International Relations Theory - Science topic

Realism or political realism has been the dominant theory of international relations since the conception of the discipline. The theory claims to rely upon an ancient tradition of thought which includes writers such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Although they have come under great challenge from other theories, they remain central to the discipline. At its height, liberalism in IR was referred to as a 'utopian' theory and is still recognised as such to some degree today. However, there is a need to identify and measure the change in international relations and institutions. There are numerous examples of recent institutional change, transformation, and obsolescence.

The concept, object, index and measurement method of international competition should be clearly defined. Secondly, the variable factors of international competition can play a role in diplomacy, and in what changes.

After American economic sanctioned on Iran, there is huge opportunity for china to sympathize Iran. No doubt, Iran- China relation will be more strengthen after American action. Israel, Saudi Arab and America have thrown Iran into China's court and China will never miss this golden chance to cash.

Liberalism.

First of all in the age of realpolitik and economy , the Muslim countries , as we dont have a consensus on the unified Shariah based governance, must unite to form that elusive Ummah rather than fighting with each other and becoming ducks in the hands of other countries. OIC type suplineless bodies are but a big Zero.

Rej Kasi feel free to check my bachlor thesis on RG. I made a relatively comprehensive analysis of the economic conceptions rooted in the process of codifying European treaties. Even if the work is in French and applies mainly to Western and Southern Europe, the fundamentals are present. For information purposes, the work corresponds quite amply to the traditional requirements of a Bachelor thesis so it can serve as a structuring framework. To go even further in different forms of capitalism and work in European political economy, I recommend the work of Bruno Amable (2017) and Stafano Palombarini.

Of course it can and I’d be willing to wager it is the only effective means by which an amenable outcome can be achieved. Look at the history of large scale violence compared to small conflict. At the end of hostilities there still has to be a meeting of the minds to map a way forward that is a win-win for all parties concerned. No opposing sides can hear each other when they are engaged in physical violence. At some point a truce is called and credible mediator is brought in to facilitate and come to an agreement for both sides. This individual or entity can be duel hatted and be responsible for ensuring both sides or all parties adhere to whatever agreement is hashed out between the opposing parties. Thereby finally arriving at a peaceful solution and containing the violence.

@Rex, I would like to see the facts behind your answer. Furthermore, Serbia was occupied by Ottoman Empire for 500 years, while , not Kosovo, but Kosovo and Metohija, where within Serbia, under Ottoman Empire.

Why do Albanians do not like to use the full name? Maybe the following sentence bring the answer:

"The name Metohija derives from the Greek word μετόχια (metókhia, metochion), meaning "monastic estates" – a reference to the large number of villages and estates in the region that were owned by the Serbian Orthodox monasteries and Mount Athos during the Middle Ages..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metohija

You can follow the work of PRTs in Afghanistan. I got this lead while supervising one of my students.

Dear Anurag Gangal,

It is a pity I have seen your question just now. In the "Handbook of India's International Relations" edited by David Scott (Routledge 2011) it is underscored that in 2002 the Bharatiya Janata Party took into consideration a foreign policy based on three concentric circles - immediate region, extended neighborhood and global issues - (p. xix). Under the Modi administration, India is targeting more and more the third circle, as the concept of India as a global power is not any more an illusion.

Best wishes,

Monica

Dear Edijs,

concerning the dependence the EU on NATO and NATO on American foreign politics I would wait till the new president of United states  will take a lead. 

anyway, realism is for me personally the most explainable theory of IR after Ukraine crisis.

if you need some reference, take a look at Tang, S. The Social evolution of IR. Oxford Uni.Press. this is also very good understanding.

best wishes, Patricia.

In this article I attempted to cover several aspects of the USA policy on Iranian nuclear issue. If someone is interested it is here

Dear Anisa,

The answer to your question probably depends on your reseach perspective.  In principle you could look at your question from three different perspectives by asking the following questions:

(1) To what extent is the regional and cross-regional distribution of power influencing a nation's naval defense posture and maritime security approach?

(2) If and to what extent are regional institutions influencing a nation's naval defense posture and maritime security approach?

(3) What is the threat perception of national decision-makers with regard to naval and maritime security challenges and to what extent do threat perceptions influence their choice of policy options?

