WEEK 1

Learning Outcomes:

Begin to understand what an academic discipline might mean and how it can be applied to
International Relations (IR)

Begin to recognise that there are a number of competing approaches that talk about world
politics in different ways

Demonstrate knowledge of the historical and political context of the development of IR as a

discipline

Required Reading:
Devetak, R. (2012) An Introduction to International Relations: The Origins and Changing Agendas of a
Discipline in R. Devetak, A. Burke and J. George (eds) An Introduction to International Relations, 2nd edn,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-19.
George, J. (2012) International Relations Theory in an Era of Critical Diversity, in Devetak, R., Burke, A. and
George, J. (eds) An Introduction to International Relations, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 22-34.

An Introduction to International Relations: The Origins and Changing Agendas of a Discipline Devetak, R
What is International Relations?
The study of international relations is not to be equated with 'current affairs'. International relations seeks to go
beyond the ephemeral and common sense nature of current affairs, to reflect more deeply on events, structures,
processes and actors, and to offer explanations, interpretations and normative analyses
The study of international relations is not reducible to what happens in particular countries, even though it may
include this. In IR, any interest in the politics of other countries will be determined by how these impact on or
play out in the international sphere or how they are shaped by international forces
IR is not reducible to foreign policy analysis, though once again it includes this within its scope
International relations refers to external, relations, among nations, states and peoples
o Relations among sovereign states

International relations as a discipline: traditions, origins and evolution

A discipline carves out a branch of learning focused on a relatively distinct subject matter
Disciplines grow within institutions and grow their own institutions (eg uni)
A discipline draws upon traditions of thought that have developed and evolved around the subject matter

Traditions of thought
Traditions of thought, whichever scheme we choose to employ, provide us with the premises, tenets and
concepts which we could not intelligibly discuss and analyse international relations
Idealism or liberalism
Neoliberalism and neorealism
Realists views on international relations
o Realists argue that states exist in a condition of anarchy that compels them to seek and to balance
power to ensure their survival and security. They paint international relations as a tragic realm of 'power
politics' where 'national interests' clash and moral claims hold little say
o For realists, the character of international relations remains unchanged through history. Nothing is
different form the past except for the names of the actors
Liberals views on international relations
o Liberals see history as progressive. They tend to emphasise humanity's capacity to improve; they are
committed to ideals of technological and economic as well as moral, legal and political progress
o Strategies of 'peace through law' and 'peace through commerce' are the dominant liberal approaches
o In international relations they see the gradual development and strengthening of international trade,
international law and international organisations as the key to world order
Tripartite scheme of realism, liberalism and Marxism
 o Extends and complicates the realism/liberalism debate by adding a Marxist tradition of thought. This
tradition shifted emphasis away from states to the historical development of the capitalist system and the
class conflict it generated
Rationalism and Revolutionism
o Revolutionism was associated with the perpetual peace of liberal internationalism and the
revolutionary internationalism of Marxism
o Rationalism was a middle way that sought to avoid the extremes of realism and revolutionism
o Rationalists accept the realist premise that states exist in a condition of anarchy (where no state has
the authority to lay down and enforce the law), but deny that this condition is bereft of rules and norms.
Rather, they argue that states tend to form international societies where order is maintained through
mechanisms such as international law, diplomacy, balances of power, great power management and
occasionally war

The 'critical turn' against the 'Great Divide'

Both realism and liberalism tend to accept the terms of the Great Divide, and to naturalise the anarchy
problematique. They view the domestic and international realms as distinct and mutually exclusive
o Realists see war as an inevitable and ineradicable part of international relations insofar as the
condition of anarchy prevails
o Liberals believe that change is possible. They argue that institutional change at the level of the state
and the international system will release potentials for eradicating, or at the very least considerably
limiting war.
Critical theories (Marxism, feminism, postmodernism and constructivism) start from the premise that theory is
always for some and for some purpose. Critical theories of international relations, then seek to bring to
consciousness latent assumptions, interests or purposes that give rise to and orient thinking about international
relations

International Relations Theory in an Era of Critical Diversity

Ontology, Epistemology and the science question in international relations theory
Ontology: the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of being. It is concerned with what one considers to
be the fundamental elements of the world
Epistemology: is the theory of knowing, it is concerned with the question of how we come to know what we
know about these fundamental elements

The era of critical diversity

Neoliberalism is actually designed to enhance the power and prosperity of the global North, whatever its
rhetoric about liberalisation and democratisation. From this perspective, IR should concentrate less on a zealous
free market doctrine and more on issues of global justice, sustainable development, cultural pluralism, human
rights and genuine democratisation
Marxism concentrates on the relationship between the global rich and poor for many years. There is now a
renewed interest in what Marx had to say about advanced capitalist societies, globalisation and limitations of
liberalism in IR
Postmodernism gleans its primary understanding of the relationship between knowledge and power.
Postmodernism sought to relocate the dominant IR narratives of reality as foundationalist discourses of power
and to illustrate the dangers and limitations of such discourses
o Foundationalism in this sense represents a claim to knowledge perceived as beyond challenge,
beyond change, beyond social reassessment and adaption
Feminism have sought to add important extra dimensions to core IR themes.
o (eg. Orthodox concerns have been supplemented with works on other kinds of security threats
concerning rape, poverty and sexual degradation)
o On issues of global economics, feminist scholars have focussed on the particular burdens placed on
women and children

An introduction to international relations: the origins and changing agendas of a discipline

The new agenda supplements but dues not supplant the traditional agenda.
What is international relations

News vs IR
- News by nature is ephemeral each day brings a new story. It makes no attempt to draw connections
between stories, they are independent.

What is IR
1. Reflects more deeply on events, structures, processes and actors, and to offer explanations, interpretations
and normative analyses.
2. The study is not reducible to what happens in a particular country. Political machinations in other countries,
especially powerful ones always hold a particular interest. However, any interest in politics of other countries
will be determined by how these impact on or play out in the international sphere or how they are shaped by
international forces.
3. IR is not reducible to foreign policy analysis though it is included within this scope.

A brief definition: external relations among nations, states and peoples.

International relations was foremost distinguished from domestic. This was known as the great divide.

The Great Divide domestic vs international

- Defined international relations by opposing the international and domestic realms
- Nenneth Waltz IR realist theorist of late 20th century constitutes the concept (1979: 103), the difference
between national and international politics lies not in the use of force but in the different notes of organisation
for doing something about it.
o Node 1 Hierarchy
o Node 2 Anarchy
o To Waltz the key is governance, is there a supreme authority with the right to lay down and enforce
the law? Yes hierarchical realm politics within the state. No anarchical realm of international
relations politics between the states.
- Martin Wight (1966b: 21): it has become natural to think of international politics as the untidy fringe of
domestic politics.
- According to GD domestic politics takes place inside, international takes place outside as if they were
mutually exclusive realms.

- Domestic: presence of central authority that has monopoly control over the instruments of violence and cay
lay down and enforce the law that establishes and maintains order and security. It permits justice and peace to
be delivered to the community of citizens.
- International: absence of overarching authority or government that can lay down and enforce laws because
the instruments of violence are dispersed and decentralised. Power rather than justice will determine
international outcomes.
- States are trapped in security dilemma where measures taken to enhance security lead others to take similar
counter-measures and in the process generate further mistrust and insecurity.
- Anarchy distinguishes IR. It is the absence of rule but not necessarily disorder and chaos. This was the core
presumption and constitutive principle for much of the disciplines history.
- Richard Ashley (1989) called IR the anarchy problematique to say that it is a field of knowledge revolving
around the organising principle of anarchy.

International relations as a discipline: traditions origins and evolution

Meanings of discipline
- Comprises a distinctive focus, a set of institutions and traditions of thought
- to bring under control, train to obedience, maintain order
- Disciplines helps to maintain intellectual order by keeping a focus and keeping clear of distracting extraneous
issues
- A subject matter relatively distinguishable from others

Traditions of thought

Two dominant IR theories were idealism and realism. Though there was also neoliberalism and neorealism (Baldwin
1993).
Realists
- Argue that states exist in a condition of anarchy that compels them to seek and to balance power to ensure
their survival and security
- Paint IR as a tragic realm of power politics where national interests clash and moral claims hold little way
- The character of IR remains unchanged through history. Kenneth Waltz calls a dismaying persistence of war,
international relations is, in Wrights words the realm of recurrence and repetition.
- Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes were iconic realists

Liberals
- Realists see history as static or cyclical liberals see it as progressive
- Emphasise humanitys capacity to improve: they are committed to ideals of technological and economic as
well as moral, legal and political progress
- Like realists they see that the world is anarchical and war-prone but they believe it is possible and necessary
for humankind to escape the Hobbesian state of war a condition in which states are insecure and
constantly preparing for war
- Strategies of peace through law and peace through commerce are the dominant liberal approaches. They
see the gradual development and strengthening of international trade, international law and international
organisations as the key to world order (Suganami 1989).
- Iconic names include John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Koigsberg Immanuel Kant.

Other variations:

- Maxism was positioned by some as the third tradition of thought. This tradition shifted emphasis away from
states to the historical development of the capitalist system and the class conflict it generated. It redirected
focus to an examination of how the twin logics of capitalist development and geopolitical rivalry interacted.

- Martin Wight distinguished three traditions of thought: realism, rationalism and revolutionism.
o Realism was the tradition associated with power politics blood and iron
o Revolutionism was associated with the perpetual peace of liberal internationalism and the
revolutionary internationalism of Maxism the subversion and liberation and missionary men.
o Rationalism was the middle way of the two extremes of realism and revolutionism. Rationalists
accept the realist premise that states exist in a condition of anarchy (where no state has the authority
to lay down and enforce the law), but deny that this condition is bereft of rules and norms. Rather they
argue that, states exist in an anarchical society. States tend to form international societies where
order is maintained through mechanisms such as international law, diplomacy, balances of power,
great power management and occasionally war (Bull 1977).

What is valuable about these thoughts or schemes is the analytical tools they serve up. They all provide us with the
premises, tenets and concepts to discuss and analyse IR. We sift through, select and interpret the traditions
inheritance. IR in the recent years has witnessed a historiographical turn reflecting on the aims and methods of
writing history, particular intellectual history or the history of ideas.

Origins and evolution of the discipline

- The years before WWI were relatively peaceful and stable, witnessing marked increases in the number of
multilateral conferences, institutions, and organisations. Significant strides were taken regarding the laws of
war with the Hague Conferences of 1988 and 1907 which seemed to vindicate liberal optimism for
international reform.
- After the war a tide of anti-war sentiment surged, as an instrument of foreign policy war appeared to many to
be ineffective and counterproductive (Angell 1912).
- In the 18th century the initiation of plans for perpetual peace drafted by Abbe Saint Pierre and Immanuel Kant
let thinkers and scholars see that peace might permanently prevail over war in a system of states. However
only after the Great War did a widespread peace movement arise with the intention of eliminating war for all
time.
- It is arguable only in the aftermath of the great war that a new diplomatic and legal order took shape on
contractual international law and multilateralism. War brought in a different kind of peace, one where
permanent international institutions were designed to promote international co-operation and to achieve
peace and security, as expressed in the League of Nations Covenant. This included the establishment of
 League of Nations in 1920, and in accordance with the Leagues Covenant, the Permanent Court of
International Justice at The Hague in 1922.

- This is the general context the discipline of IR was established. It was a period of progressive
institutionalization of liberal-constitutional principles as a reaction to war.
- More than just the study of causes and conditions of war and peace, the study of IR was guide by a purpose:
to develop theories aimed at preventing or eliminating war. It would do so by focusing on states and their
interactions in the states-systems, but also by bringing liberal tenets to bear on the prevailing bellicose
system. Liberals such as Sir Norman Angell and US President Woodrow Wilson believed that a lasting peace
believed that a long lasting peace could only be achieved by overcoming the balance of power and secret
diplomacy. They argued for developing a new diplomatic and legal order around international organisations
based on practices of collective security and open diplomacy (Ashworth 1999; Woodrow Wilson 1918).
- Henry Bull (1972): the system of IR that had given rise to the First World War was capable of being
transformed into a fundamentally more peaceful and just world order that under the impact of the awakening
democracy, the growth of the international mind, the development of the League of Nations, the good works
of peace or the enlightenment spread by their own teachings, it was in fact being transformed.

