The discipline of International Relations is focused on a systematic understanding of how states behave. For as long as there has been more than one state or state-like entity, international relations have taken place. Over the years, many theories have been developed, as well as standpoints and viewpoints that are important to the academic field of International Relations.

Our world is increasingly both interconnected and interdependent. Yet, wars and conflicts still occur. Economic issues may create tremors in states and in the international system itself, such as Greece’s recent inability to repay its debts. Increasing technological advances help with communications worldwide, yet they can be used for harmful purposes by those wishing to do so.

Nuclear proliferation is a subject of deep concern to those involved in international relations. With North Korea’s recent advances in missile technology, and their openly expressed aim of developing nuclear armaments, and with Iran also in possession of nuclear materials, despite UN resolutions to the contrary regarding both countries, the society of nations justifiably feels threatened and, most would agree, with good cause.

The objects of study of International Relations have come to include relations between states; between states and non-state organizations; and between actors such as multi-national corporations, religious institutions, humanitarian assistance organizations; between states and intergovernmental organizations like the European Union and the United Nations, among others.

The Peace of Westphalia, also termed the “Treaty of Westphalia,” concluded in 1648 in Münster, Germany, “ended the Thirty Years War, which started with an anti-Habsburg revolt in Bohemia in 1618 but became an entanglement of different conflicts concerning the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, religion, and, importantly, the state system of Europe.

Positivism values knowledge based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations as tested and verified by empirical science. Only scientific knowledge, proven through empirical testing, constitutes true knowledge of the world as perceived through the senses.

The concept of parsimony in theoretical terms seemed to be less of a concern the further scholars moved from realism and idealism/liberalism and toward the more postmodern theory of social constructivism.

Parsimony: economy of explanation in conformity with Occam’s razor. The scientific law of parsimony dictates that any example of human behavior should be interpreted at its simplest, most immediate level.

Interdependence began to be examined in earnest in the early 1970s. To many theorists of interdependence, the crude power politics of the cold war years appeared to be giving way to a more cooperative and rule-governed world. It is important to understand that the theorists of interdependence were not just talking about increased interconnectedness in a variety of issue areas. The shift was also qualitative. The world was changing. The realist view that states were independently pursuing their national interests did not seem to present an accurate picture of the way states acted under conditions of what Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye called “complex interdependence” (Griffiths and O’Callaghan, 2002, 157-158).

International Relations has come to explore, examine, and embrace important concepts and theories in scholarly pursuits since its formal inception. Part of this is driven, no doubt, by the ever-increasing number and complexity of changes and challenges the world faces. Several useful frameworks have been developed to address these issues. One of them is the levels of analysis approach, particularly useful in foreign policy matters (Singer, 1961). There are three of these analytical levels: the individual level, the state-level, and the system level. 

Groupthink: a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972). It occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.” Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making (Janis, 1972, 9).

Levels of Analysis and Debates About the Causes of War:
“There is no consensus among scholars over the most appropriate level of analysis. This can be easily illustrated by a brief overview of debates about the causes of war. Some scholars argue that the underlying causes of war can be found in the structure of power and alliances in the international system or in the way that structure changes over time. Others trace the roots of war to political, economic, social, and psychological factors internal to the state. Some liberal theorists argue that liberal democratic states are inherently peaceful whereas authoritarian states are more warlike. Some radical scholars argue that war results from the tendencies of capitalist states to expand in search of external markets, investment opportunities, and raw materials.

The four types of state systems are identified as independent, hegemonic, imperial, and feudal (Viotti and Kauppi, 2013, 53-99).

1. The independent state system consists of political entities that each claim to be sovereign. No superior power is accepted, but states recognize the claims of independence by other states.

2. The hegemonic state system means that one or more very powerful states dominate the state system. They can constrain the actions of other states and set rules for the world. 

3. The imperial system takes in separate societal units, often empires (in ancient time, very good examples are Macedonia, Assyria, Persia, Rome, and the Ottomans), 

4. The fourth type of international system is the feudal system, which ran from about the 9th through the 14th centuries CE. 

Hegemonic Stability Theory: “argues that international economic openness and stability is most likely when there is a single dominant state. The basic contention of the hegemonic stability thesis is that the distribution of power among states is the primary determinant of the character of the international economic system” (Webb and Krasner, 1989, 183).

Sovereignty: “Supreme authority in a state. In any state sovereignty is vested in the institution, person, or body having the ultimate authority to impose law on everyone else in the state and the power to alter any pre-existing law. In international law, it is an essential aspect of sovereignty that all states should have supreme control over their internal affairs, subject to the recognized limitations imposed by international law.

Sovereign: holding the ultimate, supreme power and authority within its territory or territories, and over the use of force/violence. An independent state has sovereign power.

Collective Goods Problem: A central question of International Relations in modern times can be summed up as: How can a group, such as two or more countries, serve its collective interests when doing so demands that its members forgo their individual interests? This is the collective goods problem: how can something be provided to benefit every member of a group, regardless of what each member may contribute to the goods? It is probably easier to provide collective goods (or benefits) to smaller groups than to larger ones. Cheaters and “free riders” can be identified more easily in a smaller group than in a larger one.

Alliances: An alliance can be defined as “an agreement between two or more states to work together on mutual security issues. States enter such cooperative security arrangements to protect themselves against a common (or perceived) threat.

“Alliances can be either formal or informal arrangements. A formal alliance is publicly recognized through the signing of a treaty in which the signatories promise to consider an attack on any one of them as equivalent to an attack on all of them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact are good examples of a formal security alliance. Informal alliances are much looser and less stable and rely, to a large extent, on the word of the parties involved and ongoing cooperation between them.” (Griffiths and O’Callaghan, 2002, 1).

Morals and Ethics

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.

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, declara-tions, and resolutions. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, for example, noted that it is the duty of states to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems” (www.ohchr.org).

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.

The “political” about political conflicts accrues from their relevance for society, from the fact that there are no accepted mechanisms for their settlement and from the involvement of significant groups of the society (CONIAS Research Institute).