In answering these questions, you could say that neo-realism might the theory of choice for the first question; neo-liberalism and institutionalism will help you answer the second question; and constructivist theory would be most useful to answer the third question. In sum, I would invite you to consider a combination of these three bodies of literature, because in the end you might need all of them to explain what you are interested in.

In addition, you might also turn to two additional schools of thought: Comparative politics might be most useful if you are interested in why policy outcomes in one region differ from other regions thereby paying attention, for example, to differences in political systems of the nations involved in the respective maritime or naval challenge. Furthermore, scholars dealing with orgnaizational theory and bureaucratic politics might be useful to explain why one group of stakeholders is more important (or more successful) in driving certain policy issues than others. This body of literature looks, inter alia, at the division of power within and between different branches of governments and thus helps explain the "inner mechanics" of governmental decision-making.

Good luck!

I just know a publication in German about legitimacy discourses on international and supranational organisations (e. g. the EU). see: http://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/politikwissenschaft/prekaere_legitimitaeten-3757.html

Maybe, the authors published their findings also in English?!

Additionally and as far as I know, the visibility of EU topics is relatively low in US media and therefore, it is hard to deal with strongly different media representation, media systems, etc. 9(if you try to compare the representation of the EU in different countries, for instance)

However, in a more quantitative, longitudinal design, you could address a really interesting topic by studying the EU representation in the US media...

Hello, I would like to suggest you contact Mr Cecil Choudry of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, it is the body set up by the Catholic Bishops' Conference. It has a very useful archive as well as a historic overview of the government's efforts to counter terrorism. Since the latest attack in Lahore (27 March 2016) was aimed at Christians and they run a good number of schools, they are very likely to have updated information about the government's intentions and their eventual application. ncjppakistan@gmail.com and cecilncjp@gmail.com

Hi Reuben!

Long time indeed… I hope all is well with you. Many thanks for the links (I knew already about the ones from Open.edu, but not the other ones).  Check these: “Theory in Action” series, including short videos with summaries of key IR theories (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnKEFSVAiNQ); videos on IR concepts by UBC (e.g: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjr5NuZv2e4); series “Conversations with History” including interviews with IR authors: http://conversations.berkeley.edu/

Best wishes!

Hi, However your question is pre-directed to experts on Saudi Arabia's economy, I just would like to say I totally agree with you about the nature and classification of Saudi economy for two reasons: 1- It is true that oil sector is totally controlled by government but not in the past soviet way, and because of the foreign share in it which was more than 50%. 2-The private sector in Saudi Arabia operates substantial share of whole economy in the local level and according to the relations with foreign sector the Saudi economy is one of the most opened economy in the middle east. Therefor is is difficult to classify it as closed economy.

I'd say those distinctions are driven by theory as well as ideology... Difficult to see any *objective* criteria that would apply everywhere. Poland's bandwagoning with the U.S. will be seen as an alliance by the Polish political mainstream, whereas the U.S. might in its rhetoric describe Poland as a junior partner, while Russian analysts would see this as a clientelistic relationship, and the Polish radical left will perceive Poland as an American colony. I'd be interested to see other people's takes on that issue.

The point is English School is ecletic and does not offer an alternative to this dilema. The consequence is that concepts which are incompatible with each other can not be operated in terms of strategies of empirical investigation. This is exactly what ecletism means: everything, even incompatible concepts, become part of the same problem or issue or theory.

Theories of contagion of armed conflict are well-established.  I would suggest looking at the work of Johann Galtung, and more recent contributions by O'Laughlin, Michael Ward, etc.  As for transnational terrorism, Todd Sandler addresses contagion in several works.   Most relevant is a piece by Braithwaite and Li  (2007) and an expansion/critique by Neumeyer and Plumper  (2010), both in the journal Conflict Management and Peace Science. 

Here are some things I found that may be beneficial:

http://www.economist.com/node/7218678          Best of luck! =)

This is difficult to establish, both because it is not always clear what we mean by neo-realism and also because trying to show a kind of direct influence of ideas on policies is not empirically easy or even feasible.