- Liberal-constitutional values and ideas set agenda for the discipline in the interwar years
- E. H. Carr criticized liberal thinking as a hollow sham. Carr believed utopianism (for hiwhc you can substitute
liberalism) utterly failed to take account of power in its analysis of international relations. His argument
revolves around the dichotomy between realism and liberalism. He created the impression that the newly
established discipline was dominated by a debate between realism and liberalism.

- Since the late 1969s and early 1970s when scholars reflect on the origins and evolution of the discipline, it
became conventional to narrate the disciplines history through recounting of great debates.
- 1960s 1970s came the second great debate as a methodogical quarrel between behaviouralism and
traditionalism. The question being what is the most appropriate way of pursuing and acquiring knowledge in
IR?
- Bull frames as scientific versus classical methods. He identifies two broad criticisms of scientific approach,
which wants to emulate the methods of the natural sciences in its attempts to explain IR.
o First, it cannot live up to its aspirations and must fall back on non-scientific classical methods.
o Second, it is an inappropriate method for studying many of the central issues in IR because even
empirical questions are not susceptible to pure observation, but dependent on intuition or judgment
(Bull 1966) because many questions are in part normative
o Normative statements: to express a value judgment on whether a situation is desirable or not. To state
what things should would could or must be.
- Bull defends classical approach which he contends is interpretive, more historical and better attuned to
normative judgments

- Third great debate Yosef Labit pits positivism against post-positivism

- Mainstream approaches of neorealism and neoliberalism
- Steve Smith in an account of the third debate accuses positivism of restricting our understanding of what
kinds of things [exist] in international relations in IR and narrowly limiting ethical and practical possibilities.

- Realism rose during the Cold War

Changing agendas: theory and practice

The critical turn against the Great Divide

- traditional agenda realism and liberalism tend to accept the terms of the Great Divide and to naturalise the
anarchy problematique. They view domestic and international realms as distinct and mutually exclusive. Both
tend to take the state for granted as a form of political community. Liberalis are more likely to acknowledge the
threat states pose to their own citizens. Liberalism emerged as a critical intervention against the disturbing
concentration of state in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- Liberalism and realism diverge over questions of war and law. Realists see war as inevitable and ineradicable
part of IR. Liberalls accept this description but believe that change is possible. They argue for institutional
change at the level of the state and the international system will release potentials for eradicating or limiting
war.
 - Realists argue for international anarchy can be transformed into international hierarchy where some kind of
global sovereign exercises power and authority. Liberals belive the spread of democracy will result in the
strengthening of international organisations and the rule of international law will mitigate the worst aspects of
anarchy and contribute to the domestication of the global system.

- Critical theories: Marxism, feminism, postmodernism, Critical theory and sometimes constructivism
- Critical theory Robert Cox identified liberalism and realism with probem-solving theory. Problem-solving
theories work within the present limits of the system to smooth over instabilities or problems, they tend to work
in favour of stabilizing prevailing structures of world order and their accompanying inequalities of wealth and
power. Coxs point is that problem solving theories fail to reflect on the prior framework within which they
theorise. They tend to be conservative, notwithstanding their claims to objective or value-free analysis.

- Critical theories premise that theory is always for someone and for some purpose. Its vital to reflect the effect
of social cultural and ideological influence and conditioning.
- Critical theories are constructivist insofar as they take the prevailing structures of the world order to be human
creations sustained through patterned social practices. If they are constructed then they can be transformed
into less violen
- t more just structures of world order.
- Critical theories offer a politically and ethically charged account of international relations one aimed at
expanding human freedom and global justice by radically transforming the prevailing structures of world order.
- Critical theories such as Marxism, critical theory, feminism, constructivism, postmodernism compels us to
reflect on the Great Divide, and believe that a distinction between inside and outside, herarchy and anarchy
is by no means natural or necessary. Rather it is a socially and historically constructed device for organising
political life in a particular way, one that in empowering sovereign states to pursue self-interest through power
politics, disempowers and renders invisible social classes, women and the excluded in general.

- the key question prompted by the critical turn is whether the traditional agenda contains all the necessary
intellectual resources to make sense of the contemporary politics of states, war and law in international
relations. Does the traditional agenda pose al the right questions,, or is it necessary to rethink and re-pose
some of these questions, perhaps by drawing on intellectual resources afforded by the critical turn.
- What is excluded form traditional agenda is everything associated with domestic or low politics everything
that does not fit neatly into the agenda of states, war and law. Issues regarding economics and the
environment morality and religion, and a range of non-state actors from refugees to terrorists from MNCs to
NGOs. Incorporating such issues and actors into the traditional agenda would effectively collapse the Great
Divide it would dissolve IR into world politics. Critical theorists and postmodernists have argued for just this
move and reject the Great Divide. Especially in the context of globalisation it has become more urgent to ask
if it still is adequate to conceive IR as a completely separate realm of politics from domestic politics (Clark
1999).
- If the traditional agenda focuses on the system of states, the new agenda recognises the growing influence of
global or transnational actors, structures and processes.

The necessity of theory

Ontology: the theory of being concerned with what one considers to be the fundamental elements of the world.

Epistemology: the theory of knowing concerned with how we come to know about these fundamental elements.

Kants position: self-creating individuals are the fundamental elements of the social world. He knows this an
seeks to illustrate it by reference to a progressivist history in which rational ad moral capacities of individuals
are increasingly expressed in democratic social forms.
Realists see the world different because their ontological and epistemological positions direct their image of
reality in a different way. Their ontological position has same focus individuals. But they are driven by a lust
for power and relentless pursuit of security. Realiists know this also by reference to history of the anarchical
states-system. Thus epistemologically realists concentrate on states and a history of recurrence and
repetition rather than of developmental change.

Both point to history as the vehicle for their knowledge of reality but are substantially different with different
understandings of international relations and making foreign policy decisions.
 1980s 1990s, a section of IR became increasingly opposed to the proativist approach, critics argued that the
anti-scientific tendencies of positivism ignored some of the most sophisticated dimensions of scientific thinking
since the 1920s. Positivism utilizes empiricist epistemology. Empiricism maintains that only observable facts
should form the basis of real knowledge.
The shift from 17th century Newtonian physics to 20th century quantum physics came the shift from a science
based on observable things to unobservable things sub-atomic particles as the new building blocks of
existence.

- Because our thinking, social behaviour and political judgment is not determined by absolute categories of truth
or reality, we must think ever more seriously about the theorized truths and reality which gives us the political
and ethical foundations on which we live our lives on
- We should consider the strengths and weaknesses of theorized positions we take

Carr
- Under liberal IR was in a pre-scientific phase of its development, whereas under realism it could become
scientifically advanced dealing with reality as it is rather than how idealists assume it ought to be.
- His work indicates what realism and liberalism represent at their best and at their worst
o Realism at best reminds us that the international environment is invariably dangerous and volatile and
that in such an environment the use of violence is sometimes necessary to counter the violent intent
of others that is sometimes rational debate is not enough to deter violent intent. The use of force
should be sanctioned only as a a last resort when national security and/or fundamental values are
threatened; that rules of proportionality be applied; that the safety and rights of non combatants be
strictly observed. It uses power as a means to an ordered and relatively peaceful end not as an
end in itself
o Liberalism at its bet reminds us that even in a world of danger and violent intent there can be realistic
alternatives to force projection as a means of maintaining international order. Liberalism reminds us
that ideas of freedom and democracy, and individual dignity and human rights are not just
abstractions but have real concrete significance in the changes that have shaped the modern world;
inspiring progressive change for many millions of people over the past few centuries, and inspiring
social emancipation in the face of seemingly overwhelming structures of violence and oppression. At
its best it does not ignore the fact of violent conflict but refuses to reduce the human condition to the
perceived dictates of an anarchical system of states, insisting on the power and persuasiveness of
international law and of the humanitarian instinct.

- Since the 1970s the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system and development of unregulated global
marketplace only enhanced the sense that neither realism or liberalism had the capacity to deal with the
changing nature of an international agenda where questions of poverty, justice, human rights were
increasingly perceived as first order issues
- Another critique was realism and liberalism were effectively two sides of the same historical and cultural coin.
So many people, cultures and interest were left out of the orthodox narratives.
- 1980s 1990s emergence of neorealism and neoliberalism as mainstream answers to post-vietnam, post-
Bretton Woods critiques.
o For realism it asserts realist notions about structural imperatives and unchangeable principles of
anarchy, security and fear at the core of modern IR.
o For liberalism It asserted the individualistic free-trade mantras of liberalism as the universalistic basis
for prosperity and peace in a new age of economic globalisation.
o The neos and their similarities have resulted in the narrowness of mainstream agenda.

Conclusion:
- IR cannot be understood independently of the theoretical frameworks which give meaning to the world
- The development of IR as a principle as a discipline has seen the progressive enlargement of the theoretical
imagination as a diverse range of critical theories have challenged mainstream approaches.
- Critical approaches have strengths and weaknesses and deserve respectful attention.

WEEK 2
Learning Outcomes

Begin to recognise and problematise the way you and others talk about global politics

Outline some of the key debates in IR and explain the main reasons why there emerged a
third debate, including what this meant for IR

Describe the importance of concepts such as theory, value neutrality, ethics and
positivism in academic study

Singing our world into existence: International Relations Theory and September 11

Key points
- Raises the ethical issue of subjectivity in theory. There is no such thing as value- free theory or normative
theory. Theory is always shaped by the social, political, and historical context of the theorist. Social forces
influence the sides theorists take in regards to ethical and political questions.
- 1960s: debate between scientists and traditionalists on the nature of academic studies, surrounding the
argument that theory should concentrate on the facts, and sway away from the statements about values.
- Rational story becoming dominant theory. Rational theory treats actors as rationalists, self interested
maximizes of utility. It is not interested in the internal workings such as internal political debates or their
psychology, it is modeled on behaviours that are fixed and pre-given identities and interests. It is not
interested in history or culture or difference, only concerned with the kind of game actors are caught up in.
This method is productive but constricted, and marked by political and technical assumptions.
- Violence in IR only applies to war, not domestic or civil violence which is a big part of international issues.
- Argues to utilize pluralism, and see the discipline open to a variety of issues, subjective and identities rather
than take the agenda of the powerful as the natural and legitimate focus for the discipline.

Reading 2.2 Experiencing the end and afterlives of International Relations/theory

Key points:
- There are signs that old topics of International Relations such as war are being taken up in new ways,
however aspects of traditional IR tend to elevate abstract thinking above quotidian (daily) international
relations. Argues the need for theorists to strive less for their own distinctive analysis and more for
communication with colleagues, ordinary people making todays international relations and policy proponents.
- During the Cold War, the notion of super powers and powerful state was a favourite topic of IR. Given the
demise of the Soviet Union, and the notion that everyday people could have international power and could
successfully resist domination if they got the timing right, the aftermath initiated a lot of new ideas, theorists
and topics, and rearranged methodologies.
- Feminist IR takes seriously the experiences of ordinary people and operates less with grand abstract
constructs like globalisation, militarization, imperialism, capitalism or patriarchy to characterize war. Author
notes it is important for IR to look at the everyday experiences. IR tends to have a longstanding preoccupation
with explaining the causes of war rather than dealing directly with the content fo war.
- Author argues that it is important for IR to expand its horizons and perhaps take up perspectives from the new
feminist IR interest in turning toward rather than away from the continuing experiences of war that affect
people, and turning away from abstraction.
- Author argues for IR to communicate between different theories so that it can continue to build upon each
other.

