International Relations (IR)

1. International Relations (IR) Deepak Prakash Bhatt, PhD

2. International Relations • IR is a study of • Relations among sovereign states • Intergovernmental relations • Analysis of foreign policy • Interdisciplinary area of study inside Political Science • Besides this it started to study about all intellectual discourses and materials • Roots are from ancient times-city states to Westphalia and Utrecht • Institutionalization of diplomacy and armies

3. International Relations Theory • IR theory is the study of international relations from a theoretical perspective • It attempts to provide a conceptual framework • On that basis IR can be analyzed • Ole Holsti, describes international relations theories act as a pair of colored sunglasses, allowing the wearer to see only the salient events relevant to the theory • An adherent of realismmay completely disregard an event that a constructivistmight pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa • Three most popular theories are realism, liberalism and constructivism

4. Realism • The primary concern of all states is survival • States build up military to survive, which may lead to a security dilemma • The international system is anarchic • There is no actor above states capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by some higher controlling entity • The international system exists in a state of constant antagonism • States are the most important actors • All states within the system are unitary, rational actors • States tend to pursue self-interest. • Groups strive to attain as many resources as possible

5. Branches of Realism • Classical realism-states that it is fundamentally the nature of man that pushes states and individuals to act in a way that places interests over ideologies • Drive for power and the will to dominate, that are, held to be fundamental aspects of human nature • Modern realism began as a serious field of research in the United States during and after World War II-Hans Morgenthau- Politics Among Nations 1948

6. …. • Liberal realism or rationalism • The English School holds that the international system, while anarchical in structure, forms a "society of states" where common norms and interests allow for more order and stability than what might be expected in a strict realist view • Hedley Bull’s 1977 classic, The Anarchical Society,is a key statement of this position • Barry Buzan’s People, States & Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations 1983 • The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism 1993 with Charles Jones and Richard Little

7. …. Neorealism or structural realism • Neorealism derives from classical realism except that instead of human nature, its focus is predominantly on the anarchic structure of the international system • States are primary actors because there is no political monopoly on force existing above any sovereign • While states remain the principal actors, greater attention is given to the forces above and below the states through • While neorealism shares a focus on the international system with the English School, neorealism differs in the emphasis it places on the permanence of conflict • To ensure state security, states must be on constant preparation for conflict through economic and military build-up • Offensive, Defensive and Hegemonic theories

8. …. • Neoclassical realism • Neoclassical Realism can be seen as the third generation of realism • It offers the classics a renaissance • It is a synthesis of the neorealist and the classical realist approaches • Domestic intervening variables between systemic incentives and a state's foreign policy decision. Thus, the basic theoretical architecture of Neoclassical Realism is: • Distribution of power in the international system • Domestic perception of the system and/or domestic incentives • Foreign Policy decision • Neoclassical realism is particularly appealing from a research standpoint because it still retains a lot of the theoretical rigor that Waltz has brought to realism, but at the same time can easily incorporate a content-rich analysis, since its main method for testing theories is the process-tracing of case studies

9. …. • Left Realism • Mark Laffey and Ronald Osborn have argued for the idea of a “Left Realism” in IR theory with particular reference to the work of Noam Chomsky • Both have suggested that Chomsky’s understanding of power in the international sphere reflects the analytical assumptions of classical realism combined with a radical moral, normative or "Left" critique of the state

10. Liberalism • Political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality • Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles • But generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade and private property

11. Liberty • Value of individuals to have control over their own actions. • Different conceptions of liberty articulate the relationship of individuals to society in different ways— • these conceptions relate to life under a social contract existence in an imagined state of nature • related to the active exercise of freedom and rights • Understanding liberty involves how we imagine the individual's roles and responsibilities in society in relation to concepts of free will which involves the larger domain of metaphysics

12. Equality • All people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects • At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, equal access to social goods and services • However, it also includes concepts of economic equality, access to education health care and other social securities • It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole of society

13. Liberalism • Age of Enlightenment when it became popular among philosophers and economists around the world • Liberalism rejected the notions, common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy and Devine Rights of Kings • John Locke- a founding liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition argued that each man has anatural right to life, liberty and property • Governments must not violate these rights • Liberals opposed traditional conservatismand replacement of absolutism in government with representative democracy and the rule of law

14. Classical liberalism • Is a conceptions of liberty typically consist of the freedom of individuals from outside compulsion or coercion • Liberation point-of-view, suggests that people should, must, and ought to behave according to their own free will and take responsibility for their actions, while • Social liberals conceptions of liberty place an emphasis upon social structureand is therefore directed toward ensuring egalitarianism • Adam Smith, John Locke, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo

15. Idealism • Idealism is the group of philosophies-which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial • Epistemologically idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing • In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society • Idealism rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.