As to the first. Neorealism is usually meant to include 'structural' realists. This would then include defensive (Waltz) and offensive (Mearsheimer) ones. These two sides can come up with quite different policy recommendations. Waltz was a proponent of controlled nuclear proliferation (since it would increase rational self-restraint), Mearsheimer is not, as far as I remember (since he does not trust rationality much and is more 'worst-case' oriented). Hence, any position of the US administration would fit one of the neorealists. Indeed, probably all of the typical US policy positions (intervention versus isolation, deterrence versus reassurance) can be found among realists and my sense is also the specific (small) group of neorealists. Maybe, another way is to see what sets them apart. Since they _tend_ to see military strategy as the ultimate fallback of politics (but again not all), they tend to see international affairs through more military lenses. Hence, whenever politics is more militarised, it could be an indicator of the presence of their thought. Again, however, there are 'liberal hawks' who have been supporting the invasion of Iraq whereas Walt and Mearsheimer famously did not. So, my sense is that as all realist theories, they are very good in being against some other option, but that does not make it a very coherent school when it comes to policy advice. In principlre, prudent self-restraint defensive neorealism should be more attractive to democratic administrations - but then, it seems to work also with Bush sen. As you turn it, I think it is 'indeterminate' if one wishes to answer the question in general.

As to the second, there is a big difficulty to retrace the process from ideas to behaviour. In my reading, ideas cannot be likened to causes that push, like a billiard ball, people to behave one way or another (the critique has been done many times by e.g. Friedrich Kratochwil. There is also a set of literature around Goldstein/Keohane, Laffey/Weldes and Yee.). Ideas can provide internal reasons, which is not the same as external causes. Hence, the most one can do with an analysis of ideas (or discourses) is to show what kind of position they exclude from being taken into account, since they are not 'authorised' or, in the extreme case, not even 'thinkable'. They affect by excluding (Jutta Weldes' book on Constructing the National Interest is excellent on this). At most they can be part of a 'how-causal' explanation providing factors that make possible: they answer 'how possible' questions that can be answered ex post, but not 'why' questions that can be answered ex ante. Still, one way to make a more direct analysis of the link is to do it via people. Jeffrey Checkel's early book on the end of the Cold War does that by showing how ideas transmute from certain expert circles to the government (Checkel, Jeffrey (1997) Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behaviour and the End of the Cold War. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.) With the revolving door policies of academics turning officials and returning academics, there is perhaps a way to see whether there is a direct influence. I am not sure, though. Hence, this leads to analyse the think tank world in the US. Piki Ish-Shalom has worked on such 'hermeneutic mechanism' (see his article: 'Theory as a hermeneutic mechanism' (EJIR 2006).

Hope that provides some pointers.

Figuring out foreigners by Craig Storti.

Have you looked at the EU's own impact statement studies. Not public opinion, but highly informative?

Dear Amanj Ali Qadir, 

Help is always valuable! Thank you!

Best Regards, Thomas

try these:

The Annual Fragile States Index, the Fund for Peace, 2014: http://ffp.statesindex.org/

The Fund for Peace CAST Conflict Assessment Guide, CAST Conflict Assessment Manual, www.fundforpeace.org

Francis Fukuyama Failed States

David Reilly. "The Growing Importance of the Failing State: Sovereignty, Security, and the Return of Power," Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. 23, Spring 2004.

David Reilly. "The Two-Level Game of Failing States: Internal and External Sources of State Failure", Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. 28, p17, 2008.

Michael Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977),

Benjamin Miller, "When and How Regions Become Peaceful: Potential Theoretical Pathways to Peace," The International Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2. (June 2005), pp. 229-267.

Waow hay articulos muy interesantes. Varios que no conocia.  Muchisimas gracias Cristina

Dr. Mathias Maass at Yonsei University in South Korea is an expert on the international relations of small states. His work might offer some answers to your very interesting question. 

Hi Sebastian, I found particularly useful all of the "Geopolitica" issues, which often deal with such topics with db peer-reviewed papers. Most of them are in Italian, but all abstracts are in English and a number of papers is fully in English. Here's the website: www.geopolitica-rivista.org

Countries are converging and so, emerging as a global village.

So useful -- exchange of data.

This is natural and exchange will increase in future for mutual benefits.