WEEK 3

Learning Outcomes:

Explain where and how orthodox (mainstream) and critical (non-mainstream) IR differ
 Describe how different scholars understand theory differently. How does theoretical choice impact on our
construction and analysis of a problem in global politics?
Demonstrate how the perspectives of different theories of international relations are reflected in political
decision-making and the representation of global politics in the news and entertainment media

Required Readings:

Zalewski, M. (1996) All These Theories Yet the Bodies Keep Piling Up: Theories, Theorists, Theorising, in
S. Smith, K. Booth, and M. Zalewski (eds.) International Theory: Positivism and Beyond Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 340-354.
Bleiker, R. (1997), Forget IR Theory, Alternatives, 22, 57-85.

Zalewski
Theory vs real world
The three ideas of theory (theory as tool, critique and everyday practice) capture some of the important
differences in ways of thinking about theory and its presumed relationship to the real world
Theory can be and is represented and thought about in rather different ways which, have implications for our
understandings about what is really happening and what we can do about it

The debates regarding theory

Questions the use of theories in international politics if they cannot help us to understand and act upon the
problems that we witness
Theories are apparently far removed from policy constructions and international action.

Theory as a tool
Theory is something that I used by those wishing to make sense of events in international politics
Theory as a tool represents the real world
The purpose of various theories is to answer a set of questions about the international political economy
When envisaging theory as a tool there are significant assumptions with implications for our understanding
and behaviours in international politics
o Separation between theory and theorists - theorists are people with academic positions and
propensity to write about theory and perhaps not an explicit or overt concern with policy making
o There is separation between theory and the real world - criticism of realism
o Value of Enlightenment rationality - it is the faith in and commitment to the Enlightenment rationalist
tradition that most clearly identifies those authors who write about theory

Theory as critique
Theory is assumed to be actively interrelated with the real world and, as a tool is wielded with a different
purpose
For Linklater, critical theory is not just a tool to make sense of the world as it is but to make sense of how the
world go to be as it is with a central aim underlying such an endeavour being that of emancipation
Linklater argues that we can use theory both to understand how those inequities came to exist and as a base
for changing them

Theory as everyday practice

Theory as critique and theory as everyday practice merge into each other at many levels but there are
significant differences between theory as a tool and theory as everyday practice centering around the questions:
what is theory? Who are theorists? And what issues become counted as important enough to theorise about?

Bleiker
Theory - the quest to find out where the idea and underlying principles that influence our life emanated from,
and the desire to reveal how the dilemmas of contemporary world politics are not immutable but part of a
historically constructed system of exclusion
Genealogies focus on the process by which we construct origins and give meaning to our past. They read
multiplicity into history, disturb what was taken as immobile, fragment what was considered unified. Genealogies
focus on revealing subtle systems of subjection, plays of power
 To reach a critical understanding of IR we need to know how we have arbitrarily constructed the present what
and who was left out on the way. We need to scrutinize the stories that have been told about the past, and those
many others that were silenced
Doorkeepers of IR are those who knowingly or unknowingly make sure that the discipline's discursive
boundaries remain intact. Discourses are subtle mechanisms that frame our thinking process. They determine
the limits of what can be thought, talked and written of in a normal and rational way. They create systems of
exclusion that elevate one group of discourses to a hegemonic status while condemning others to exile
Academic disciplines are powerful mechanisms to direct and control the production and diffusion of
discourses. They establish the rules of intellectual exchange and define the methods, techniques, and
instruments that are considered proper for the pursuit of knowledge
Acknowledging and dealing with the political dimensions of concepts is essential in the effort tod efy the door
keeping power of orthodox IR
Consider the concept of power
o Some traditionalist realists view it as "man's control over the minds and actions of other men". In this
view power is the capacity to act; it is something that someone has and others don't
o Others view power as a complex structure of actions that permeate every aspect of ensociety, not
simply a subjugating force, but at least as much an enabling opportunity

WEEK 4

Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate an understanding of the core concepts of realist and neorealist IR, such as
security dilemma, balance of power, anarchy and deterrence'

Distinguish the claims of realists from neorealists and from other approaches to global
politics

Provide a persuasive account of where you think power lies in global politics

Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fifth Edition, Revised, (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, pp. 4-15
SIX PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL REALISM
1. Political reason is based on human nature, and because human nature is universal, there are universal laws
to define them

2. Politics is defined by states interests, and interests are defined in terms of power. Their national interest is to
gain or preserve their power.

3. Interests are what causes conflict, (military conflict), but concept of interest is a universal category. All states
have interests, all states define interests as power, power is universal as well.

4. There is always a connection between morality and political action. Political realism notes the importance of
morality, but morality is confined to prudence doing things wisely. Morality should not get in the way of political
success. The keeping of the state alive is by the standard in which we judge morality.

5. When states say they are acting on moral grounds, they are really just professing their national interests. We
shouldnt confuse general moral principals with the justifications states put forward with their actions.
 6. Politics is a sphere separate from economics, morality, etc. That is why you cant bring in moral judgments, as
moral judgments are just justifications for national interests. Politics is about power. What we are studying when
we study politics, are national interests. They are not determined on morality, economics, international law, we
need to focus on political and material power.

Mearshimer False promise of international institutions

Realists maintain that institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution of power in the world. They are
based on the self interested calculations of the great powers, and they have no independent effect on state
behaviour. Realists therefore believe that institutions are not an important cause of piece
Institutionalists directly challenge this view of institutions, arguing instead that institutions can alter state
preferences and therefore change state behaviour. Institutions can discourage states from calculating self
interest on the basis of how every move affects their relative power positions. Institutions are independent
variables, and they have the capability to move states away from war
Mearshimer believes that institutions have minimal influence on state behaviour and thus hold little promise
for promoting stability in the post cold war world
Institutions are not a form of world government. States themselves must choose to obey the rules they
created. Institutions in short call for the "decentralised cooperation of individual sovereign states, without any
effective mechanism of command"
Realism portrays the international system as a brutal arena where states look for opportunities to take
advantage of each other, and therefore have little reason to trust each other
Cooperation between states has its limits, mainly because it is constrained by the dominating logic of security
competition, which no amount of cooperation can eliminate

Reasons why power lies in states

Anarchy acts as an ordering principle, which conveys how the international system comprises of independent
states but there is no higher ruling body in the international system leaving states to pursue power in their own
national interests
States act to survive. Because there is effectively no international government, and as there are many states
with great potential power, states cannot depend 100% on other states for security. Kenneth Waltz emphasizes
how state operate in a "self help" system. States operating in a self help world should always act according to
their own self interest, because it pays to be selfish in a self help world
States in the international system aims to maximise their relative power positions over other states. The
reason is simple: the greater the military advantage one state has over other states, the more secure it is. Every
state wants to be the formidable military power in the system as it is the best way to guarantee survival. This
creates a strong incentive for states to act out and take advantage of each other. States are both offensively
oriented and defensively oriented. They think about conquest themselves, and they balance against aggressors;
this inexorably leads to a world of constant security competition, with the possibility of war always in the
background
Since states are concerned about the balance of power they must be motivated primarily by relative gains
concerns when considering cooperation. However, each state wants to always maximise its absolute gains.
Concerns about cheating also hinder cooperation. States are often reluctant to enter into cooperative
agreements for fear that the other side will cheat on the agreement and gain a relative advantage

Summary from internet:

This article examines the claim that institutions push states away from war and promote peace. I concentrate on
assessing the major international relations theories that employ institutions as a core concept: liberal institutionalism,
collective security, and critical theory. begin, however, with a brief review of realism, because of the "institutionalist"
theories is largely a response to realism, and each directly challenges realism's underlying logic. Realists and
institutionalists particularly disagree about whether institutions markedly affect the prospects for international stability.
Realists say no; institutionalists say yes. Realists maintain that institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution
of power in the world. They are based on the self-interested calculations of the great powers, and they have no
independent effect on state behavior. Realists therefore believe that institutions are not an important cause of peace.
They matter only on the margins. Institutionalists directly challenge this view of institutions, arguing instead that
institutions can alter state preferences and therefore change state behavior. Institutions can discourage states from
calculating self-interest on the basis of how every move affects their relative power positions. Institutions are
independent variables, and they have the capability to move states away from war.

Although institutionalists are united in their opposition to realist claims about institutions, each institutionalist theory
makes a different argument about how institutions work to alter state behavior. My goal is to evaluate these three
theories to determine whether the claim that institutions cause peace is persuasive. That task involves an- swering
four questions: 1) What are institutions? 2) How do they work to cause peace? Specifically, what is the causal logic
that underpins each theory? 3) Are these different logics that explain how institutions work compelling? 4) Does the
evidence support these theories?

My central conclusion is that institutions have minimal influence on state behavior, and thus hold little promise for
promoting stability in the post-Cold War world. The three theories on which the case for institutions is based are all
flawed. Each has problems in its causal logic, and all three institutionalist theories find little support in the historical
record.

WEEK 6

Learning Outcomes:

Describe some of the debates generated by studies of international organisation in IR

Outline how IRs institutionalists set out to critique what they see as the flaws of
realism/neorealism

Analyse how international behaviour is institutionalised across various regimes

Required Readings:

Keohane, R. O. and Martin, L. L. (1995) The Promise of Institutionalist Theory, International

Security, 20(1), 39-51.

Haggard, S. and Simmons, B. A. (1987) Theories of International Regimes, International

Organization, 41(3), 491-517.

The Promise of Institutionalist Theory

Keohane, R. O. and Martin, L. L. (1995)

Institutionalism and realism differ in a number of other aspects, one of the most significant of which concerns
how they approach social science. Institutionalism seeks to state in advance the conditions under which its
propositions apply
When states can jointly benefit from cooperation we expect governments to attempt to construct such
institutions. Institutions can provide information, reduce transaction costs, make commitments more credible,
establish focal points for coordination, and in general facilitate the operation of reciprocity
Institutions are important independently only in the ordinary sense used in social science: controlling for the
effects of power and interests, it matter whether they exist. They also have an interactive effect, meaning that
their impacts on outcomes varies depending on the nature of power and interests

Political Economy vs Security and the Issue of relative gains

Mearsheimer believes that institutionalist theory is based on "the assumption that international politics can be
divided into two realms - security and political economy - and that liberal institutionalism mainly applies to the
latter
Institutionalist theory should be highly applicable to security issues because its argument revolves around the
role of institutions in providing information. This argument is relatable to realist security arguments, which only
rely on worst case analysis. Realists contend that in an uncertain, anarchic world, states must assume the
worst, particularly about others' intentions, when making policy choices
Relative gains and international cooperation
It is true that when only two states exist and they have perfectly conflicting interests, institutions will not be
significant. However, two issues are more significant:
o The conditions under which relative gains are important
o The role of institutions when distributional issues are significant - that is when relative gains are at
stake
The major lesson on relative gains is that their importance is conditional on factors such as the number of
major actors in the system and whether military advantage favours offense or defence
The successful functioning of institutions depend heavily on the operation of reciprocity, both specific and
diffuse. States using strategies of reciprocity are engaged in exchange with one another and so require
information about the value of their exchanges

Empirical work on the impact of institutions

Institutionalist theory conceptualises institutions both as independent and dependent variables: "institutions
change as a result of human action, and the changes in expectations and process that result can exert profound
effects on state behaviour"
International institutions are created in response to state interests, and that their character is structured by the
prevailing distribution of capabilities. The real empirical issue is how to distinguish the effects of underlying
conditions from those of the institutions themselves
The difference between realism and liberal institutionalism does not lie in whether institutions are independent
or dependent variables: it lies in contrasting understandings of why institutions are created and how they exert
their effects

Conclusion
Mearsheimer's characterisation of conflict in world politics makes institutions appear essential if states are to
have any hope of sustained cooperation, and of reaping its benefits.
In a world politics constrained by state power and divergent interests, and unlikely to experience effective
hierarchical governance, international institutions operating on the basis of reciprocity will be components of any
lasting peace

Theories of international regimes

Haggard, S. and Simmons, B. A. (1987)

Key points
- Article looks at the extent to which international regimes institutionalize international behaviours by
regularizing expectations, but some international institutions such as the balance of power are not bound to
explicit rights and rules. Regimes may facilitate order and stability but are not coterminous with them. For
example regimes may unintentionally contribute to stability such as the chaos produced by the Bretton woods
regime.

