International relations

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International Relations (IR), a branch of political science, is the study of foreign affairs of and relations among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). It is both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative as it both seeks to analyze as well as formulate foreign policy.

Apart from political science, IR draws upon such diverse fields as economics, history, law, philosophy, geography, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies. It involves a diverse range of issues, from globalization and its impacts on societies and state sovereignty to ecological sustainability, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, economic development, terrorism, organized crime and human rights.

International Relations theory

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Main article: International relations theory

International Relations theory attempts to provide a conceptual model upon which international relations can be analyzed. Each theory is reductive and essentialist to different degrees, relying on different sets of assumptions respectively. As Oli Holsti describes them, international relations theories act as a pair of colored sunglasses, allowing the wearer to see only the salient events relevant to the theory. An adherent of realism may completely disregard an event that a constructivist might pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa.

The number and character of the assumptions made by an International Relations theory also determine its usefulness. Realism, a parsimonious and very essentialist theory, has less explanatory power, but greater predictive power. Liberalism, which examines a very wide number of conditions, is less useful in making predictions, but can be very insightful in analyzing past events. Traditional theories may have little to say about the behavior of former colonies, but post-colonial theory may have greater insight into that specific area, where it fails in other situations.

History

Main article: History of international relations

The history of International Relations is often traced back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 where the modern states system was developed. The Westphalia settlement marked the start of a novel premise in international affairs: armed struggle was no longer defined as a contest between varieties of confessional truths, but rather, a dispute among secular "sovereigns". The final settlement of armed disputes, after Westphalia, was no longer the province of military contractors and theologians - but the termination of war fell within the purview of an identifiable coterie of a new class: Professional diplomats and warriors sworn to the service of a state.

Before the Westphalia settlement, there was no recognizable diplomatic profession. Spies, irregular envoys, and heralds citing scripture or handing out ringing declamations were the usual route that princes chose to alert one another to each other's demands and to sound the start of war. After Westphalia, the diplomatic craft was practiced by a kind of well-born guild, with members who were adept at melding reason, precedent, and law with quiet allusion to the implication of armed compunction.

Before Westphalia, soldiers were led by contractors, private entrepreneurs who garnered pay from their won estates or from the lands they plundered. After Westphalia, soldiers were led by military bureaucrats who raised armies year-round and paid for their keep through levies and taxes. After Westphalia, diplomats and warriors began to share a kind of regulatory synergy. Both diplomat and warrior sought less "victory," and more, the achievement of a favorable peace. War, after Westphalia, as the great observer Carl von Clausewitz put it, came to be a "stronger form of diplomacy," and the battlefield an extension of the conference chamber.

Initially, International Relations as a distinct field of study was almost entirely English-centered. The first two schools to form academic divisions directly focused on the study of IR were: in 1919, the first Chair in International Politics established at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth from an endowment given by David Davies; and in the early 1920s the London School of Economics's department of International Relations, founded at the behest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Philip Noel-Baker.

Criticisms

Critics of this interpretation of history argue that it is inherently eurocentric; some non-European territories recognized states in a manner resembling the Westphalian system before 1648 whereas others had wildly different systems. Others (such as Andrew Linklater) argue that today's system is post-Westphalian due to the expansion of the political community into supranational governance through projects such as the European Union.

Barry Buzan and Richard Little find that theories modeling their conceptualizations of international society on the Westphalian system are unable to grasp both the premodern international systems and answer the most important questions about international relations today. Buzan and Little therefore define an international system as a system in which it is possible to distinguish between an "inside" and an "outside" in political realms and consider an international system to have existed since the rise of civilisation in Sumeria.

The Westphalian system sees the only official actors in International Relations as states. In today's world of internet access and increased abilities to communicate quickly and easily with people all over the globe this is becoming less true to some people. This increased access to quick communication unlimited by distance allows non-governmental entities to coordinate their efforts more efficiently and more effectively. These entities can be not for profit groups, environmental groups, local and multinational corporations, farmers, human rights groups, humanitarian aid groups, anti-globalization groups and any other group one could imagine. This increased efficiency allows for each group to carry out coordinated efforts with their or similar branches inside other states in forwarding their agendas and action plans. While each of these branches is technically acting in the civic society inside each state these coordinated efforts are affecting bilateral and multilateral international relations in significant ways.

Mechanisms of International Relations

International Relations (IR) do not exist in an abstract vacuum—each state (and sometimes sub-state actor) utilizes institutions, traditions, identity, force, rhetoric, and other channels to influence the other actors in the international system. And while IR does not exist in an abstract vacuum they do take place in an anarchic system . That is to say that there is no single world entity that any state can take any other state that is empowered with final arbitration over any dispute. In simple terms there is not final "court of higher authority" that can impose its will upon the states of the world.

