International relations (IR) is the study of relationships and interactions among states and international organizations. It also includes the policies and activities of nation-states, international institutions, and organizations. Mainly, international relations is important because in reality the world population is divided into separate independent states and political communities. In addition, the existence of states in international system effect on one another states and they need to deal and interact with each other’s (Jackson and Sorensen, 1999). The interaction and relationship between states and nations is a subject of IR.
Furthermore, the academic theme of IR is the study of international relations from a theoretical approach, and
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Each of these theories explore international relations from its own perspective. For instance, in realism there is more focus on security, because it believes that war is always possible among states. On the other hand, liberalism emphasizes that international relations can be cooperative (Jackson and Sorensen, 1999). Theoretical approaches of international relations do agree on the concept of cooperation, just with different perspectives and visions.
Cooperation among states and nations plays a vital role in international relations and world politics. States around the world cooperate with each other in numerous fields such as politics, economics, trade, education, and other affairs. A wide range of theoretical approaches of international relations describe and focus on rise of cooperation among countries from different sides and perspectives. Furthermore, Neoliberalism provides the most persuasive account of how cooperation may arise in world politics, however other theoretical approaches are also important.
Cooperation in World
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States struggle to attain new gains alone, so one of the common ways of achieving new gains in international environment is cooperation. In addition cooperation helps states to obtain new and common advantages. Generally, cooperating states perceive both collective and conflicting interests, thus they may disagree about more or less of their interests (Zartman & Touwal, 2010). Mostly, states prefer common interests with less cost, and cooperation plays a vital role for attaining the common interests among the
From the realist point of view, the international political system is considered as anarchic. There is a lack of external authority among states that ensures peace, stability and balance of power. In the analyzed document, the author's main thesis states that changes of the system would alter the international political system. However, changes within the system will maintain its anarchism. In order to support his thesis, the author replies to liberal critics, who consider the neorealism as obsolete taking into account three important arguments against the neorealism.
The theories of Neo-realism and Liberalism place strong emphasis on the structural level in order for a country in the international system to gain as much benefits as possible and prosper. Both theories believe interactions between countries will set them better off than an isolated country would, such as North Korea. Although Liberalism places a much higher emphasis on international organizations, institutions, and trade in order to promote peace than that of Neo-realism, Neo-realist also benefit from international organizations. “International organizations are frequent congenial institutions for weak states”(Keohane. 36). Third...
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
The chosen level of analysis and international relation theory to explain this event are the individual levels of analysis and realism. This level of analysis focuses on the individuals that make decisions, the impact of human nature, the behavior of individuals acting in an organization, and how personality and individual experiences impact foreign policy decisions.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The level of analysis discloses three different ways of understanding international relations. System-level analysis considers a "top-down" approach to studying world politics (Rourke, 2007, p. 91). It emphasises that international actors, countries, operate in a global social-political-economic-geographic environment and the explicit characteristics of the system outlines the mode of interaction among the actors. The State-level analysis stresses the national states and their domestic practices such as national interests, interest groups, government, and domestic economy as the key determinants of the state of world affairs (Mingst, 2008). The individual-level analysis examines human actors on the global stage.
Roskin, M., & Berry, N. (2010). IR: The new world of international relations: 2010 edition (8th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Longman/Pearson Education.
This can be seen as a strength and a weakness. A state is more inclined to favor an agreement or sign a treaty if there is a significant gain for the state than if it would have minimum benefit. The strength behind this realist idea is that the state will always look out for the best interest in its people and for its security. Classical realists are correct in describing states as motivated by self-interest and this claim is still relevant in current international politics but because of the dynamic of the current international system an excess in self-interest could lead to massive global instability. Although this idea may seem trivial and straightforward, it’s a main ideal of classical realism that has significant weaknesses in the current international system. The main priority in the current growing of interdependence of states is to maintain a peaceful international system. If states are motivated strictly by self-interest and pursue agreements solely based on selfish reasons, it could lead to a global catastrophe. A major point that classical realist claim is that history is cyclical. Their reasoning for making this claim is that states become too caught up in their self -interest and power that eventually they destabilize themselves when constrained to law and custom. Currently, the international community is experiencing effects of agreements that were motivated by excessive self-interest instead of in the interest of maintaining peace and stability. The prime example of this is the rise of terrorism and the instability of the Middle
The first paradigm of international relations is the theory of Realism. Realism is focused on ideas of self-interest and the balance of power. Realism is also divided into two categories, classical realism and neo-realism. Famous political theorist, Hans Morgenthau was a classical realist who believed that national interest was based on three elements, balance of power, military force, and self interest (Kleinberg 2010, 32). He uses four levels of analysis to evaluate the power of a state. The first is that power and influence are not always the same thing. Influence means the ability to affect the decision of those who have the power to control outcomes and power is the ability to determine outcomes. An example of influence and power would be the UN’s ability to influence the actions of states within the UN but the state itself has the power to determine how they act. Morgenthau goes on to his next level of analysis in which he explains the difference in force and power in the international realm. Force is physical violence, the use of military power but power is so much more than that. A powerful state can control the actions of another state with the threat of force but not actually need to physical force. He believed that the ability to have power over another state simply with the threat of force was likely to be the most important element in analysis the power of as state (Kleinberg 2010, 33-34).