You can start your search with this article: Under the state's gaze: Upland trading-scapes on the Sino-Vietnamese border

We are assessing the trust among people in 89 countries at a scale between one (very high) and 10 (very low) today and can consider that the countries with the best scores at the same time:

- are the best in handling sovereign debt through solidarity and the will to pay

  taxes and contributions.

- have the best equiibrium between their share in the world's GDP and their share

  in the world's wealth

- have a good ratio between sovereign debt and governmental income

A big amount of trust among people reduces the transaction costs e.g. in countries such as Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Canada, Netherlands, Australia spend few public money on military, police and the legal system.

Resume: trust is increasing common wealth of a community.

Concerning remittance systems: Switzerland has almost zero costs for remittances.

That's one rason for the leading role of Switzerland in handling financial assets.

In my eyes there are only two constitutive theories for the impact of trust on economy: The categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant

and the work of Lao-Tzu. Sample quote: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

So the leader - such as in Kant's definition  - trusts in his people and therefore is capable to retire.

Or this one: "The more laws and order are made prominent,

the more thieves and robbers there will be."

In opposite economy still uses the self-interest-hypothesis of Adam Smith. But you can of course assess trust or missing trust by calculating the transaction costs. Unfortunately the interest rate since 2000 is no longer an indicator for low trust.

You might want to take a look at the Robinson/Gallagher thesis about informal empire as applied to mid-Victorian British expansion.  Its fairly interesting and focuses on the economic levers of control rather than military intervention or military-strategic imperatives.  It would seam to be analogous to China in Africa.

The two countries have pretty good relations right now, as both are affiliated with ALBA (Ecuador as a core member, and Haiti as an observer state).  Much of the bilateral relation concerns immigration policy, as Haitian immigration to Ecuador has increased dramatically.  There is an IOM report on Haitian immigration to Brazil that discusses the role of Ecuador that might be useful: http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1422

Ecuador has also contributed to development and stabilization projects in Haiti.  I don't know right off of published scholarly work, but you can check out http://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/ecuador-and-haiti-a-relationship-built-on-cooperation-between-two-brotherly-countries/?lang=en for a statement from the Ecuadorian government about the relations between the countries.  It might be worth contacting Yves-Renée Jennings, a George Mason Ph.D and scholar/practitioner who has worked extensively in/on both Haiti and Ecuador, if you want deeper analysis, especially on issues related to peace and conflict. 

Hi Chang,

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami introduced the idea of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Samuel P. Huntington’s theory of a Clash of Civilizations.

This theory argues that "the political translation of dialogue among civilizations would consist in arguing that culture, morality, and art must prevail on politics".

Apart from political discourse of dialogue even Media Theories have evaluated and discussed the necessity and functions of dialogue as a form of communication; whether a successful two-way communication, or a one-way authority dictatorship communication.

Traditional Theories including: The Magic Bullet Theory, The Obstinate Audience, The Two-Step Flow Theory, Uses and Gratifications, Theory of Agenda-Setting, The Human Action Approach, Free Press Theory, Cultivation Theory, Media Dependency Theory, Social Learning Theory.

Interpretive Theories including: Semiotics, Narrative Theory, Genre Theory, Polysemy, Simulacra

Critical-Cultural Theory including: Neil Postman, Concentration of Media Outlets, Political-Economy of Media, Consumerism in Media, Burke's Equipment for Living, McLuhan's Medium as Message, Stereotyping in Media, Hegemony, Ideology and Media, Chomsky's Manufacture of Consent

According to Benkamin Frankel in “Realism, Restatements and Renewal” (Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London, 1996, p. 369) it seems that the earliest attempt to distinguish among interests is Glenn Snyder “Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 32-33

Probably, you could find some data in the recently released version [6th Wave] of the World Values Survey. Official documentation and data are available at the website below.

WVS

Also, although a little old one, you might be interested in the following article.

Participation and protest in the European Union and the ‘outsider’ states

Thank you for your kind attention.

Best wishes,

Katsuto Furusawa

Short answer: yes.

