Introduction to International Relations Theory

Why Start with Theory?  We start this course with an examination of International Relations Theory.  Students (especially at an introductory level) are sometimes put off by theory - wondering why we can not start by examining the "facts" or the "issues."  But the problem with jumping to the "facts" or the "issues"  is that not every agrees on what the facts are or even what facts are important.  Take for example, the war in Iraq. In determining what the US should do e.g. Should we hold elections at the end of the month? What are the prospects for civil war in Iraq?  To determine the level of stability in Iraq and whether or not we are promoting democracy there.  To answer these "factual" questions - we have to make certain theoretical judgments.  We have to start, in other words, with theory.

Empirical v. Normative Questions and Theories: You can ask two very different types of questions about world politics and develop two very different types of theories about international politics or US foreign policy decision-making: empirical questions (what happened? why?) and normative questions: what should have happened?

Empirical Theories: Understanding US Foreign Policy Decisions & World Politics

The central goal of human knowledge is to understand how & why various aspects of the world operate.  This is true of all the natural sciences (e.g. biology, chemistry, astronomy, etc) and it is also true of the social sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology, history and, for our purposes in this course: political science).  In each of these disciplines there is often disagreement about how & why that part of the world operates. These disagreements take the form of competing empirical theories. For example, different anthropologists pose different theories about how, where, and why mankind's ancestors managed to harness the use of fire.  Psychologists debate about the extent to which human behavior is predetermined genetically or shaped as a result of experience.  We will debate in this class different theories to explain US foreign policy decisions.

Empirical Analysis of IR or US Foreign Policy: Understanding what happened and why it happened.  What is the current reality of international relations - regardless of whether you like that reality of not? What happened historically? The first type of questions are about describing, explaining, and predicting how world politics and/or how the foreign policy decision-making of a particular country actually operates.  When we ask these type of questions we are engaged in developing empirical theory.  Not all political scientists agree about how best to describe, explain, or predict world politics or foreign policy decision-making. Not all historians may agree over what happened in a particular historical event.  As we shall see, there are, in fact, different empirical theories about both how the system operates and how US Foreign Policy decisions are made (we will focus on the later).  But all empirical theories share in common the fact that they are NOT evaluating policies or governmental action as good or bad; they are simply attempting to understand the reality of what exists. Over the course of the semester, you should try to determine which empirical theory (theories) of world politics or US foreign policy decision-making are the most accurate and best describe reality.  Here one might ask questions such as What happened to John Kerry during his Viet Nam experience? (description) OR Why did the US go to war with Iraq? (explanation).

In the next class we will examine different empirical explanations of US foreign policy decisions.  For the remainder of today's lecture, we will examine the elements of normative theories of US Foreign Policy.

Normative Theories to Guide US Foreign Policy

Normative Political Ideologies - Evaluating Politics: What Should Happen? What SHOULD world politics or US foreign policy look like?  How do we know whether a particular policy is good or bad or what American foreign policy establishment should do? Once again, we will see that there are major disagreements about what makes for a good or bad policy or good or bad governmental action.  In other words, different people hold different normative theories about what politics should look like.  Here one might ask such questions as should the US have gone to war with Iraq?

All normative theories include empirical assumptions about the way the world operates.  Sometimes the difference between the policy prescriptions that derive from the normative theories derives from differences in these empirical assumptions.  Other times it derives from different value judgments.  Normative theories add to these empirical assumptions of reality - values or moral judgments.  Just to give one example concerning the phenomenon of war; normative theories start with empirical assumptions about why wars occur and how to develop "peace" but they add normative judgments about issues about whether or not military force is ever morally justified and if so, when (pacifism v. "just war" v. realism).

Elements of Normative Theories 

As we study each normative theory we will break them into the following elements or parts.

I.         General Characteristics of this type of theories + sub-variants & key theorists.  All of the theories we will examine are really not one theory but a category or type of theories with some important internal debates among sub-theories.  We will begin by laying out what all the general characteristics that a particular type of normative theory have in common (e.g. what all realist theories have in common) then we will list and characterize the sub-variants.  Sometimes there are sub-variants of empirical assumptions and sub-variants of normative prescriptions.  We will list both.  

The key thing to keep in mind about normative debate is that normative theories do not necessarily prescribe one course of action - what they do is set the terms of debate.  To illustrate what I mean by this - there were realists who favored the war in Iraq and realists who opposed the war in Iraq.  So to say that realist theory tells us whether we should have to go to war in Iraq is incorrect.  However, realist theory does say that certain factors are legitimate to consider while other factors are illegitimate.  Realist theory, for example, says that the human rights situation or promoting democracy in Iraq are irrelevant at best and serious distractions at worst.  So to argue to go to war in Iraq to improve the human rights situation in Iraq is from the realist situation illegitimate.  All realists would agree on this.  What is legitimate to consider from realist theory is whether US national interests in the region are improved or impaired; e.g. does this action reduce or enhance the risk of a terrorist attack on the US? Does it eliminate the possibility that an adversary might gain access to WMD? Does it ease US access to oil?  All of these questions, are from the standpoint of realist theory, legitimate questions to ask about the war in Iraq.  So realist theory limits the debate to questions such as these - but it does not necessarily prescribe the outcome of this debate. 

