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Chapter 1: Introduction to International Relations

NOTES:
● Is the world more peaceful (Pinker, 2011) or more dangerous than ever (Dempsey, 2012)?
○ Both are correct; THE DATA THEY EXAMINED ARE DIFFERENT—Different data can lead to
substantially different conclusions.

PINKER:
o Argued that the world was much more violent over the past centuries than in contemporary
time—his analysis included all types of violence---murder, tribal warfare, slavery, executions,
rape.
o The number of deaths and violent acts today are much smaller compared to the size of the
population than in the tribal era. Hence why he believed that the modern era is more
peaceful.

DEMPSEY:
• Although armed conflicts tripled from 1950s to 1990s; wartime fatalities have declined
dramatically from 240 per million in 1950 to less than 10 per million in 2007.
• This number seems too high for the modern world who values life. Hence why he
believed that the modern era is more violent.

● The variety of actors that participate in international politics include:

○ 193 recognized states
○ Their leaders & government bureaucracies
○ Municipalities
○ For-profit and non-profit not-for-profit organizations
○ International organizations
○ The individual (you)

TERMS

International Relations - A subfield of political science

- The study of the interactions among the various actors that
participate in international politics
- The study of the behaviors of these actors as they participate
individually and together in the international political processes
- An interdisciplinary field of inquiry, using concepts and substance
from history, economics, and anthropology, as well as political
science

Theories in International Relations

Three of the more prominent perspectives are developed in this book: realism and neorealism, liberalism and
neoliberal institutionalism, and constructivism.

Realism
● posits that states exist in an anarchic international system; that is, there is no overarching
hierarchical authority.
● Each state bases its policies on an interpretation of its national interest defined in terms of
power.
● The structure of the international system is determined by the distribution of power among
states.
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Chapter 1: Introduction to International Relations

Liberalism
● historically rooted in several philosophical traditions that posit that human nature is basically
good.
● Individuals form groups and, later, states.
● States generally cooperate and follow international norms and procedures that they have
agreed to support.

Constructivists
● argue that the key structures in the state system are not material but instead social and
dependent on ideas
● The interests of states are not fixed but rather malleable and ever-changing

All three of these perspectives are subject to different interpretations by international relations scholars,
and various theories therefore stem from each perspective. Those theories help us describe, explain, and
predict. These different theories help us see international relations from different viewpoints.

Interdisciplinary Approach to Developing Answers

History
● Inquiry in international relations often begins with history. Without any historical
background, many of today’s key issues are incomprehensible.
● Without that historical background, we cannot debate the appropriate solution in the
international disputes, nor can we understand the dynamics and conflicts between states.
● Thus, history provides a crucial background for the study of international relations. Having
knowledge of both diplomatic history and national histories remains critical for students of
international relations.
● History invites its students to acquire detailed knowledge of specific events, but it also can
be used to test generalizations. Having deciphered patterns from the past, students of history
can begin to explain the relationships among various events (i.e., the growth of Athen’s power
resulted in Sparta’s fear of losing its power and thus, prompting the Peloponnesian War.)
● Many scholars following in Thucydides’s footsteps use history in similar ways. But those using
history must be wary because it is not always clear what history attempts to teach us (e.g.,
we cannot create an analogy of the vietnam vs the iraq war as different polity dynamics
were at play.)

Philosophy
● Philosophy can help us answer questions in international relations. Much classical philosophy
focuses on the state and its leaders— the basic building blocks of international relations— as
well as on methods of analysis.
○ Plato: In the “perfect state,” the people who should govern are those who are
superior in the ways of philosophy and war. Plato called these ideal rulers “
philosopher-kings.”
○ Aristotle: States rise and fall largely because of internal factors.
○ Hobbes: In a state of nature (Anarchy), a world without governmental authority or
civil order, where men rule by passions, living with the constant uncertainty of their
own security, results in a solitary, selfish and brutish life.
■ Under anarchy there is no hierarchically superior, coercive authority that can
create laws or enforce law and order. The solution to the dilemma is a unitary
state— a leviathan— where power is centrally and absolutely controlled.
○ Rousseau: The state of nature as an egocentric world, with man’s primary concern
being self-preservation. Rousseau’s preference was for the creation of smaller
communities in which the “general will” could be attained.
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■ Indeed, according to Rousseau, it is “only the general will,” not a leviathan,

that can “direct the forces of the state according to the purpose for which it
was instituted, which is the common good.”
○ Kant: A federation of states as a means to achieve peace, a world order in which
man is able to live without fear of war.
■ Sovereignty would remain intact, but the new federal order would be both
preferable to a “ super- leviathan” and more effective and realistic than
Rousseau’s small communities.
■ In his view, though man is admittedly selfish, he can learn new ways of
cosmopolitanism and universalism.