- Regime is defined as implicit or explicit principles norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which
actors expectations converge in a given area of international relations. Can also be defined as multilateral
agreements among states, which aim to regulate national actions within an issue-area.

Theoretical approaches to regime change and variance

- Most structural, game-theoretic and functional theories of regimes are state-centered, presuming unified
rational actors.
- Argued that all three approaches (structural, game theoretic and functional) downplay the central insight of
interdependence theorists: foreign policy is integrally related to domestic structures and processes.
- Cognitivists argue that there is no fixed national interest, and no optimal regime.

1. Structuralism: the theory of hegemonic stability.

- Structural explanations particularly including the theory of hegemonic stability attempt to show how
international conditions define the possibilities for cooperation
 - They argue that since power is not wholly fungible under conditions of complex interdependence, linkage
between issue-areas is not likely to be effective. They predict that cooperation will only hold when stronger
states in the issue systems dominate weaker ones and determine the rules of the game. They see
cooperation (hegemony) working under coercive leadership.
- This interpretation casts doubt on cooperation though the benefits might accrue to coerced actors (youre not
really cooperating youre being forced to but youre benefiting from it anyways).
- However it is arguable whether hegemon will necessarily enforce regime compliance, such as how the
European liberalisation had little to do with the pressure from England, rather it was the result of national
policies towards industrialization.

2. Strategic and game-theoretic approaches

- Game theory sees cooperation working under anarchic conditions that lack supranational authority to enforce
compliance. Game theory explains the conditions under which regimes might enable cooperation and stability.
They say far less about whether regimes would actually arise, how they will be institutionalized, and above all,
the rules and norms which will comprise them. Functionalist logic provides a useful supplement.
- Most game theoretic studies of international co-operations and regimes are focused on the Prisoners
Dilemma. PD is attractive since it can produce co-operative behaviour under realist conditions. PD indicates
why institutions deter suboptimal outcomes.

3. Functional theories
- Functional theories explains behaviours or institutions in terms of their effects. The reward of compliance
reinforce the regime. It explains how compliance with regimes tends to persist even when the structural
conditions that initially gave rise to them changes.
- Limitation is that they are better at specifying when regimes will be demanded rather than suggesting how or
when they will be supplied. Regimes may be supplied when there is sufficient demand for the functions they
perform.
- Functional theory shows how actors behaviour were motivated by benefits provided uniquely, or at least more
efficiently through the regime, or by reputational concerns connected to the existence of rules.
- Functionalist theories emphasize how regimes reduce the transaction costs associated with bilateral
contracting. It talks about how multilateral agreements are less expensive than bilateral contracts. The
marginal cost of dealing with additional issues will be lower with a regime.
- Functional theories emphasize how the facilitating role of regimes helps them realise common interests. But
regimes are also arenas for conflict and the exercise of power. Because functional theories assume highly
convergent interests and downplay divergent ones, they do not explore how regimes may institutionalize
inequalities i.e. the interests of powerful states are served rather than weaker ones

4. Cognitive theories:
- Cognitive theories explore what structural, game theoretic and functional approaches bracket
- The core cognitive insight is that cooperation cannot be completely explained without reference to ideology,
the value of actors, the beliefs they hold about the interdependence of issues, and the knowledge available to
them about how they can realise specific goals.
- It has a more dynamic approach compared to the other approaches. The other theories see cooperation
centering on certain issue-areas, the cognitive approach sees that issue-areas are never given or in steady
state. Cognitive looks at why rules evolve. E.g., Don Babai argues that structuralist models are ill-equipped to
explain the types of changes which took place at the World Bank. The evolution of knowledge was believed to
have shaped the banks leading strategies. Interests change as a result of learning. Knowledge and ideology
therefore may then become an important explanation of regime change.

- Author argues further research on how regimes can alter state preferences should focus on domestic decision
making, and how domestic politics determine international cooperation. It argues to bridge domestic and
international politics. Robert Putman argues that cooperation should be viewed as two level games, where
one is looking at how different countries seek to sustain international agreements, the second is to look at how
they can build the domestic political support required to sustain commitments and establish credibility. A key
point is the growing interdependence these days mean that political groups at a domestic level have to have
regime interests.
WEEK 7

Learning outcomes

Provide a general outline of the basic precepts and components of constructivist IR theory

Offer examples of how and where the identities and interests of actors are socially
constructed

Outline and explain what Wendt means by his famous assertion that anarchy is what states
make of it

Required Readings:

Ruggie, J. G. (1998) What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the
Social Constructivist Challenge, International Organizations, 52(4), 855-885.

Wendt, A. (1992) Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power
Politics, International Organization, 46(2), 391-425.

What makes the world hang together? Neo-utilitarianism and the constructivist challenge Ruggie

Key points:
- Paper seeks to analyse social constructivism in international relations. Argues that it is not yet a fully fledged
theory of its own, more of a philosophically and theoretically informed perspective on and approach to the
empirical study of international relations.
- Although social constructivism in IR is strongly influenced by sociology tradition, no corresponding theory
exists for it to simply import.
- Article looks at the limits of neo-utilitarianism
- Constructivism addresses many of the same issues that neo-utilitarianism has addressed, though typically
from a different angle. But it also concerns itself with issues that neoutilitarianism treats by assumption,
discounts, ignores, or simply cannot apprehend within its ontology and/or epistemology.

Intro:
Postwar saw academic aversion to idealism in the United States. However this resulted in the widespread discounting
of, and thus poor grasp on the roles of factors in international life, be they identities, norms, aspirations, ideologies, or
simply ideas about cause-effect relations. Two subsequent developments have reinforced this state of affairs

1) The ascendancy fo neorealism and neoliberal instituionalism in the 1980s and their convergence around neo-
utilitarian precepts and premises.

2) Widespread embracing in the field of a model of social science that in certain epistemological respects have
become almost Newtonian in character

Roots of social constructivism, roots in the sociology of Durkeim and Weber, they resisted the ascending tide of
utilitarianism and methodlocial individualism
- Durkheims position on how ideas come to express a social force helped shape constructivism. However
Durkeim did not actually study the concrete process whereby individual elements including ideas are
transformed to become social facts, instead he inferred them to be forms of social expression and civic
morals.
- Webers study of social science sought to uncover the meaning behind specific actions and their social
significance, as well as the causes of such actions. He explored actual processes whereby certain ideas
became social forces and so he departed from several positivist precepts.

Limitations of neo-utilitariansim
 - Neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism treat the identity and interests of actors and exogenous and given.
Some neorealists claim to derive state interests from the condition of anarchy.
- Neo-utilitarianism provides no answer to the core foundational question: how the constituent actors in
international relations, territorial states came to acquire their current identity and interests that are assumed
to go along with it. Also any change in identity and interests is beyond the scope of the theory.
- Neo-utilitarianism has no analytical means for dealing with generic identities and interests of states qua
states, it also excludes consideration of how specific identities of specific states shape their interests and
there by, patterns of international outcomes
- There is growing empirical evidence that normative factors in addition to states identities shape their interests,
or their behaviour, directly, which neo-utilitarianism does not encompass. Some of these factors are
international in origin, others domestic.

Social constructivism:
- 1990s blossomed a new approach to international relations theorizing known as social constructivism.
- A core concern of constructivism is what happens before utilitarian model kicks in. It problematizes the
identities and interests of states and shows how they have been socially constructed. It concerns itself with
the issues neo-utilitarianism treats by assumption, discounts, ignores, or simply cannot apprehend within its
ontology or epistemology. Both neorealism and neoliberalism make broad assumptions on the origins of state
identities and interests.
- In short, constructivists view international structure to be a social structure

- A major difference between social constructivism and neo-utilitarianism is on the issue of ideation causation,
and how causation is understood.

Paradigmatic (Ir) Reconcilability

- Current encounter between neo-utilitarianism and social constructivism shows the strengths and weaknesses
of each approach. A possible relationship between them should be addressed.
- The strength of neo-utalitarianism lies in its axiomatic structure, which permits a degree of analytical rigor and
in neoliberal institutionalisms case also of theoretical specification, that other approaches cannot match. Its
weakness is its assumptions.
- Author argues for neo-utilitarians to expand their analytical foundation in the direction of greater sociality. E.g.
Keohane exclaims his version of institutionalist theory embeds sociological liberalism. This provides a richer
more robust social context for neoliberal institutionalism. However going too far into the sociology side could
make it too much of a moral evaluation of world politics instead of an analytical framework.
- A certain expansion of neo-utalitarians core is possible, but we should not expect it to carry too far toward a
social ontology. Norms, identities and meaning should be incorporated into the study of IR without disrupting
its analytical rigor.
- E.g. Liberalism can look towards liberty and rights to give a moral evaluation of world politics

- Constructivism incorporates norms, identities and meaning into the study of international relations with
minimum disruption to the fields prevailing epistemological stance, on which opens for analytical rigor
- Constructivism sheds a light on other aspects of international life that are not existent within the neo-utilitarian
study of world polity. It is argued normal science in international relations cannot grasp truly intersubjective
meanings in social collectivities
- Issue with constructivism is it lacks rigor and specification and remains poor at specifying its own scope
conditions, the contexts within which its explanatory features can be expected to take effect.

- Overall, author argues that to gain deeper and more precise of structure and functioning of world polity, neo-
utilitarians should strive to expand their analytical foundations and constructivists should strive for greater
analytical rigor and specification. The two approaches are not additive and are unlikely to merge to a happy
middle ground, but pushing the limits into the direction of the other would enable us to see the possible
relationships e.g. where one subsumes the other, or complements and supplements the other.

Differences between constructivism and neorealism/neoliberalism:

1. Interests and Identity
2. Ideational causation (contrast with neoliberalism and neorealism)
3. Collective intentionality (intersubjective beliefs and ideas).
4. Constitutive rules
5. Transformation (structuration through dimension of time; social practices inscribed in space).
6. The question of agency

Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics
Alexander Wendt

Self help: Realists respond to the anarchic world system by assuming a "self-help" doctrine, believing they can rely on
no one but themselves for security.[12] They believe that in the anarchical system, the basic motive of a states behavior
is survival, which they see in relative terms; holding that the increased security of one state will necessarily lead to a
decrease in security of others. Thus, states are forced to constantly take into account that others might have more
power than them or are planning to gain more power and are so forced to do the same, leading to competition
and balancing. Realists see no reason to believe that states can ever trust each other, and must rely on themselves
(the self-help doctrine) in the anarchic world system.

Summary (from internet)

MAIN POINT:

We should not necessarily treat interests and identity as given. Although Wendt agrees with a statist view, he argues
that an important field of research should treat state interests and identity as the dependent variable. Wendt concedes
that there are those who study how first- and second-image factors affect state identity and interests; he wants us to
study how anarchy affects state identities and interests.

Realism's shortcoming is its failure to do this (although Wendt agrees that realist game theory is entirely appropriate in
situations where we can assume that identities are constant, at least in the short term). Neoliberalism's failure is that it
has sought to explain cooperation by focusing on process, but it has not sufficiently accounted for systemic variables.
Constructivism's failure is that it gets too bogged down in epistemological debates without looking enough at how
identities are formed in practice.

In short, we need a combination of neoliberalism and constructivism that will study how the system affects state
identities and interests.

FROM HANDOUT:

Wendt argues for a constructivist approach to the concept of self-help. He argues that international institutions
(here the institution is self-help) can change state identities and interests.

He argues that the concept of self-help as defined by realists (and mainly by Waltz) originates from the
interaction of the units in the system, and not from anarchy. This conception conflicts with the structural,
deterministic arguments that realists advance in which anarchy is the key explanatory variable that drives
interactions.