II. Ontological Assumptions About the Nature of the World for Normative Theory:

A.    Epistemological Assumptions:  Epistemological questions in philosophy concern how we know things about the world.  Natural Science, Realist Theory, and Liberal Theory all make assumptions of what is called "logical positivism" - meaning that we can derive objective information about the world from our observations and such methodologies as the "scientific method."   Other theories (e.g. constructivism - a variant of critical theory) argue that the subjective biases of all people distort the observation process.   

B. Nature of Man - Is human nature evil? self-interested? good?  rational? irrational? are there gender differences? These assumptions have implications for the normative prescriptions one suggests.

C.     View of History & Free Will.  There are two basic question here:

  1.     Is history a linear progression towards a more positive future? Cyclical - where nothing fundamental changes but "who is on top" and what puts them on top? Entropic? i.e. a descent into a more negative future?  

  2.    How important are individuals in history?  Do individuals matter or is history a product of structural factors where individuals have little effect?  For example, what is the impact of Hitler on world history? Would WW II have occurred without Hitler? Would it have taken the form it did?  Different theories draw different conclusions here (sometimes there are important differences among sub-variants

  3. of theories (e.g. between structural realism and classical realism).  

D. Nature of World Order? 

  1. Key Actors? States? Civilization? (e.g. Muslim Caliphate), Non-Governmental Organizations or NGO's (e.g. MNCs, Amnesty International, Green Peace, etc)?  Inter-governmental Organizations or IGOs (UN? WTO? EU? NATO? OPEC)? Transnational Social Movements? (TSMs) that are loose alliances of NGOs across countries and/or groups of people who identify with a particular group

  2. Predominant form of Collective Identity? What is the primary identity of a particular group of people? National Identity (e.g. Iraqi); Tribal Identity? Ethnic Identity? Religious Identity? Gender? There is often a close link between key actors and predominate form of collective identity.

  3. Key Level of Analysis and Factors Behind World Politics? e.g. realist belief that anarchy and struggle for power = fundamental reality and key factors include geography, natural resources, military and economic power.

  4. Tacit or Formal Rules that Regulate the Actions of Key Actors? If so, what are these?

E.    Why does War Occur?  In the last category, we really put together all the previous ontological assumptions.  In particular, we will examine theories of the causes of war.

IV.              Normative Implications - esp. for US Foreign Policy:  In this category, we will examine what this theory says about the direction of  US Foreign Policy.  Keep in mind that one general theory (e.g. realist theory or liberal theory) does NOT typically prescribe one course of action; but it does set the terms of legitimate debate. 

V.                 Critique: Utility & Problems:  All theories have internal contradictions and problems both in their empirical and normative applications.  We will end by discussing these.

Categorizing Normative Theories of IR

No One Agreed Categorization:  The first thing to realize when discussing normative (or empirical) theories of International Relations is that is not one neat, agreed categorization to divide the theories.  Different authors of IR texts divide the theories up differently.  You read one article or one text and it uses one division and you read another article or text and it uses another division. The old division was between "realists" and "idealists".  Now the division is often between realists, liberals, and critical theories on the one hand or between isolationists, realists, neo-cons, and liberal-institutionalists on the other.  The key is to realize that there is no "ideal" division.  So long as you understand the criteria on which the theories are divided you can move between different categorizations without problems. 

We will use the first trichotomy: realist theory, liberal theory, and critical theory.  The key point of division here is over the proper goal of US foreign policy: (1) maximizing US "hard" power (realist theory): (2) promoting the spread of liberal democracy and capitalism (liberal theory); or (3) none of the above - other objectives - critical theory (e.g. communism/socialism; women's power, "environmentally sustainable development" respecting cultural differences, etc).

Two Dimensional Categorization of Sub-Theories and Theorists:  Just like any of you will find yourself mixtures of the ideal theorists - this is also true of particular theorists and sub-theories of IR.  Therefore, it is useful to think of all theories/theorists as differing on a two-dimensional continum (if you can envision three or four or five dimensional space - you can also divide them this way. I have to keep it simple in two-dimensional space).  In class lecture, we will consider some of the following dichotomies in setting up various two-dimensional contimums to characterize different theorists.

 

Schedule

Realist