Long answer:

I can't pretend I have more than a passing familiarity with IR (always indirect through papers or books like Beyond the Ivory Tower), but from what I do know the incorporation of work in "chaos theory" (complexity, dynamical systems, etc.) wouldn't differ much from one theoretical framework in the social sciences to another (also, it is my understanding that there is no singular IR theory so much as there is a field of study in the social sciences that focuses on a particular area of inquiry). Also, as "chaos theory" is (luckily, in this case) very general. It is something of a popular term for a number of different frequently used buzzwords that are almost as frequently ill-defined ("emergence", "self-organization", even "complexity" itself).

First, a note on terminology. I find "chaos" to be misleading. Chaotic systems are generally actually characterized by order. In fact it is in this sense that "emergence" relates to an original impetus for the use of the term chaos: ordo ab chao. Chaotic systems are chaotic in that they are unpredictable, difficult to model, exhibit circular causality, etc., but they are also only "chaotic" within certain bounds (there are points at which complex systems fail to remain within these bounds, but there are also points at which they fail to exhibit complexity anymore too).

This site can be described as "chaotic" in the more technical sense, i.e., as a complex system with many interrelating parts, organization that emerges "spontaneously" without a central controlling force/agent, a constantly shifting number of connections within networks, between networks, and between both and the external "environment". In general, social systems are complex systems. Exceptions include those organizations in which there is central order, well-defined structure, predictability, etc. (from a pre-college classroom to some paramilitary corps). International relations are "international" because they are relations between (at best) centrally controlled systems that, once related, lack central control.

Strogatz, and expert on chaos theory, once wrote a paper on using a simple dynamical model of the relationship between "Romeo" and "Juliet" in which different parameter values could result in a stable relationship, a broken relationship, continuing heartbreak, etc. (the equations are featured on a blackboard in an episode of the tv series Numb3rs). While I am with Strogatz here (it's a great teaching tool) several researches thought that this kind of approach would be ideal for modelling actual relationships and MIT published their book The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models. The reason I think this is ridiculous is not because relationships cannot be understood as chaotic systems, but because they are well-beyond our current modelling ability. The standard example for another popular element of chaotic dynamics, fractals, is the celebrated analysis of the british coastline using a fractal of infinite "length". The point is that the applicability of "chaos theory" to a topic so general as IR theory is a bit like asking whether or not you can describe the mammals as quantum systems. Well, sure, in that mammals are made up of subatomic "particles" as much as a hydrogen atom is, but that doesn't mean it is a particularly useful approach. Nonlinearity is the norm, not the exception, in the "real world", and thus "chaotic" properties and behaviors are likewise the norm. However, the more variables one is dealing with that interact in nonlinear ways, the more complicated nonlinear models become, let alone approximations using e.g., the generalized linear (which might explain how few predictive models one finds in the social sciences).

You can readily define international relations as complex ("chaotic") systems. Whether or not you can use this is another matter.

There is Publications of Betsa EStephano, Robert Benedicty and Thom Sicking

Ronald Dworkin briefly (but quite positively) discusses Sartre in Justice for Hedgehogs, at 210 and (especially) 231.

Interesting to hear that this is treated as something close to a choice. As a discipline outsider (disregarding some undergrad courses a decade ago), I recently needed an IR analytical framework for a study related to environmental regimes. I actually used five different approaches (realism, neoliberalism, constructivist institutionalism, epistemic communities and institutional bargaining). It was quite useful, because all five approaches provided interesting insights as they applied to completely different aspects of the problem. I can't see how any single approach would have helped analyzing a complex international process. But do I understand that this is something a IR scholar would not normally do?

We have to keep in mind that the present topic requires a reformulation of your question:

For which areas of international law can scientific and technological assessment be relevant?

For the most of them, but I will only name some areas where science and technology are very important for a correct legal assessment:

1. International environmental law;

2. International IPR protection

3. Global antitrust law

4. International trade laws and standard setting.

The innovation of today can set the standard of tomorrow and it is important to be able to cope up with tomorrow in the field of trade and competition. The scientific research also establishes what can be considered to be sustainable technology, what is dangerous for human/animal health etc

It would be helpful to have a definition of innovation. What do you mean by innovation? Do you rely on the legal definition used in the field of the IPR? Do you mean some new knowledge that can be used in order to manufacture a new or improved product? We discuss even process innovation today. Your question is too wide, it must be narrowed down a bit.