The tradition laid down by these

philosophers has contributed to the
development of international relations by
calling attention to fundamental
relationships: those between the individual
and society, between individuals in society,
and between societies.

The early philosophers have led

contemporary international relations
scholars to the examination of the
characteristics of leaders, to the
recognition of the importance of the
internal dimensions of the state, to the
analogy of the state and nature, and to
descriptions of an international
community.

History and philosophy permit us to delve

into foundational questions— the nature of
people and the broad characteristics of the
state and of international society.

The Scientific Method: Behavioralism

● In the 1950s, some scholars began to draw upon one understanding of the nature of humans
and on history to develop a more scientific approach to the study of international relations. It
began to theorize that as humans act in predictable ways, states can also act in predictable
ways brought from recurrent patterns.
● Behavioralism proposes that individuals, both alone and in groups, act in patterned ways.
○ The task of the behavioral scientist is to suggest plausible hypotheses regarding those
patterned actions and to systematically and empirically test those hypotheses (e.g.,
correlates of war and human rights violation)
○ Using the tools of the scientific method to describe and explain human behavior,
these scholars hope to predict future behavior
● Yet methodological problems occur in both projects. The war study cannot isolate the scope
of wars to include for study. The human rights study also involves major problems of
measurement and definition of key variables.
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● Such studies are never an end in themselves, only a means to improve explanation and to
provide other scholars with hypotheses that warrant further testing.
● Different data may lead to substantially different conclusions (ie.g., Pinker and Dempshey’s
opposite conclusion). Some critics suggest that attention to data and methods has
overwhelmed the substance of behavioralists’ research.
● Different methods result in different findings.
○ Qualitative researchers in the historical and philosophical tradition, often employing
case studies of a specific human rights issue over a long period, generally find
progress in human rights records. And they find that new human rights norms have
emerged.
○ In contrast, behavioral researchers, in general, find less evidence of changes in state
behavior. Usually drawing on studies with large amounts of data, including data from
many states over decades when available, researchers find only marginal
improvements in a state’s human rights record.

Alternative Approach
Constructivism using Discourse Analysis
● Some scholars approaching the study of international relations from the constructivist
perspective have turned to discourse analysis to answer the foundational questions of
international relations—to trace how ideas shape identities, constructivists analyze culture,
norms, procedures, and social practices.
● They probe how identities are shaped and change over time. They use texts, interviews, and
archival material, and they research local practices by riding public transportation and
standing in lines. By using multiple sets of data, they create thick descriptions.
● Studies show how social and cultural factors shape national security policy in ways that
contradict realist or liberal expectations.

Postmodernism
● The postmodernist scholars seek to deconstruct the basic concepts of the field, such as the
state, the nation, rationality, and realism, by searching texts (or sources) for hidden
meanings underneath the surface, in the subtext.
● Once those hidden meanings are revealed, the postmodernists seek to replace the once-
orderly picture with disorder, to replace the dichotomies with multiple portraits.
○ Cynthia Weber found out that conceptualizations of sovereignty are constantly
shifting, depending on the needs of the moment and the values of different
communities, by digging below the surface of sovereignty, going beyond evaluations
of the traditional philosophers. The multiple meanings of sovereignty are
conditioned by time, place, and historical circumstances.
● Postmodernist scholars also seek to find the voices of “the others,” those individuals who
have been disenfranchised and marginalized in international relations.

HIGHLIGHT!
No important question of international relations today can be answered with exclusive reliance on any one
method.
● History, whether in the form of an extended case study (Peloponnesian War) or a study of multiple
wars (Correlates of War or militarized interstate disputes), provides useful answers.
● Philosophical traditions offer both cogent reasoning and the framework for the major discussions
of the day.
● But behavioral methods dominate because they are increasingly using mixed methods, combining
the best of social- science methods and other approaches.
● And the newer methods of discourse analysis, thick description, and postmodernism provide an even
richer base from which the international relations scholar can draw.
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Chapter 1: Introduction to International Relations