International Relations: Approaches, Issues and Analysis Lecture 1: Introduction

1
International Relations Approaches, Issues and
AnalysisLecture 1 Introduction

• Jevgenia Viktorova
• University of St Andrews
• E-mail jv2 ät st-and.ac.uk

2
Introduction

• IR as a discipline
• on the nature of knowledge of the social
  reality of international relations
• origins of the discipline
• Instruments of knowledge concepts,
  theories, methods etc.
• Analysing international relations
• issues and levels of analysis
• agents, structures and processes
• orders of discourse

3
International Relations (IR)

• A discipline of social sciences?
• international relations as its subject matter
• What is international relations?
• IR is about diplomatic and strategic relations of
  states
• IR is about cross-border transactions of any
  kinds, by a variety of political, economic and
  social actors
• essentially contested nature of IR concepts
  such as politics or power etc.
• Lack independent essential existence in the
  world
• A matter of convention
• inter-subjective rather than objective
• IR theorising is not politically neutral there
  are political implications of choosing one or
  another definition of IR

4
IR (continued)

• Language of the discipline of IR is largely the
  same ordinary, natural language
• obscures the distinction between the
  object-language and meta-language which
  belong to different orders of discourse
• metadiscourses are simply those that are defined
  by the fact that they speak about other
  discourses, and this realm is in principle
  infinite, like a hall of mirrors. Every set of
  claims within a practice or discourse allows, in
  principle, another set of claims about it.
  (Gunnell 1998 21)

5
IR (continued)

• everyday and self-evident categories of
  language are in fact socially and politically
  motivated
• reflect a particular view, understanding of the
  world (cf. Sapir Wharf hypothesis language
  determines perception of the world)
• one cannot think outside theory
• any judgement or statement of fact relies on
  certain ontological and epistemological
  assumptions
• Definitions and terminology

6
Theory

• reflective thought
• a frame of thought
• a perspective a lens through which one
  observes/ approaches reality
• theory in different perspectives of IR
• theory vs. model
• Sources of development of IR theory in response
  to political events, or to developments in the
  discourse of IR as an academic discipline?
• grand theory

7
IR theories

• a plethora of theories dealing with various
  aspects and issues of international relations
• IR theories as broad traditions of thought
  sharing some core features or ideas, or schools
  of thought
• convention
• the conventional headings of IR theories are
  often misleading

8
The contested nature of IR

• attempts to produce theory on the widest canvas
  available to us not simply a theory of politics
  in one country or continent, but a theory of
  global relations. This means any worthwhile
  theory of international relations is going to
  have to be able to work with a multiplicity of
  cultures, with the aim of providing an account of
  the world that is not ethnocentric. What this
  involves in practice is the ability to keep in
  play a number of competing conceptions of how
  things are, without giving in to a temptation
  to close down debates and reach premature
  conclusions, or allow any one account of
  international relations to structure the whole
  (Brown 2005 12 15)

9
Some useful terms

• Concepts
• Levels of analysis
• Individual
• Unit National/ State Group
• System International Global
• Sub-system Regional (macro- and micro-regional
  both sub-national and transnational)
  Supranational

10
Some more useful terms

• Epistemology
• Ontology
• Method(ology)
• Debate about methods largely implies a debate
  about substance
• Hypothesis
• structure agency process
• structuration

11
Origins of IR as a discipline

• theorising is about deliberating on questions
  that defy simple and uncontested answers or
  explanations
• the causes of war?
• Before WWI, the academic study of international
  relations in an embryo
• War as motivated by gain
• WWI shook this belief
• ?the necessity of theorising international
  relations

12
Lecture topics 2-6

• Lectures 2 and 3 traditional or mainstream
  IR (liberal and realist theories)
• (2) classical IR up to the late 1960s-early
  1970s
• (3) contemporary IR from mid-1970s to present
• (4) constructivist IR
• (5) critical and post-structural IR
• (6) post-Cold War challenges to IR theory

13
Seminars

• Four 3-hour seminars
• Student presentations
• Comments
• Discussion
• Topics
• Power
• State and non-state actors
• Conflict and war
• Identity

14
Assessment

• Attendance?
• Seminar participation (30 of the mark)
• Exam for Bachelor students (late February)
• One general question about IR
• A choice of one from three narrower questions on
  specific issues, agendas or approaches
• 18-page (approximately 3000-3500 words) essay for
  Master students on a topic of your choice
  (deadline TBA)