Should a state step out of line with the international norms put forth in international law or violate the terms of a treaty, and should diplomacy not prove capable of resolving the conflict, there are a few recourses the offended state can turn to.

If the states have ratified a treaty the offended state may take the issue to the institution that oversees that treaty. An example of this would be how trade disputes between members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), an outgrowth of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), are handled in the WTO.

A second major mechanism is the mobilization of international shame. This simply is the act of a state letting other states know of the actions of the offending state. Once it is open knowledge that a state is acting against international norms other states may put diplomatic pressure on the offending state to come back into line with the international norms. More severe reactions could involve embargos or the use of a blockade.

The ultimate mechanisms are armed conflict and war.

Official

Sovereignty, from the Treaty of Westphalia 1648 that each state is a separate actor and that no state has the right to dictate the behavior of another state and will respect the borders of another state unless they wish to be at war. That states are the only actors that can make treaty with a state; Summit meeting which are high level meetings usually between heads of state; diplomacy, either bilateral or multilateral; inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) such as the United Nations, Organization of American States, NATO; supranational organizations the only such entity to date being the European Union (EU); armed conflict, this is limited officially to war and defense; treaties either bilateral or multilateral with large multilateral treaties often being called conventions and concords; trade policy usually affecting tariffs and quotas; Visa (document) policy which deals in legal migration and immigration; International Law; embargo; blockade.

Unofficial

Business communities, cultural exchange, ethnic diasporas, transnational groups, NGOs such as Amnesty International, International Environmental Groups, International Business organizations, International Science foundations, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders, epistemic communities, illegal migration and immigration, state sponsored demonstrations, citizen demonstrations.

Covert

Coups, espionage, subterfuge, sabotage, international terrorism (sometimes state sponsored, sometimes by individuals or groups of individuals acting on their own), border raids, classic Surveillance, electronic surveillance, state sponsored computer hacking.

Functional Concepts of International Relations

Hegemony, Hegemon
Hard power
Soft Power
Interconnectivity
Interdependence
Zero sum gain
Relative Gain
Anarchic system
Levels of Analysis
- state to state
  - this level of analysis is that the state is an entity unto itself and will act as it chooses to act.
- government to government
  - this level of analysis takes into account that internal governmental issues drive how a state relates with another state. The head of government may not be getting along with the legislative branch and therefore may act according to this schism.
- personal level
  - this is a very complex level of analysis and borders on the fields of psychology and social psychology. This level takes into account the personalities that are in the government as individuals and the influence those individuals have or may have on the internal process of that state and therfor how that state relates with other states.
Geopolitics
Stability
Instability

References

Edward Said (1979), Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books (see also: )
The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: Hegemonic Country, Hegemonic Discipline?, International Studies Review, Vol 4 (2), 2002, pp 67-86
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, 1998
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, Basic Books, 2005
Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, University of California Press 2001
Cynthia Enloe, The Curious Feminist Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, University of California Press 2004
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, Simon & Schuster, 1995
Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? : Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century, Simon & Schuster, 2002
Vendulka Kubálková and A. A. Cruickshank, Marxism and international relations, Oxford : Clarendon, 1985
John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W W Norton & Co Ltd, 2004
Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, Brief Edition
Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, PublicAffairs Ltd 2004
Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
Joseph Nye, The "democracy deficit" in the global economy : enhancing the legitimacy and accountability of global institutions ; a report to the Trilateral Commission, Washington, DC : Trilateral Commission, 2003
Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, South End Press 2004
Kim Richard Nossal , Patterns of World Politics, Prentice Hall PTR, February 1999
Christine Sylvester , Feminist international relations : an unfinished journey, Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002

External links

Centre for International Studies at the Université de Montréal
International Relations and Security Network
Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin & Geneva. Independent non-profit think tank that covers a variety of global governance issues from a Global Public Policy perspective. GPPi For an excellent collection of articles on IR and GPP, follow this link.
EUFPC European Foreign Policy Council - Interdisciplinary Think-tank and Network
International Relations in the Age of Empire(Good resource, but remainder of site pro Tamil independence)
Wikifutures Geopolitical Scenarios
Article on Realism x Liberalism - Harvard International Review article promoting virtues of Liberalism over Realism
The Foreign Relations of the United States : The Foreign Relations of the United States series is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. The series is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian and printed volumes are available from the Government Printing Office. This digital collection has been digitized and is publically accessible from the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center.
International Relations Resource Center
Ranking of the top academic programs in international relations in the USA (masters and doctoral).
Briefing paper series of "Master of International Relations" studies, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Diplomacy Monitor - Tracking Internet-based Diplomacy

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