Wendt says that states interact with each other and, based on the results of that interaction, can become
characterized by self-help, but this result does not necessarily need to follow. Whatever is observed, self-help
or not, is defined by process, not structure.

Wendt says that neorealism and neoliberalism cannot account for changes in the system, but norms-based
constructivisim can (threats are socially constructed). A major difficulty in this piece is the issue of how states
behave in the first period before they have any priors.

SOME VARIABLES:

This article explores "three ways in which identities and interests are transformed under anarchy [Y]: by the institution
of sovereignty [X1], by an evolution of cooperation [X2], and by intentional efforts to transform egoistic identities into
collective identities [X3]." I gather that Wendt doesn't intend for these three variables to tell us everything that anarchy
does to identity. Instead, he is looking at three different things that can happen under anarchy to affect identity. The
strong implication is that there is more to it, and we need to theorize about it.

Before getting into that, Wendt argues that the system does not create self-help idendities. An anarchic system is only
a permissive cause of such an identity. He suggests one possible sufficient cause of self-help identities. If a predatory
state emerged, it would force other states to respond. But even this depends on the prior identity; if the predatory state
emerges into a system that already has a strong collective security identity, then it would be defeated without changing
the dominant identity. So, think NATO. Realism would predict that, with the Soviet threat gone, the alliance will break
up as states become suspicious of one another. But Wendt would seem to suggest that a collective identity can
continue.

After making all this argument as background (and using up two-thirds of his pages), he then turns to the three
independent variables that can effect a change in state identities and interests under anarchy.

X1: Sovereignty. Sovereignty is a norm, and it has been self-enforcing so far (look what happened to Hitler and
Napoleon when they went against it). It has changed our interests, so that we think we need to defend territorial
boundaries (even when letting a piece of territory go might be better for our security).

X2: Evolution of cooperation: Europe's long experience with cooperation during the cold war may have fundamentally
changed its identity, creating a "European" identity that will persist despite the collapse of the Soviet threat and the
renewed vigor of Germany.

X3: Intentional efforts to egoistic identities into collective identities: Gorbachev, recognizing that the USSR was losing
the security battle, sought instead to proactively change its identity--and the identity of its adversary--into a
cooperative identity. He did this by sending signals that he had changed (e.g. developing weapons that are only useful
for defense) and by treating the West as the it, too, had changed.

My summary:

Introduction
- The debate between realists and liberals are today based on the extent to which state action is influenced by
structure (anarchy and the distribution of power) versus process (interaction and learning) and institutions
- The debate between neorealists and neoliberals have been based on the shared commitment to
rationalism. Rational choice directs us to ask some questions and not others, treating the identities and
interests of agents as exogenously given and focusing on how the behaviour of agents generates outcomes.
Ratonalism offers a fundamentally behavioural conception of both processes and institutions: they change
behaviour but not identities and interests.
- Neorealists and neoliberals also share generally similar assumptions about agents: states are dominant
actors in the system, and they define security in self-interested terms. Neorealists and neoliberals amy
disagree about the extent to which states are motivated by relative versus absolute gains but both groups take
the self-interested state as the starting point for theory.
- A rationalist problematique, which reduces process to dynamics of behavioural interaction among
exogenously constituted actors, defines the scope of systematic theory.

- Social theories seek to explain which identities and interests do exist. Keohane call them reflectivist because
of their focus on social construction of subjectivity. Construtivists share a cognitive, intersubjective conception
of process in which identities and interests are endogenous to interaction rather than a rationalist-behavioural
one in which they are exogenous

Authors argument
- Neorealists believe anarchies are necessarily self-help systems, systems in which both central authority and
collective security are absent. States failing to confirm to the logic of self help will be driven out of the system.
- The article seeks to build a bridge between the two traditions (and by extension, between realist-liberal and
rationalist-reflectivist debates) by developing a constructivist argument on behalf of the liberal claim that
international institutions can transform state identities and interests. It talks about how constructivism might
contribute significantly to the strong liberal interest in identity and interest-formation and thereby perhaps
itself be enriched with liberal insights about learning and cognition which it had neglected
 - It seeks to build this bridge by arguing against the neorealist claim that self-help is given by anarchic structure
exogenously to process. Constructivists have not done a good job of taking the casual powers of anarchy
seriously. This is unfortunate as in the realist view, anarchy justifies disinterest in the institutional
transformation of identities and interests and thus building systemic theories in exclusively rationalist terms.
- Author argues that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or casually from anarchy and that
if today we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process not structure. There is no logic of
anarchy apart from the practices that create and instantiate one structure of identities and interests over
another; structure has no existence or casual powers apart from process. Self help and power politics are
institutions, not essential features of anarchy. Anarchy is what states make of it.

Anarchy and the social construction of power politics

- Self help is not a constituitive feature of anarchy, it msut emerge casually from processes in which anarchy
plays only a permissive role. This reflects a second principle of constructivism: that the meanings in terms of
which action is organized arise out of interaction.
- Conceptions of self and interest tend to mirror the practices of significant others over time. Self is a reflection
of an actors socialization.
- Self-help security systems evolve from cycles of interaction in which each party acts in a way that the other
feels are threatening to the self, creating expectations that the other is not to be trusted. Competitive or
egoistic identities are caused by such insecurity if the other is threatening, the self is forced to mirror such
behaviour in its conception of the selfs relationship to the other. This identity and interest formation applies to
competitive and cooperative institutions.
- If states find themselves in a self-help system, it is because their practices made it that way. Changing the
practices will change the intersubjective knowledge that constitutes the system.
- Identities and meaning are constituted by collective means that are always in process. they are ongoing
effects of, not exogenous to, interactions, these identities are created through situated activity.

Predator states and anarchy as permissive cause

- The mirror theory of identity-formation is a crude account of how the process of creating identities and
interests might work, but it does not tell us why a system of states would end up self-regarding and not
collective identities
- Author argues the structure of identities and interests plays in mediating anarchys explanatory role
- The predatory argument says that some reason biological, domestic politics, or systemic victimization, some
states become predisposed towards aggression. This is a powerful argument because instead of making the
strong assumption that all states are inherently power-seeking, it assumes that just one is power-seeking and
that the others have to follow suit because anarchy permits the one to exploit it
- In an anarchy of two, if ego is predatory, alter must either define its security in self-help terms or pay the price.
The effect of predation depends on the level of collective identity already attained by the system. If predation
occurs right after the first encounter in the state of nature, it will force others with to defend themselves, first
individually then collectively if they come to perceive a common threat. If collective security identity is high, the
emergence of a predator may do much less damage. If the predator attacks a member of the collective, then it
will not be strong enough to stand against the collective and will be defeated and collective security will obtain.
The timing of the emergence of a predation relative to the history of a identity-formation in the community is
therefore crucial to anarchys explanatory role as a permissive cause. Predation will always lead victims to
defend themselves, but whether defence will be collective not will depend on the history of interaction within
the potential collective and the ambitions of the predator. Will the disappearance of the Soviet threat renew old
insecurities among the members of NATO? Perhaps, but not if they have reasons independent of that threat
for identifying their security with one another.
- The role of predation in generating a self-help system is consistent with a systematic focus on process. Even if
the source of predation is entirely exogenous to the system, its what the states do that determines the quality
of their interactions under anarchy. This raises the point of how the role of domestic politics play in world
politics. The greater and more destructive this role, the more significant predation will be, and the less
amendable anarchy will be to formation of collective identities.
- Author argues for realists to revisit their conception of self-help and treating it as something separate from the
practices by which it is produced and sustained. It must be understood that competitive power politics help
create the very problem or order, and this competitive identity and interest is created by the everyday process
of social will formation. It is what states have made of themselves.

Conclusion
 - All theories of international relations are based on social theories of the relationship between agency, process
and social structure. Social theories do not determine the content of our international theorizing, but they do
structure the questions we ask about world politics and our approaches to answering those questions. There
are debates about what kind of foundations social theory offers to set the appropriate questions and research
strategies for explaining the revolutionary changes that seem to be occurring in the last twentieth century of
international system. Simply put, how should they conceptualise the relationship between structure and
process, should they be basing it on identities and interests that are exogenously given by structure and
process is reduced to interactions within those parameters? Or should they based on sociological and social
psychological analogies in which identities and interests and therefore the meaning of structure are
endogenous to the process? Should behavioural-individualism or a cognitive-constructivism be the basis for
systematic theories of global politics?
- There are two key questions to answer this
- 1) The answer depends in part on how important interaction among states is for the constitution of their
identities and interests. On the one hand it maybe that domestic or genetic factors are much more important
determinants of states identities and interests than are systematic factors. To the extent that this is true
individualism of rationalist approach and the inherent privileging of structure over process in this approach
may be more appropriate for system theory since identities and interests are in fact exogenous to interaction
among states. On the other hand if the importance of the international system varies historically then such a
framework would not be appropriate
- 2) The answer to the question about what systemic theories should look like also depends on how easily state
identities and interest scan change as a result of systemic interaction. Even if interaction is initially important in
constructing identities and interests, once institutionalized its logic may make transformation extremely
difficult. It may be then more appropriate to adopt the rationalist assumption that identities and interests are
given (although again this may vary historically)
- By arguing that we cannot derive a self-help and interest from the principle of anarchy alone by arguing that
anarchy is what states make of it this article has challenged one important justification for ignoring
processes of identity and interest-formation in world politics.
- I have argued that the proponents of strong liberalism and constructivists can and should join forces in
contributing to a process-oriented international theory. Each group has characteristic weaknesses that are
complemented by the others strengths. The weakness of neoliberalism is their unwillingness to transcend the
assumption that identities and interests are exogenously given. The weakness of constructivism is there has
not been enough effort put into the casual and empirical questions of how identities and interests are
produced by practice in anarchic conditions. As a result they have not taken on board neoliberal insights into
learning and social cognition.

WEEK 8 Gender makes the world go round

1. Summarise the challenges that feminist approaches post to traditional approaches in IR
2. Explain what it means to take gender seriously in global politics
3. Describe how gender scholars problematise key concepts in IR, such as masculinity, femininity, war, peace,
human rights and development.

