What%20is%20the%20study%20of%20International%20Politics?

1
What is the study of International Politics?

• How do we decide what to study?
• What do you think the study of IP should
  accomplish?

2
IP is the pinnacle of Political Relations State
is central actor.

• Strongest actors but weakest rules
• The modern state is the strongest amasser,
  mobilizer and deployer of political, economic and
  military power
• The state is durable secession leads to states,
  integration leads to state-like structures.
• Of all types of organization, the state is the
  strongest
• Best state? based on moral law, by consent of the
  people.

3
What will we study?

• How states act
• Why they act
• The role of power, just principle, pursuit of
  economic wealth
• How foreign policy is made
• How IL and IO mitigate/channel state behavior
• Prospects of change in IP

4
What criteria, what concerns?

• Causes of war, conditions for Peace
• National Interest and human interest
• Justice, equality, development, well-being, etc
• Politics as only one part of the condition and
  solution, and only one time frame.

5
What subjects to include?

• History and journalism
• philosophy, religion, and ethics
• economics and trade
• psychology, sociology
• administration and law
• diplomacy, war strategy and military science.
• behaviouralism and statistics define relations
  in scientific terms

6
You must constantly make normative decisions

• Human life is sacred, but are negotiations always
  better than war?
• Can the rule of law be imposed as the best form
  of government on all peoples?
• What goals are legitimate?
• What groupings and belongings are legitimate?
  Taliban?
• What is the role and purpose of weapons?

7
Focus, levels of analysis, and method how, what,
in what way.
8
Focus (the range of the question)

• 1.    single case study
• 2.    class of events (middle range)
• 3.    theory

9
Level of Analysis the range of the answer

• 1.    Individual level
• 2.    State, society level
• 3.    International system level
• Examples WWII, end of USSR, Gulf War

10
Examples of grand theory

• H. Morgenthau IP is the pursuit of national
  interest defined in terms of power
• K. Holsti IP is the problem of the causes of war
  and the conditions for peace
• Marxists IP is part of the causes of inequality
  and exploitation, and the struggle for justice

11
Method

• 1.    Historical/traditional (qualitative)
• 2.    Behavioral/scientific (quantitative)
• IP meaningful human behaviour is rule governed,
  but understood better by means of good judgment,
  experience and historical knowledge than by
  scientific testing.

12
Three normative traditions are the framework of
the study

• RealismMachiavellian (Nicoló Machiavelli)
  (blood and iron)
• LiberalismRationalism (Hugo Grotius)
  (law and order)
• Revolutionism---Radical approaches. Soft
  (Idealism) and hard varieties (liberation and
  doctrine)

13
Change or Continuity?

• Solomon (Eccl. 19) The thing that has been, it
  is that which shall be and that which is done is
  that which shall be done and there is no new
  thing under the sun.
• The constancy of fallen human nature vs. the
  optimism of unending progress.
• Economic issues have not replaced security
  problems as the main subject in IP, and security
  problems have never in the history of humankind
  been more important than socio-economic issues.