However, the structure and process of international relations, since the end of World War II, has been fundamentally impacted through an immense growth of a variety of factors at multiple levels, which leads to the liberalist theoretical perspective of global complex interdependency. The complex interdependency is constructed from the liberalist theoretical perspective emphasizing interdependence between states and substate actors as the key characteristics of the international system (Ray and Kaarbo 7), which means that cooperation can be made more te...
Cosmopolitanism and communitarianism differ vastly in the way they, as intellectual concepts, deal with international relations. Cosmopolitanism holds the view that the rights of humanity and the individual should override those of the state (or political community), whereas communitarianism is the opposite. It states that the rights of the community are more important than those of the state. It is because of these fundamental differences that they deal with international relations in significantly different ways. However, both theories have their flaws and it seems that we can have neither a fully cosmopolitan or communitarian world political system.
National security undeniably has a preponderant place in the political, economical and military agenda of each state. Therefore, the state has a paramount responsibility in the contexts of its own domestic and transnational security. Whatever may be the way the state adopts in order to protect itself and its citizens, it needs to be accord with an international system. In this sense the state tends to follow a specific model in terms of international relations. Focuses in the case of western societies in general, and more specifically the United States as the iconic model of the western world, states tend to favour a realist perspective in terms of national security. Albeit, what is exactly the realism theory in the national security field? According to Glaser the realist view proposes the achievement of most high standard quality of national security focused on the acquisition of superior grades of power among the relative states sparking the idea of the presence of an anarchical international system .
Whenever world politics is mentioned, the state that appears to be at the apex of affairs is the United States of America, although some will argue that it isn’t. It is paramount we know that the international system is shaped by certain defining events that has lead to some significant changes, particularly those connected with different chapters of violence. Certainly, the world wars of the twentieth century and the more recent war on terror must be included as defining moments. The warning of brute force on a potentially large scale also highlights the vigorousness of the cold war period, which dominated world politics within an interval of four decades. The practice of international relations (IR) was introduced out of a need to discuss the causes of war and the different conditions for calm in the wake of the first world war, and it is relevant we know that this has remained a crucial focus ever since. However, violence is not the only factor capable of causing interruption in the international system. Economic elements also have a remarkable impact. The great depression that happened in the 1920s, and the global financial crises of the contemporary period can be used as examples. Another concurrent problem concerns the environment, with the human climate being one among different number of important concerns for the continuing future of humankind and the planet in general.
It is said that there is no such thing as failure, instead we have results. This was the idea that gave rise to the start of a company and later shooting of this video, in the outskirts of Addis Ababa in Africa. The video is about a shoe company called oliberte, which prides itself as the first company to be offered a fair trade certification. The founder, Mr. Tal Dehtiar has appreciated and employed great motivation methods in the growth of his company in a challenging environment (Oliberte, 2011). Motivation’s purpose is to initiate, guide and maintain goal oriented behaviors on the person that it is applied to. It can be driven by biological, social, emotional or cognitive forces. People are motivated to behave in a certain way because it is a core creational component of the human race. The two motivational theories that can be seen in this video are Mayo’s theory of human relations and Maslow and Herzberg’s theory of human needs (Latham, 2007).
The discipline of international relations (IR) contains several theories that contain theoretical perspectives to the idea of power. Within the realist perspective there are two approaches that help paint the portrait of the realist theory, the classical approach to realism and the neo-realist approach. Classical realism and neorealism both have been subjected to criticism from IR scholars and theorists representing liberal and constructivist perspectives. The key tenets to realism contain three essential characteristics of international relations which are the state, anarchy and the balance of power. This essay will closely analyse all three characteristics with special regards to power being central to the realist perspective.
Although, international organizations are largely influenced by the powerful states they contain and reflect those states’ interests, international organizations provide essential forums for communication, and encourage education of new international norms, which in turn, shape the interests and behaviors of states.