Sylvester
Bull and Watson, 1986: realist case; international society of sovereign states through which order is maintained and
justice struggled over in world politics
Waltz: beyond classical realist theory; systemic ordering principle of anarchy in international relations; rationality and
self-help. Move away from classical realism; scorn for the agency-oriented thinking of early Idealism.
In contrast, Enloe 1989: give up thinking about international relations consisted of peopleless states, abstract
societies, static ordering principles. Begin looking for the man people, places, and activities of everyday international
politics.
Elshtain in Women and War (1987): Her insistence on sighting women within and around war, initially did not earn
much attention, but later had received so many citations in IR literature that it could be considered part of the canon.
British IR, the decade of the 1980s three paradigms were sighted as competitor streams of thinking: 1.
Realism/neorealism; 2. Globalism/pluralism, and 3. Neo-marxism/structuralism (i.e. critical theory)
Middle to late 1980s, starting from Susan Strange (although she did not engage in feminist research at all), female
scholars started adding feminist voices to the British critical theory tradition. E.g. Sandra Whitworth (1994) through her
study of gender issues in international organisations.
Today the feminist IR tradition flourishes in the UK among British and transplanted scholars/
Ferguson and Mansbach 1991: cease endless debating aimed at determining a winnings side, venture beyond our
fields familiar boundaries and tolerate the effrontery of others messing about in our intellectual territory
During the destabilising decade of the 1980s, feminists began individual and collective journeys of self-aware identity
and compensatory research.
 - 1960s; contemporary international womens movement laid the groundwork.
- By the 1980s; feminists were numerous and confident enough to have womens studies programs in place,
women and politics specialists on staff, and a stable of writings to consult and the internal debates to
display (Sylvester, 1994a) Conferences and workshops introduced feminisms to mainstream IR audiences in
London, Los Angeles and Boston.
- By 1990s; Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) section of the International Studies Association,
followed by a similar section in the British Interenational Studies Association.
These organisations gave feminist scholars social and political visibility in the field where Ann Tickner has referred to
white men in ties. (Tickner 1992; Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global
Security)

Elshtain, Enloe and Ticker; the trio who carried the intellectual and enduring importance to feminist IR. Most
feminist IR writings of 1980-1993 made contributions through articles, book chapters, edited volumes or books
focusing on somewhat narrower phenomena in the field than Elshtain, Enloe and Ticker addressed.
Elshtains Women and War: took up the core IR topic of war whilst also discussing the dubious claims of IR
knowledge.
Tickner 1992 Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security: also worked at
the core to consider issues of security within a reappraisal of the realist tradition.
Enloe Bananas, Beaches and Bases: became the great sighter of women in unexplored realms of the international
and its relations.
Sylvester, 1994, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Post Modern Era: drew attention to some of the
modifications of IR theory that would arise if field dealt with excluded dynamics, such as decision making in feminist
peace camps and processes of international political economy around Zimbabwean cooperatives.
Reactions to this first major wave of feminist IR: Some scholars including Keohane showed immediate interest.
However, sympathisers rarely have adjusted their models or modes of approaching international relations to reflect
lessons learned from feminist thinking. Citations often bunch feminists like daisies in a bouquet. Does not receive
proper credit for its ideas.
Tickner (1997) argues: difficult relationship between feminist vs conventional IR, based on differences in
power. Feminists tend to see aspects of sociality positive or negative in their outcomes for women and other groups
in the international system; also prefer ethnographic approaches over hypothesis testing. Almost all feminists who
write about international relations use gender in a social constructivist sense.
Gender analysis perceives men and women equally as decision makers, culture objects/viewers/shapers,
participants in transnational movements, citizens, and so on.
Sylvester and Keohane having disagreement on feminists participation on neoliberal institutionalism (Sylvester,
1994a)
IR systematically excluding the theoretical and practical concerns that feminist theory raises to visibility.
A new international relations tradition is needed to accommodate and theorize people, places, authorities, and
activities that IR does not sight or cite. IR should answer feminist questions about gender, sexuality, bodies, travel,
difference, identity, voice, subjectivity, and patriarchy.
Tickner (1988) also pointed that American rational choice research is not especially gender sensitive either. IRs
preoccupations with rationality decidedly masculinist.
ANU, the only field-specific department in the country, became devoted in the late 1990s to research on the Asia-
Pacific region; thereafter gave only passing attention to feminist IR
Sight gender and women, site newly noticed subjects within international relations, feminism, and/or IR and cite the
feminists doing international relations
Enloe (1989) claims that the personal is international in that to make sense of international politics we also have to
read power backwards and forwards. Further, she states We should read the power of ideas back to those who
personally inspire us and forwards to the ways that inspirational writings have powerfully spawned new
aspects of personal biography and scholarship.
Make stories behind feminist IR/IR feminism visible, facilitate the readers travel with one researcher who remembers
the company of others while devising her own research program.
From 1970s, a number of feminist theorists began to challenge male-dominating field of the International Relations,
and have formed one of the most sustaining groups in the discipline.

Enloe: Bananas, Beaches and Bases

Making feminist sense of international politics requires that you exercise genuine curiosity about each of these
womens lives and the lives of women you have yet to think about. And that curiosity will have to fuel energetic
detective work, careful digging into the complex experiences and ideas of womens lives behind the scene; have
usually been dismissed by conventional foreign affairs experts as merely private, domestic, local or trivial.
Feminist researchers pay attention to women as clerical workers when, allegedly, it is elite men who determine the
fates of nations. For instance, devoting attention to women who are government secretaries, exposes the far-reaching
political consequences of feminised loyalty/secrecy/record-keeping/routine, and masculinised status/control.
A feminist-informed investigation makes it clear that there are far more women engaged in international politics than
the conventional headlines imply. Millions of women are international actors, and most of their names are yet to be
known.
One has to become interested in the actual lives and thoughts of complicatedly diverse women. Feminist
attentiveness to all sorts of women is not derived from hero worship. The motivation to take all womens lives seriously
lies deeper than admiration.
Provides illustrative examples to demonstrate that ALL are dancing an intricate international minute; Once again, the
personal is international.
It is crucial to this feminist-informed investigation into unequal international relations that we do not create a false (and
lazy) dichotomy between the allegedly mindless victim and empowered actor.

Conducting a feminist gender analysis requires investigating power: what forms does power take? Who wields it? How
are some gendered wieldings of power camouflaged so they do not even look like power? Genderings of power
Power, taste, attraction and desire are not mutually exclusive.
If one fails to pay close attention to women all sorts of women one will miss who wields power and for what ends.
Those with access to political power use that power to control marriage because marital relationships between people
of the same or opposite sex affect transnational immigrations and access to the privileges of state-bestowed
citizenship. Marriage is political. Marriage is international.
Where women are in todays international politics reveal how much more political power is operating than most non-
gender-curious commentators would have us believe.
It is not incidental that the majority of the people invited to serve as expert foreign affairs commentators are male.
White men constitute 31% of todays total US population, they made up 62% of all the expert guests on the three most
influential American evening cable news channels.
They fail to question how many types of power, and how many wieldings and wielders of power, they miss.
If women internalise the socially feminised expectations as a mother, wife and daughter, they will not see the politics
behind them, thus the power operates as if there were no power at work at all. That is dangerous.
Womens collective resistance to any one of these feminised expectations can realign both local and international
systems of power. Every effort of women which upset the gendered norms and roles on which the current global
system rely on exposes where power operates to sustain the gendered status quo, as well as who benefits from that
current gendered status quo.
Thus, if one is interested in gaining a reliable sense of national and international politics, one should be curious about
all sorts of womens resistance, whether or not that resistance succeeds.
Asking how something has been made implies that it has been made by someone with a certain kind of power. A
feminist, gender-curious approach to international politics offers a lot more topics to investigate because it makes
visible the full workings of myriad forms of power.
The distinguishing features of recent transnational womens movements are: loosely organised, social-media-
energised, internet savvy, feminist creativity, and convention-defying public performance, challenging the conventional
workings of international politics today.
The activities and outcomes of transnational feminist organisations are underestimated and not broadcasted as they
are depicted to be representing only a special interest whereas the international expert claims he is interested in the
Big Picture.
A second rationale for neglecting the ideas and actions of these global womens groups: the arenas of politics that
these feminist activists expose are presumably merely domestic or private, as opposed to, the allegedly significant
public arenas of military security or government debt. rooted in narrow understanding of security, stability, crisis and
development.
They erase womens unpaid and underpaid labour, womens rights within marriage, the denial of girls education,
womens reproductive health, and sexualised and other forms of male violence against women, as well as the
masculinisation of militaries, police forces, and political parties.
It is widely accepted that challenging entrenched masculinised privileges and practices in todays international affairs I
hopeless, therefore nave, therefore not worthy of serious attention.
Deny the significance and analytical value of transnational feminist organising re the very stuff of international politics
which is a political phenomenon that needs to be taken seriously.
Who reaps rewards when womens experiences of these international affairs war, marriage, trade, ravel, revolution,
and plantation and factory work are belittled? Rewards are political.
Women have become skilled bloggers, users of Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Facebook to break through the
masculinity-privileging walls of mainstream, established media to make visible womens political issues, womens
critical analyses, and womens political activism
Women involved in the media politics were aware of women in other countries doing the same; they read and
distributed each others publications, visited each others bookstores, and traded encouragement and practical advice
across national boundaries.
What we miss: Two brief case studies
First case: the transatlantic antislavery movement. It is easy to portray the antislavery movement of the early and
mid-1800s as an all-male movement. The slave trade was a globalized business. Whilst the American male antislavery
activists who continue to be publicly celebrated, thanks only to the work of African American feminist historians have
the political contributions of abolitionist Sojourner Truth been recognised. There were lesser-known British and
American women antislavery activists, women who created mass movements in the early and mid-1800s. These black
and white women activists also overcame their lack of voting rights, their exclusion from the halls of governments, and
the obstacles to travel and communication to create an effective transatlantic alliance, one of the worlds first
transnational womens movements.
Second case: the international Arms Trade Treaty. After 8 years of global discussion, member states of the United
Nations General Assembly adopted the worlds first-ever international Arms Trade Treaty.
Transnational feminist success has not been acknowledged in its thirteen pages of formal diplomatic language. Under
article 7, paragraph 4, the inclusion of gender-biased violence was the achievement of transnational
movement of feminist groups such as: the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, Womens
Network, and Global Action to Prevent War and Armed Conflict. The section officially made gender-based violence a
binding criterion in each exporting governments assessment process.
While most of the non-feminist-informed activists focused their attention on export and import figures, patterns of
armed conflict and gun-exporting governments and their weapons manufacturers complicity, women activists looked
deeper into the gendered dynamics of guns, both gun violences causes and its consequences. Listening to womens
diverse experiences of living with guns in their communities and their homes, they painted a Big Picture: the massive
international exports of guns sustained gender-based violence as a pillar of international and national patriarchy.
If one does not ask, Where were the women? one will also miss the innovative feminist thinking that causally linked
international gun political economies to the political economies of sexualised wartime violence, domestic violence, and
the processes of intimidation that severely limit womens economic and political participation.
In a patriarchal society a society whose relationships and inequalities are shaped by the privileging of particular
masculinities and by womens subordination to and dependence on men anything that is feminised can be
disparaged. This masculinised wielding of femininity happens not only on the playground and in local elections but
also in international nuclear politics.
Those why are trying to persuade women to become informed about international matters are not inviting women to
reinterpret international politics by drawing on their own experiences as women. These persuaders are not curious
about what paying close attention to womens complex experiences could contribute to an understanding of
international politics. Women are usually portrayed as the objects, even victims of the international political system.
Rarely are women seen as the explainers or the re-shapers of the world. Rarely are they made visible as thinker and
actors.
Policy makers try to hide and deny their reliance on women as feminised workers, as respectable and loyal wives, as
civilizing influences and female workers in the industry, spending consumers and tourists. If we can expose their
dependence on feminising women, we can show that this world is also dependent on artificial notions of masculinity.
WEEK 10: Money makes the World Go Round
Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate understanding of the nature and context of global economic development in the twentieth
century and beyond

Explain what is meant by the assertion that theory is always for someone and for some purpose. What kind
of picture of global politics do critical scholars seek to build?

Describe how development is a contested concept in and beyond IR

Required Readings:

Cox, R. W. (1981) Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations
Theory, Millennium, 10(2), 126-155.

Cammack, P. (2012) 'The G20, the Crisis, and the Rise of Global Developmental Liberalism, Third World
Quarterly, 33(1), 1-16.

Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory
Robert Cox

The study of International Political Economy attempts to understand the complex

interactions of political and economic factors and the outcome of such interaction in
shaping state relations in the international field. It is the objective of IPE to analyse the
international system by considering the ways that economic factors and shape political
factors and vice versa[1].

Cox contends that any prognosis on the international system must consider the social and
historical construction of both agents and structures that underlie economic and political
interaction. The state alone could not be the only relevant actor in determining the
material realty of theworld order. Socially constructed structures, although not physically
existing but accorded credence of reality, remain as important in understanding the
existing order[2].

Cox, therefore, presents Critical Theory and differentiates it from problem solving theory.
He highlighted the inadequacy of employing problem solving theory in assessing the world
order by remarking that Theory is always for someone and for some purpose[3]. To him,
theories have their own outlook on the set issues to which they are applied. The
formulation of a problem solving theory is qualified by set time and space. Inherent in a
problem solving theory is the existing structure and agential setting. Thus theory in itself
is influenced by the present order and has to operate within the confines of the prevailing
order of things so as to achieve the intended objective.

