International Political Theory (original) (raw)

THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS I

TAYYAR ARI, 2018

The objectivity of studying social and political sciences has always been questioned on the ground that personal values may interfere. In the same vein, it is a challenge to understand and explain international relations, owing to different world views and approaches. This is mainly because there are many ways of studying international relations. First of all, it requires an interdisciplinary and multilevel analysis to explain international phenomena, which may embody conflict, cooperation or both. IR field began to be recognized as a separate discipline during the period between two world wars and since then debates have continued on “what to study” and “how to study”. These questions paved the way to many ontological and epistemological discussions. The realist-idealist debate of the 1950s and the methodological debate of the 1960s are just two examples that have evolved in the discipline. A realist description of International relations is based on competition among states as major actors to pursue their interests, whereas a liberal description concentrates more on harmonious relations of pluralist actors. Theories have also grown out of the need to seek regularities and reflect the quest for a grand theory to explain all observed phenomena, which has truly been an overarching and ambitious attempt. Theories of IR borrow assumptions of each other so to say, and provide feedback for their reconstruction, through the critiques they make against each other. In this book, you will make an introduction to realism, liberalism and economic structuralism as major traditions in the field, their historical evolution and some theories they have given birth to. Chapter 1 is about contending issues and classification of major theories in the field. Chapter 2 discusses the realist theory of IR and its evolution. Chapter 3 provides a close look to liberal tradition and its reflections in IR. Chapter 4 introduces economic structuralism via the Marxist theory and Chapter 5 familiarizes the readers with International Political Economy. Chapter 6 briefly informs the readers on types of international regime theories reflecting different traditions in IR. Chapter 7, the normative theory on the other hand deals with “what should be” in IR instead of “what is” observed. Lastly, in Chapter 8, the English School of IR which argues to be a via media between realism and liberalism is elaborated. Though cases in IR and different issue-areas demand different theoretical perspectives and methods of inquiry; researchers agree on the need to utilize theoretical frameworks as road maps to explain and foresee the future of events. The theoretical approaches and their basic assumptions may sound unfamiliar and abstract at the beginning, However, they will prove to be the alphabet to conceptualize and interpret international phenomena. As editors of this book, we hope you enjoy reading the book and it guides you in observing international arena and motivates for analytical thinking on international relations. We are grateful to our esteemed authors for their collaboration in preparing this course textbook for the International Relations Program. Editors Prof.Dr. Tayyar ARI Assoc.Prof.Dr. Elif TOPRAK

Theories of International Relations

Universities and professional associations usually are organized in ways that tend to separate scholars in adjoining disciplines and perhaps even to promote stereotypes of each other and their scholarly endeavors. The seemingly natural areas of scholarly convergence between diplomatic historians and political scientists who focus on international relations have been underexploited, but there are also some signs that this may be changing. These include recent essays suggesting ways in which the two disciplines can contribute to each other; a number of prizewinning dissertations, later turned into books, by political scientists that effectively combine political science theories and historical materials; collaborative efforts among scholars in the two disciplines; interdisciplinary journals such as International Security that provide an outlet for historians and political scientists with common interests; and creation of a new section, "International , and also from reading 2 K. J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory (London, 1985).

Should global political theory get real? An introduction

This special edition brings together (1) the recent methodological worries of the moralism/realism and ideal/non-ideal theory debates with (2) the soaring ambition of work in international or global political theory, as found in, say, theories of global justice. Contributors are as follows: Chris Bertram, Jonathan Floyd, Aaron James, Terry MacDonald, David Miller, Shmulik Nili, Mathias Risse and Matt Sleat.

Syllabus - INR 4603: Theories of International Relations (Fall 2014)

This course examines the main schools of thought in International Relations (IR) and their main theoretical debates on various aspects of world politics. Also, it evaluates the internal logic and coherence, historical evolution, and changing explanatory value of several mainstream theories grounded in different school of thought. The course ascertains how to organize mainstream theories of IR in order to make them more accessible to different research needs and applications. The aim is to move out of the epistemological "trench-mentality" and into the "tool-box" mode. The course treats theories as road maps to guide and facilitate research rather than to obfuscate the study and analysis of world politics. Hence, every effort will be made to connect theoretical abstraction and the theorybuilding enterprise with methodological implementation, problem-solving usefulness, and the promotion of empirical relevance. The style of the course is a reading-seminar. First, the instructor outlines and discusses basic themes, concepts, and theoretical implications in class. Second, students are urged in our weekly sessions to discuss questions and original writings of different IR theorists.

Syllabus - INR 4603: Theories of International Relations (Summer 2014)

The general objective of this course is to examine key theoretical schools of thought in International Relations (IR) and their main debates around certain specific themes. The course is designed around multiple discussion sessions based on carefully selected IR theory texts, dealing with contemporary, highly-relevant topics (like unipolarity, humanitarian intervention, voluntary political union, and the future of sovereignty, the balance of power and U.S. hegemony).

THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS II

TAYYAR ARI, 2019

The objectivity of studying social sciences has always been questioned on the ground that personal values may interfere. In the same vein, it is a challenge to understand and explain international relations, owing to different world views and approaches used. Studying IR requires an interdisciplinary and multilevel analyses to explain international phenomena, which may embody conflict, cooperation or both. IR was recognized as a separate discipline after the World Wars and debates have continued since then, on “what to study” and “how to study.” These questions paved the way to many ontological and epistemological discussions. The realist-idealist debate of the 1950s and the methodological debate of the 1960s between traditionalism and behaviorism have been the driving forces for change in the discipline. The third debate between positivism and postpositivism has questioned the validity and efficacy of the traditional approaches and their methods. Though they may be classified under different names, critical theories are in a quest to bring alternative perspectives. First of all, they are interdisciplinary and pose a challenge towards traditional theories in IR, mainly neorealism and neoliberalism, with respect to ontological and epistemological issues. In this book, you will make an introduction to Poststructuralism, Constructivism, Critical Security Studies, namely the Copenhagen School and the Aberystwyth School, Post-colonialism, Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School, as well as Feminism and Green Theory in IR. Secondly, their common ground is that they question state-centric concepts and formulate new ways to understand IR, such as discourse analysis. The social analyses concentrating on identities at different levels have provided room to explain change in IR, which mainstream theories have been insufficient to bring explanation to. The broadening conception of security to include military, political, economic, societal and environmental issues and intersubjective meanings used to define security threats, have paved the way to constructivist analyses in security studies. Thirdly, critical theories question value-free knowledge in IR, based on existing power relations and Western definitions that neglect other perspectives. They are cosmopolitan in the sense that they try to solve human problems through taking everyone’s concerns and interests into consideration, thus having normative concerns as well. Feminism, on the one hand, brings gender issues under spectacles with respect to critical assessment of international politics, having ethical concerns for inclusivity and self-reflectivity. Green Theory on the other hand, brings environmental issues to the fore in understanding global problems. As editors of this book, we hope it guides you in understanding international relations and provides background for critical thinking on international politics. We are grateful to our esteemed authors for their collaboration in preparing the book for the theory course of International Relations Bachelor Degree Program. Editors Prof.Dr. Tayyar ARI Assoc.Prof.Dr. Elif TOPRAK