, conflicts, global warming, ecological concerns) in one state both affect the state itself and the others.

The Scope of International Relations

International Relations is an interdisciplinary field; one area cannot be simply separated from the others. The theoretical approaches to it which have developed over centuries and which include subjects like

• the arms race
• international development and political economics
• trade and markets
• conflict management
• peace studies
• nationalism
• feminism
• political culture
• international cooperation
• civilization
• international law
• international organizations

Each theory taps into some characteristics of IR in history.

Frameworks of Analysis

International Relations is separate and distinct from domestic relations and states are crucial. According to international law states have a legal personality, a defined territory, a permanent population, and a government controlling its territory effectively and conducting international relations with other states.

The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is regarded as a milestone in the development towards tolerance and secularization. It also set up the system of states.

Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis (1939) and Morgenthau’s politics Among Nations (1948), which were formative in the development of realism, proposed an analytical framework to position international politics as separate from other events. They claimed that liberal internationalist worldview caused the crises of interwar years.

Another theory is liberal theory (idealism) which promotes toleration, reason and progress, equality before the law, and open economy. It suggests that states will search for long-term mutual gains if their security and sovereignty are npt significantly diminished or threatened.

The positivist position views theory as constitutive: the existence of a state can only begin with its formal recognition by other states.

When developing applicable theories, the concept of parsimony seemed to be less of a concern the further scholars moved from realism and idealism and toward the more postmodern theory of social constructivism. Parsimony is the economy of explanation in conformity with Occam’s razor. Any example of human behavior should be interpreted at its simplest. According to Occam’s Razor, if there two or more explanations for an occurrence, the simplest one is usually better. Thus, theories are used as frameworks of analysis in IR. Some theoretical focuses now are feminism, green theories, theories of peace and conflict studies, the democratic peace theory, and normative theory.

Globalization is an important trend now which implies interdependence; an increasing reliance on one another – among states, economies, or other entities.

Levels of Analysis in International Relations

There are three of these analytical levels: the individual level, the state-level, and the system level.

Some IR scholars suggest four levels: the individual level, the domestic level (the state), the interstate level, and the global level.

The individual level attempts to understand (and highlight) how persons and their characteristics impact policy and it is divided into factors that affect policy: cognitive, emotional, and psychological. Individual and group perceptions are very important. If a person is part of a group “groupthink” may occur. “Groupthink” occurs when a group makes faulty decisions and it prevents the group from considering the alternatives.

Analysis at the state level explores how the structures and operations of a government affect decisions and policies. The system-level, on the other hand, is focused on external conditions and pressures that shape a state’s practices and policies.

The four types of state systems are independent, hegemonic, imperial, and feudal. The independent state system consists of political entities that each claim to be equally sovereign. The hegemonic state system means that one or more very powerful states dominate the state system (unipolarity: a single dominant state; bipolarity: two states dominate; multipolarity or collective hegemony: three or more states). The imperial system takes in separate societal units (Persia, Rome, the Ottomans) and one dominates the others and involved in internal affairs of the others (unlike in hegemonic systems). The feudal system, which ran between 9th and 14th centuries, was comprised of many diverse units and power was decentralized.

Some Concepts Underlying International Relations

Sovereignty, which was introduced by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, is the supreme authority in a state. All states should have supreme control over their internal affairs without intervening the matters of other states’ internal affairs.

If a state is sovereign it holds the ultimate, supreme power and authority within its territory/territories, and over the use of force.

A society in which people identity with one another on the basis of ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, or other commonalities is called a nation.

Power in interstate relations may be defined as a state’s ability to control, or at least influence, other states or the outcome of events.

Collective goods problem is the way each and every member of a group of states benefit from something.

Three basic principles address potential solutions to uncooperative relations among countries: dominance, reciprocity, identity.

An alliance can be defined as an agreement between two or more states to work together on mutual security issues. Alliances can be either formal or informal arrangements. A formal alliance is publicly recognized through a signing of a treaty (NATO). Informal alliances are much looser and less stable and rely on the word of two parties (states).

Coalition means a joining together. Coalitions are always multilateral, with associates from different states.

Clash of civilizations was hypothesized by Samuel Huntington in 1993 and emphasized future conflicts in the world.

Terrorism is the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population to promote particular political objectives.

Socialism is an economic system characterized by usually centralized, public ownership of major industries, properties, and natural resources. Properties are shared, and natural resources are meted out equally to workers.