In effective, problem solving theory is limited in its ability to result in changes within the
existing socio-political order. Cox offers critical theory as the best approach to
investigating and changing the world order rejecting realism and neo-realism as problem
solving theories. He argued that these theories assume a constant nature of international
system, in order to further their interests. According to Cox, the idea of structural change
becomes impossible thorough the lenses of such problem-solving theories and they
actually contribute in maintaining the status-quo of power relations, taking with them their
inherent inequalities, within the features identified as constant[4].

And so for Cox, critical international theory provides a social theory of the state and
allows for proper questioning of the traditional assumption concerning the role of states
and world order and allows a critical analysis of the forces that actually shapes the world
order[5]. It does not take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls
them into question by concerning itself with their origins and whether they might be in the
process of changing[6].

But if one were to be critical of Coxs Critical Theory, then perhaps one could ask the
following questions:

How far down must the line of origin(s) extent?

Would a choice of any particular point on the line of origin be ever free from the
prevailing order at the time; ever be free from time and space?

I will leave these questions to be explored another time but I believe that any attempt to
answer these questions would highlight the problem-solving nature of Critical theory itself.
Otherwise Critical theory will be critical of everything and nothing; it will be self-
consumed.

On Hegemony, Cox pushed the idea that the State, at any given point in time, must be
viewed as a distinctive form of political community with its own particular functions, roles
and responsibilities that are socially and historically determined[7]. Cox therefore
presents the neo-Gramscian approach by arguing that the state plays an intermediate
though autonomous role between social forces shaped by production and a world order
which embodies a particular configuration of power determined by the states-system and
the world economy[8].

The approach has two assumptions on the state. First, that social relations form the basis
of World order thus changes in the relationship between capital and labour ultimately
determines changes in military and geo-political balances. Second, that states just like
any other institution are products of history.

He asserts that the state is merely reflects hegemonic social order. Therefore, to
understand the world order is to critically question the institutions and social and power
relations; allowing for questions bordering on civil society (i.e. ethics and morality) in
analysing the world so as to improve the lot of humanity in social equity[9]. This he
believes should be the aim of IR.

In summary, Coxs critical international theory suggests a social approach in analysing the
world order. Being influenced by Vico, Gramsci and Braudel, Cox pushed historicist mode
of understanding world order as an alternative tradition to positivist social science.

For Cox this was the proper route towards the study of historical structures and structural
change[10]. Perhaps the core of his theory is captured in his take on Hegemony that
hegemony might appear to most actors as the natural order but actually Hegemony is a
structure of values and understandings about the nature of order that permeates a whole
system of states and non-state entities[11]. Coxs Critical Theory captures the dynamism
of society, institutions including states and the relations between production and
institutions, allowing for a post-positivist approach to changing the world order.
My notes:

Introduction:
The essay is about looking at the problem of world order in the whole, but beware of reifying a world problem. Beware
of underrating state power, but I addition give proper attention to social forces and processes and see how they relate
to the development of states and world orders. Above all, do not base theory on theory bur rather on changing practice
and empirical-historical study, which are proving ground for concepts and hypotheses.

On perspectives and purposes

- Theory is always for someone and for some purpose
- All theories have a perspective. Perspectives derive from a position in time and space, specifically social and
political time and space.
 - There is no such thing as theory in itself, divorced fro ma standpoint in time and space. When any theory so
represents itself, it is the more important to examine it as an ideology, and lay bare its concealed perspective
- Theory can serve two distinct purposes. Each gives rise to a different kind of theory.
- 1) Problem solving theory:
o To be a guide to help solve problems posed within the terms of the particular perspective. It takes the
world as it finds it, with prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions in which they are
organized, as the given framework for action.
o The general aim of problem-solving is to make these relationships and institutions work smoothly by
dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble.
o The general pattern of institutions and relationships are not called in question.
o The strength is its ability to fix limits or parameters to a problem area and to reduce the statement of a
particular problem to a limited number of variables which allow relatively close and precise
examination.
o Leads to further analytical sub-division and limitation of the issue to be dealt with
o Non historical
o The strength of problem solving theory lies on a false premise since the social and political order is
not fixed but is changing. Assumption of fiximity is not merely convenience of method, but also an
ideological bias.

- 2) Critical theory:
o More reflective on the process of theorizing itself, and its relation to other perspectives, and to open
up the possibility of choosing a different valid perspectives from which the problematic becomes one
of creating an alternative world. Its principal objective is to clarify a range of possible alternatives. It
rejects the permanency of the existing order.
o Critical theory unlike problem solving theory does not take institutions and social and power relations
for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how and whether
they might be in the process of changing.
o Leads to the construction of a larger picture of the whole of which the initially contemplated part is just
one component, and seeks to understand the process of change in which parts and whole are
involved.
o Concerned with the continuing process of historical change.
o Argues problem-solving theory can be represented in the broader perspective of critical theory.

- During the Cold War, IR was focused on the problems of managing the enduring releationship between the
superpowers. However a condition of uncertainty in power relations beckons to critical theory as people seek
to understand the opportunities and risks of change. The fluidity of power relations in the 1970s opened the
opportunity for a new development of critical theory directed to the problems of world order.
- The central argument in this essay is that to understand the possible future world orders, we should broaden
our enquiry beyond conventional international relations and encompass basic processes at work in the
development of social force and forms of state, and in the structure of global political economy.

Historical materialism
- One important strand of Marxism which reasons historically and seeks to explain as well as to promote
changes in social relations. This is called historical materialism, nad is a foremost source of critical theory and
it corrects neo-realism.
- Historical materialism examines the connections between power in production, power in state and power in
international relations. Neo-realism by contrast ignores the production process. This is the problem-solving
bias of neo-realism distinguished from the critical approach of historical materialism. Neo-realism takes the
production process and power relations inherit in it as a given element of national interest and therefore as
part of its parameters.
- Historical materialism is sensitive to the dialectical possibilities of change in the sphere of production which
could affect other spheres, such as those of the state and world order.

Some basic premises for critical theory:

1. An awareness that action is never absolutely free but takes place within a framework for action, which
constitutes its problematic. Critical theory would start with this framework, which means starting a historical
enquiry.
2. It knows that the task of theorising can never be finished in an enclosed system but must continuously be
begun anew
 3. Framework has the form of a historical structure. Structure does not determine peoples actions in any
mechanical sense but constitute the context of habits, pressures, expectations and constraints within which
action takes place.
4. Does not look at problem from the top in terms of requisites, but from the bottom or from outside the terms of
the conflicts which arise within it and open the possibility of its transformation.

Neo-realism
- Reduces the structure of world order to the balance of power, dismisses social forces are irrelevant and is not
much concerned with differentiating forms of state and tends to place a low value on the normative and
institutional aspects of world order
- One effort to broaden the realist perspective to include variations in the authority f international norms and
institutions is the theory of hegemonic stability
- In this alternate approach, state power ceases to be the sole explanatory factor and becomes part of which is
to be explained. For example, a major difficulty in the realist version is to explain the failure of the US to
establish a stable world order in the inter-war period despite its preponderance of power. If dominance is not
enough then it is worth looking into what is meant by stability and more broadly at what may be its sufficient
conditions. Dominance of a powerful state may be a necessary but not sufficient condition of hegemony.

Social forces, state structures, and future world order prospects

- The social forces generated by changing production processes are the starting point for thinking about
possible futures. These forces may combine to exercise three different outcomes as to the future of state
system.
- 1) Prospect for a new hegemony being based upon the global structure of social power generated by
internationalising of production. This would require the consolidation of two presently powerful and related
tendences: the continuing dominance of international over national capital with the major countries, and
continuing internationalisation of the state. The interstate power configuration could maintain word order.
- 2) Non-hegemonic world structure of conflicting power centres. Countries may opt out of arrangements
designed to promote international capital and to organise their own powe rand welfare on a national or sphere
influence basis.
- 3) Development of counter0hegemony based on a Third World coalition against core country dominance and
aiming towards the autonomous development of peripheral countries and the termination of the core-
peripheral relationship.

The G20, the Crisis, and the Rise of Global Developmental Liberalism

Authors arguments:
- The emergence of the G20 leaders meeting during the recent GFC as the premier forum for international
economic cooperation reflects a significant shift of hegemony over global governance towards emerging
economies. This alters both power balances and levels of economic integration in the international system.
- Broadly neoliberal policy commitments are now espoused by the leading emerging economies rather than
imposed upon them.
- The GFC and collapse of the Lehman Brothers, unleashing the regulatory issues of the G7, has now
undermined the hegemony of the US and the G7, giving rise to the prominence of emerging economies over
the direction of global economic governance.
- Author argues international financial institutions should prioritise the needs of the emerging economies over
those of advanced economies. Policies should be based on the leadership and interests of emerging
economies in order for the global economy to move forward.
- Advanced economies should be looking towards emerging economies as solutions to their continued
economic struggles given the strong performance of these emerging economies during the GFC. Their
economies have fared better, their financial systems have merged relatively unscathed, and their markets and
financial resources have kept the global economy afloat.

WEEK 11: THEORISING BEYOND THE ISMS

Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate an understanding of mid-level theorising and how it differs from the IR 'isms'
 Evaluate the applicability of emotions and visuality to theorising the international

Identify examples of theory beyond the 'isms' and critically analyse their contribution to
international theorising

Required readings

Hutchinson, E. and Bleiker, R. (2014) Theorising Emotions in World Politics

Lake, D. A. (2013) Theory is Dead, Long Live Theory: The End of the Great Debates and the Rise of
Eclecticism in International Relations

Theorising Emotions in World Politics

Hutchinson, E. and Bleiker

Authors argument
- Emotions play an increasing important role in international relations research. Emotions permeate world
politics in complex and interwoven ways and also once taken seriously, challenge many entrenched
assumptions of international relations scholarship. The key challenge is to theorize the processes through
which individual emotions become collective and political.
- A growing number of international relations schoalrs now see emotions as an intrinsic part of the social realm
and thus also of world politics. The article seeks to summarize existing research on emotions and world
politics, then carve a path forward
- Links between private and collective emotions can be best identified and examined by exploring insights from
two seemingly contradictory scholarly tendencies
o 1) macro theoretical approach that develop generalizable propositions about political emotions. The
macro risk of homogenizing emotions are met head on by micro studies.
o 2) micro approaches that investigate how specific emotions function in specific circumstances, such
as different meanings in different cultural contexts.
- This article utilises the micro-macro framework two approaches that are often seen as incompatible, to try to
find a middle ground as combining them offers ideal opportunities to address key challenges in emotion
research.

Macro micro approaches

- Macro approach devise general theories of how emotions matter in world politics, micro focuses on how
specific emotions gain resonance in particular political circumstances. Both agree that emotions are more
than just individual and private phenomena and as such require wider political theorization.
- Macro can be how emotions and reason or the manner in which this relationship influences political issues
from nationalist attitudes and state behaviour to identity, sovereignty and power.
- Micro looks at how specific emotions become socially and politically significant. Examples include emotions
associated with humiliation and dishonour constitute communities or generate antagonistic political practices.
Others investigate how the emotional dimensions of trauma and memory shape the constitution of modern
statehood, or how emotions associated with trust, friendship and honour (or by contrast anxiety, suspicion and
anger) influence diplomatic negotiations, alliances, and defense policies. Others again study the emotional
foundations of ethnic conflict, humanitarian intervention, development and political economy.
- Macro/micro framework should enable us to theorize the process that turn individual emotions collective,
social, pubic and thus, political.

Emotions
- Our feelings are structured within particular social and cultural environments. Some scholars argue that
emotions are cultural products reproduced by individuals through embodied experience. Emotions always
have a history. How we feel in response to particular political events depends o how society suggests we feel.
The cultural context renders such emotions meaningful and acceptable, be it anger, fear, trust or empathy.
- Fierke illustrates issues such as political self-sacrifice, suicide terrorism, or civil disobedience. She shows how
dying or injured bodies evoke certain emotions and how these emotions in turn become political by reaching
and relating to various audiences.