16. …. • The earliest extant arguments that the world of experience is grounded in the mental derive from India and Greece • The Hindu idealists in India and the Greek Neoplatonists gave panentheistic argument for an all-pervading consciousness as the ground or true nature of reality • Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism in India in the 4th century CE,based its "mind-only" idealism to a greater extent on phenomenological analyses of personal experience • Idealism turn toward the subjective anticipated empiricists during 18th-century Europe by employing skeptical arguments against materialism, George Berkeley

17. Platonism • Plato’s theory of from "ideas" describes ideal forms, as universe existing independently of any particular instance • Nevertheless Plato holds that matter is real, though transitory and imperfect, and is perceived by our body and its senses and given existence by the eternal ideas that are perceived directly by our rational soul • Plato was therefore a metaphysical and epistemological dualist an, outlook that modern idealism has striven to avoid • Arne Gron calls this doctrine-the classic example of a metaphysical idealism as a transcendentidealism • Simone Klein calls Plato-the earliest representative of metaphysical objective idealism

18. Neo-Platonism • Idealism that had long been current in the West and East even at that time, for it taught ‘that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time’ • Similarly, ‘The only space or place of the world is the soul’ and ‘Time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul’

19. Subjective Idealism • Subjective Idealism describes a relationship between experience and the world in which objects are no more than collections or ‘bundles’ of sense data in the perceiver • It contends that individuals can only know sensations and ideas of objects directly, not abstractions such as ‘matter’, and that ideas also depend upon being perceived for their very existence – ‘to be is to be perceived’ • The universe cannot exist as it appears if there is no perceiving mind

20. Objective Idealism • Objective idealism asserts that the reality of experiencing combines and transcends the realities of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer • Transcendental idealism, founded by Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century, maintains that the mind shapes the world we perceive into the form of space-and-time. • Absolute Idealism, founded by G. W. F. Hegel- how existence is comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole • Dialectical historical philosophy

21. …. • In his very famous book-Science of Logic-argues that finite qualities are not fully "real" because they depend on other finite qualities to determine them • Qualitativeinfinity, on the other hand, would be more self-determining and hence more fully real • Similarly finite natural things are less "real"—because they are less self-determining—than spiritual things like morally responsible people, ethical communities and God • So any doctrine, such as materialism, that asserts that finite qualities or natural objects are fully real is mistaken

22. Additional • Beginning withImmanuel Kant, German idealists such as G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Arthur Schopenhauer dominated 19th-century philosophy • This tradition, which emphasized the mental or "ideal" character of all phenomena • Idealistic andSubjectivist school • British idealism • Phenomenalism • Existentialism • The historical influence of this branch of idealism remains central even that rejected its metaphysicalassumptions, such as pragmatism andpositivism

23. Marxism • Marxism is a socio-economic and political worldview or inquiry based on a materialist interpretation of historical development • A dialectical view of social transformation • An analysis of class-relations and conflict within society • Marxist methodology informs an economic and sociopolitical enquiry applying to the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism and the role of class struggle in systemic economic change

24. Sources • Dialecticism • Germen Philosophy • Historical Materialism • Hegel and Feuerbach

25. …. • Primitive Communism • Slave Society • Feudalism • Capitalism • Socialism • Communism

26. Concepts • Intellectual tenets of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels • 1848 Communist Manifesto • Marxist analyses and methodologies have influenced multiple political ideologies and social movements throughout history • Marxism encompasses and economic theory, a sociological theory, a philosophical method and revolutionary view of social change

27. Fundamentals • Marxism talks about materialist understanding of societal development • Its starting point is necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs • The form of economic organization or mode of production is understood to be the basis from which the majority of other social phenomena – • Social relations • Political and legal systems • Morality and ideology • These social relations form the Superstructure • For which the economic system forms the base

28. …. • As the forces of production- technology-highly mechanized and socialized production and private ownership change scenario • Surplus product in the form of surplus value or profit • Benefits small section of society –Bourgeoisie • These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in the form of Class Struggle

29. …. • Contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat, social unrest between the two antagonistic classes intensifies • Culminates social relation • The eventual long-term outcome is revolution which would be the establishment-a socioeconomic system based on cooperative ownership of the means of production- Socialism

30. …. • ‘Distribution based on one’s contribution and production organized directly for use’ • As the productive forces and technology continued to advance, socialism would eventually give way to a Communist stage of social development • Communism would be a classless, stateless, humane society erected on common ownership • ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’

31. Changes • Countries had governments at some point in the 20th century- Albania, Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Grenada, Hungary, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, the USSR and its republics, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Vietnam • Three state of India- Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal have had Marxist governmentsthrough electoral processes • Some of these governments such as-Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova, Nepal, Ecuador and Bolivia