A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions: political positions, ideologies, or parties. According to the simplest left-wing axis, communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, opposite nationalism and fascism on the right. Liberalism means different things in different contexts, sometimes left, sometimes right. Conservatism and reactionary forces are almost always considered on the right.

Power projection is the capability of a country to project (or, alternatively, physically bring via sealift or airlift) its military power to any part of the world rapidly and with little advance notice.

The Cold War lasted about 45 years and was a period of highest tensions between the Western bloc countries (primarily the United States) and the Eastern bloc (mainly the U.S.S.R. and states controlled by the Soviet Union). The two main actors sought to set up zones of control that included countries within their geographic reach.

We appear to be in an era where there are ‘failed states’, those which cannot guarantee their citizens security, protection, tolerance, basic education, some level of employment and housing, and other aspects we have come to associate with successful states. Somalia is one such state. Some states are ‘non-states’, not being recognized as being one by other states in the international system: Western Sahara (Sahrawi) is an example of this, as are the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, Palestine, Somaliland, and Transnistria.

The Fragile States Index (2015) ranked United Nations member-states on the following capabilities and characteristics.

Social Indicators:

• Demographic Pressures
• Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons
• Group Grievance
• Human Flight and Brain Drain

Economic Indicators:

• Uneven Economic Development
• Poverty and Economic Decline

Political and Military Indicators:

• State Legitimacy
• Public Services
• Human Rights and Rule of Law
• Security Apparatus
• Factionalized Elites
• External Intervention

There are some states which are more “fragile” than others; these include Pakistan, Cambodia, and Afghanistan, as examples.

Expanded Issues in International Relations

While it remains accurate that there is no government higher than sovereign states, there have been attempts to establish both a set of international laws through pacts, protocols and treaties, and via international bodies such as courts, to implement and uphold them. One example is the Geneva Conventions (1949 and 1977), which incorporate four conventions (treaties) and three protocols. Besides humanitarian law, which includes laws against genocide, ethnocide and other atrocities, there are laws of the sea, laws regarding international postal services, an international labor organization under the auspices of the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The following are major substantive fields of international law:

• International economic law
• International security law
• International criminal law
• International environmental law
• Diplomatic law • International humanitarian law or law of war.
• International human rights law

While it is often assumed that morality and ethics are the same thing, there is a subtle difference between the two.

• Morals define personal character, while ethics stress the social system in which those morals are applied.
• In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. This could be national ethics, social ethics, corporate ethics, professional ethics, or even family ethics.

International Governmental Organizations and International Nongovernmental Organizations together comprise international organizations. Some examples are The United Nations (UN), The European Union (EU), The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The ecological framework is conceptually broad, bridging several fields of theory and research, and orienting practitioners and researchers to the importance of integrative, multilevel, and multidimensional approaches to person-environment relationships.

Human rights are universal and inalienable. “The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, has been reiterated in numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, it set out for the first time fundamental human rights to be universally protected. Article 1 of the Declaration reads that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

As the world has become involved in various interstate and intrastate conflicts, the provision of humanitarian assistance has risen in importance. Much aid comes from the United States, but other developed states have also contributed to alleviating the suffering of those who are victims of violence, natural disasters, unsettled states, corruption, interethnic conflicts, and the like.

The question of when to physically intervene and to ignore state sovereignty in cases of humanitarian crises is also unresolved. A movement toward a “responsibility to protect” on a worldwide scale formally began in this new century.

A political conflict is a difference regarding values relevant to a society, between at least two decisive and directly involved actors, being carried out using observable and interrelated conflict means that lie beyond established regulatory procedures and threaten a core state function or the order of international law, or hold out the prospect to do so. Political conflicts constitute a subtype of social conflict. Conflict may be expressed in war, in diplomatic differences, in terrorism or in other warlike behaviors, in ending communications, or in cutting o economic relations between states. There are also conflicts that are based on political ideologies.

The Future of International Relations

The future of International Relations will undoubtedly include the forces of globalization. Some theorists predict that wealth will be redistributed worldwide so that there will be more equity. Some have suggested that cultural diversity will become more tolerated and more understood by greater proportions of the global population. To others, power and self- interest will no longer dominate international relations as it does today. Humanitarianism may well arise as the leading topic; peoples might become as concerned with the well-being of others who share the globe as they currently are of their own strengths.