Representation
- There are countless ways in which representations link individual and collective emotions. Consider how
televised depictions of a terrorist attack set in place socially embedded emotional processes that shape not
 only direct survivors but also larger community of people. Representations can occur through images and
narratives, by word of mouth, via old and new media sources, through the countless stories that societies tell
about themselves and others. Scholars should investigate how identities are being constituted through
narratives, images and other representations.

Conclusion
- Politicians intuitively know how to tap into the emotions of their electorates. Fear drives and surrounds war,
terrorism and the construction of strategy and security. Diplomatic negotiations could not be pursued without a
basic level of trust. Empathy is central to successful peace building processes. The list is endless. Emotions
are taken for granted in theories such as liberalism and realism. They were seen as phenomena that rational
policy makers deal with or react against. It is only in the last decade that emotions have come to be seen as
significant, at times crucial, forces in world politics.
- The link between emotion and power is an important topic, and is different to how power is theorized in
international relations. It has neither hard or soft, neither imposed by military force no coerced through
economic pressure or diplomatic initiatives. Emotional power works discursively, diffused through norms,
moral values, and other assumptions that stipulate often inaudibly how individuals and communities ought
to feel and what kind of ensuing behaviour is appropriate and legitimate in certain situations
- An appreciation of the links between emotions and power highlights that even if they are individual, emotions
are always collective and political. They frame what is and is not possible in politics.
- A focus of emotions and power is a better way to enter dialogue with more established international relations
theories. An intersection of emotions, power and world politics enables a more complete appreciation of how
political views are constituted, and can, in particular situations, be resisted and even transformed.
- Emotional scholar should engage more seriously on debates on the nature of power including those linked to
social identity, nationalism, alliances and regimes or institutions. More conventional scholars must in return,
start considering the far-reaching implications that accompany the knowledge that emotions are indeed
everywhere.

Theory is dead, long live theory: The end of the Great Debate and the rise of eclecticism in International
Relations
David A. Lake

Author argues the debate between positivists and post positivists is inconclusive, and the field would be better off
focusing on important real-world problems and achieving progress within each approach according to its own criteria
for success.

Introduction
- Field of International Relations has a long tradition of Great Debates clashes between competing grand
theories
- Great Debates helped clarify differing assumptions scholars made in their theories, however author argues
that nothing was ever resolved. Argues these debates focus less on how to explain world politics and more on
which set of assumptions best captured the inherent nature of humans as political animals or state as political
organisations. This turned the discipline into a quarrel over the power of one ism over the other
- Mid level theories are rising to greater prominence now that the Great Debate shave lost their stridency.
Author argues mid-level theory can form the basis for a progressive discipline of IR that the paradigms of
Great Debates never provided, and thus the contender for the crown deserves support.

The Great Debates

- The history of the field of IR is typically told as a series of Great Debates.
- First Great Debate:
o Eve of WWII
o Idealists, dominant from founding of the discipline in early 20 th century, and realists, who trumphed in
the decade after 1945
o Idealists focused on the potential role of institutions in improving the human condition and mitigating
conflict between states. Their quest was in part driven by the destructiveness of WWI but founded on
the inability of international relations to prevent WWII.
o Realists sought to explain the actual patterns of world politics and to identify pragmatic steps leaders
took to improve diplomacy over world order. It has a more cynical view of human nature and focuses
 on the conflict inherent in the struggle for power both informed Western policy during the Cold War
and in tern, reinforced by that decades-long struggle
o The dividing might be drawn more clearly between idealists who foused on international
organisations and realists who broadened the field to study international politics.
o Author believes its false to think that realism won the debate as they were soon challenged by
liberalism, rosecrance, neoliberal institutionalism, and ultimately constructivism.
o The debate did not end but rather continued threat in the history of the discipline and even overlaps
with the final Great Debate.

- Second Great Debate:

o Reaching height during 1960s
o Traditionalists vs. behaviourists or scientists
o Traditionalists empathized the complexity of world politics, the role of contingency and leadership in
diplomacy. Claiming that no scientific theory could ever capture the interplay of so many factors nor
explain choice by human beings who could learn by experience, traditionalists focused on moments of
inflections in history in which world politics could have gone one way or another
o Behaviourism sought to identify classes of events, looking for and highlighting commonalities across,
for instance, all interstate wars. Having identified classes of events, behaviourists could then build up
generalizations by induction or empirically confirmed deductions. By 1970s behaviourists declared
victory.
o The attempt to define IR as a science began not with behavioural revolution in 1950s but in the
Chicago School of the 1920s and 1930s. Behaviourists were promoting a particular kind of science
focused on systems theory, a still deeply contested domain.
o Like the first Great Debate the Second is not over, with traditionalists running through fields such as
constructivism and various forms of reflexivity that took hold on the discipline.

- Last Great Debate

o In many ways hard to identify as there are possibly two or three stories. Some see it as a third debate
arising in 1970s between realism, liberalism and radicalism and a fourth debate in 1980s between
neorealism, neoliberalism, and constructivism. Some see the third, or fourth of fifth debate as between
positivists who are successors to the behaviourists, against the reflectivists.
o Author argues positivism was misunderstood, calling it rationalists the author argues is a poor fit.
Positivists were a group of approaches that showed a general commitment to social science as a
method and the assumption that individuals and other political actors are internationalist and
calculating in their actions.
o By 1980s positivists constituted the mainstream of the discipline of IR.

o From wiki: Reflectivism is a broad umbrella label, used primarily in International Relations theory, for
a range of theoretical approaches which oppose rational-choice accounts of social phenomena and,
perhaps, positivism more generally. The label was popularised by Robert Keohane in his presidential
address to the International Studies Association in 1988.[1] The address was entitled "International
Institutions: Two Approaches", and contrasted two broad approaches to the study of international
institutions (and international phenomena more generally). One was "rationalism", the other what
Keohane referred to as "reflectivism". Rationalists including realists, neo-realists, liberals, neo-
liberals, and scholars using game-theoretic or expected-utility models are theorists who adopt the
broad theoretical and ontological commitments of rational-choice theory.
o Reflectivists were hardly a single school either. Broadly united by a belief in the potential openness of
various taken for granted aspects of world politics, several strands of theorizing competed including
at least constructivism, post-modernism, critical theory and feminism. Several of these approaches
share the normative positions of idealism others were more social versions of realism.
o Some reflectivists are by epistemology critical realists, more are anti-positivists who believe social
change is the purpose of inquiry, not explanation
o The diversity of approaches under the heading of reflectivism likely make this final debate less salient,
as the assault on positivists was less unified than in the past cases. Perhaps for this reason and that it
overlapped so much with the paradigm wars of the first Great Debate and the epistemological
differences in the second, some challenge the idea that there was ever a final Great Debate. The final
debate might be best understood as the fracturing of the field into multiple, overlapping identity
groups, each seeking to bolster and affirm its own theoretical turf against not only the mainstream of
the discipline but against each other as well.
o No approach won this debate although positivists remained at the centre of the field. It either
subsumed the critiques offered by reflectivists or simply ignored and marginalised them
 o The end of the Cold War (despite the absence of any change in the objective nature of the
international system) saw more support for reflectivist views on the socially constructed nature of
previously objective structures, propelling the debate along
- Like earlier Great Debates it was never resolved. Author argues such schools of thought have simply retreated
to their own corners and talked amongst themselves complaining of not being taken seriously by others.

Mid-level theories
- These approaches were never clearly realist, liberal or later constructivist. All were moreover characterized by
methodical pluralism, drawing equally on history and case studies on one hand, and large-n data sets on the
other.
- They all focused on parts of the political process rather than the whole, and studied the effects of one or more
variables on policy choice and outcomes.
- Author believes that the majority of work in IR have fallen into such eclectic fields, yet mid-level theories are
left out of the traditional narrative of the field, ore relegated to a subordinate theme or the footnotes

- Author argues that the Great Debates between the isms have caused exerted a pernicious effect (harmful
effect) on the discipline for decades, and to arrive at the end of such debates should be celebrated upon.
- Rising from such an absence of the Great Debates, eclectic theories have gained new prominence. Eclectic
theories are not new, they were there all along, but regulated and sidelined. Author believes eclectic theories
are the source of some of the most progressive research in the discipline, and represents the future of IR, not
a new one since it was already there throughout history, but the future nonetheless.

Progress via mid-level theory

- The competitiveness of theories have turned IR research from explaining world politics to proving realism,
liberalism or whatever is the one true faith which all should adhere. Such paradigm wars have not led to
progress.
- Eclectic, mid-level theory begins from a very different point. Rather than defending any single set of
assumptions, it builds theories to address specific problems of world politics.
- Mid-level theories might violate the levels of analysis in IR. For example it may treat branches of government
as units of observation in one country, and the state as the unit in another. It may not adhere to power,
security or wealth maximisation as universal goals, and units positioned in different theories are also
understood to possess different interests, tailored to specifics of the issue under investigation. It is this mixing
and matching of assumptions, issue areas, units and interests that makes this sort of theorizing eclectic.
- In the last decade there has been increasing demand that mid-level theories have a casual mechanism,
whereby such theories can provide a link between the actions of real individuals or groups to policy outcomes
in a consistent way.
- OEP and democratic peace theory are exemplars of progressive nature of mid-level theory. Neither fit into the
traditional paradigms that supposedly define the field. Both have developed and grown over decades, beyond
the narrative of Great Debates, and are the driving forces for research and progressiveness in the field.
- First is open economy politics that emerged as a mid-level theory to explain trade policy, but later extended to
monetary and financial relations, FDI, foreign aid, regulation, corporate governance and global governance.
The fundamental building block of OEP is interest, or how an individual or group is affected by a particular
policy. OEP proved to be enormously productive and progressive, and has driven nearly three decades of
productive but eclectic research in international political economy. Counterargument to OEP is individuals
have complicated sets of interests ranging from religion, gender and more.
- Second is democratic peace theory. Immanuel Kant argued that republican states, lodged with international
organisations and enjoying the fruits of international commerce would be relatively more pacific in their
relations with one another than with other countries. Liberal democracies would not be pacific overall but they
would be more peaceful amongst each other. Counter-argument is that democracies have often engaged in
normatively questionable behaviours of their own interests. The democratic peace might be jointly determined
by some third factor.
- Despite continuing controversy, the lesson here is that mid-level theories are not judged by their fit with pre-
existing paradigms nor limited to particular methodologies. Rather they are best measured by their empirical
power and ability to generate new propositions that are themselves empirically confirmed.

Another Great Debate?

 - Even as mid-level theory offers a glimpse of perhaps promising future, there is a real and emerging divide in
the field of IR between positivists and post-positivists, an this may become another Great Debate, although if
occurring it will likely be also inconclusive.
- Positvist scholars generally believe that research and resaerchers can separate themselves from reality and
objectively observe the world they inhabit, that science is and should be limited to observable implications
and factors, and that he purpose of science is casual inference.
- Post-positivsts remain a more diverse group, often united by their rejection of positivisms adherence to an
objective science limited to observable facts. There are three separate post positivist (non-positivist)
ontologies
o Critical realism allows for objective observation but believes this can be extended to unobservable
features of the world through abduction and other similar methods
o Analyticism which believes that obsercation is always subjective but limited to observable features
o Reflexivity holds that observation is inherently subjective and can access the unobservable
- Post-positivists also disagree on the purpose of inquiry which some adhering to a form of social science that
takes as its aim the understanding of how the world came to be as it is, others taking a more political or
critical stance in which the goal of scholarship is to move the world in more ethical directions .
- Author argues that progress is possible when researchers are not forced to defend their methodogical,
epistemological and ontological assumptions. Author prefers progress within paradigms rather than war
between paradigms especially as the latter would be inconclusive.

Conclusion
- We should celebrate the end of the Great Debates. Mid level theory flourished in the interstices of these
debates, and have come to greater light in the field. This is a positive development. Thus, theory still lives.