The International System Why is the concept of a system a powerful descriptive and explanatory device?

vice? How would a liberal theorist view the international system? What concepts do realist employ to analyze the international system? How do radicals view the international system? How do each of the contending theoretical perspectives explain change in the international system?

The Notion a system To understand the international system, the notion of a system itself must be clarified. Broadly defined, a system is an assemblage of units, objects, or parts united by some form of regular interaction. The concept of system is essential to the physical and biological sciences; systems are composed of different interacting units, whether at the micro (cell, plant, animal) or the macro (natural ecosystem or global climate) level. Because these units interact, a change in one unit causes changes in all the others. Systems, with their interacting parts, tend to respond in regularized ways; there are patterns to their actions. Boundaries separate one system from another, but there can be exchanges across these boundaries. A sytem can break down, meaning that changes within the system become so significant that in effect a new system emerges. In the 1950s, the behavioral revolution in the social sciences and growing acceptance of political realism in international relations led scholars to conceptualize international politics as a system, using the language of systems theory. Beginning with the supposition that people act in regularized ways and that their patterns of interaction with each other are largely habitual, both realists and behavioralists made the conceptual leap that international politics is a system whose major actors are individual states. This notion of a system is embedded in the thoughts of the three dominant theoretical schools of international relations. Of particular interest is how change occurs.

The International System according to Liberals The first conception sees the international system not as a structure but as a process, in which multiple interactions occur among different parties and where various actors learn from the interaction. Actors in this process include not only states but also international governmental organizations (such as the United Nations), nongovernmental organizations (such

as Human Rights Watch) and multinational corporations, and substate actors (such as parliaments and bureaucracies). Each different type of actor has interactions with all of the other ones. With so many different kinds of actors, a plethora of national interest, so dominant for realist, are still important to liberals, other interest such as economic and social issues are also considered, depending on the time and circumstance. A second liberal conception of the international system comes from the English tradition of international society. In an international society, the various actors communicate; they consent to common rules and institutions and recognize common interests. Actors in international society share a common identity, a sense of we-ness; without such an identity, a society cannot exist. This conception of the internationall system has normative implications: liberals view the international system as an arena and process for positive interactions. A third liberal view of the international system is that of neoliberal institutionalism, a view that comes closer to realist thinking. Neoliberal institutionalists see the international system as an anarchic one in which each individual state act in its own self-interest.