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IR Summary: One World, Rival Theories
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Class 3: Why do we need Concepts and Theories of IR?One World, Rival Theories
Familiar theories about how the world works still dominate academic debate. Instead of
radical change, academia has adjusted existing theories to meet new realities.
There are three dominant approaches: realism, liberalism, and an updated form of idealism
called “constructivism”. These theories shape both public discourse and policy analysis.
Policymakers and public commentators invoke elements of all these theories when
articulating solutions to global security dilemmas. IR theory also shapes and informs the
thinking of the public intellectuals who translate and disseminate academic ideas.
1. Realism focuses on the shifting distribution of power among states.
2. Liberalism highlights the rising number of democracies and the turbulence of
democratic transitions.
3. Idealism illuminates the changing norms of sovereignty, human rights, and
international justice, as well as the increased potency of religious ideas in politics.
When these theories enter policymaking and public debate, they can sometimes become
intellectual window dressing for simplistic worldviews. However, their policy implications
are subtle and multifaceted.
1. Realism instills a pragmatic appreciation of the role of power, but also warns that
states will suffer if they overreach.
2. Liberalism highlights the cooperative potential of mature democracies, but it also
notes democracies’ tendency to crusade against tyrannies and the propensity of
emerging democracies to collapse into violent etnice turmoil.
3. Idealism stresses that a consensus of values must underpin any stable political order,
yet it also recognizes that forging such a consensus often requires an ideological
struggle with the potential for conflict.
The theories for looking at a complicated picture through a filter, and act as a powerful check
towards each other.
Is realism still realistic?
At realism’s core is the belief that international affairs is a struggle for power among
self-interested states. It is not a theory of despair (states can mitigate the causes of war by
reducing danger towards each other), nor is it necessarily amoral (a ruthless pragmatism
about power can yield a more peaceful world).
, In recent decades, this approach has been mostly articulated by the US, but still has a broad
appeal outside here. China’s current foreign policy is grounded in realist ideas (developing its
military slowly but surely and avoiding a confrontation with superior U.S.
When a state grows vastly more powerful than opponents, it will eventually use that power to
expand its domination, whether for security, wealth, or other motives.
➢ The theory’s most obvious success is its ability to explain the United States’ forceful
military response to 9/11: the US employed military power in an imperial fashion in
large part because it could.
It’s harder for the normally state-centric realists to explain why the world’s only superpower
announced a war against al Qaeda (a nonstate terrorist organization).
➢ How can realist theory account for the importance of powerful and violent individuals
in a world of states?
Realists find that the central battles in the “war on terror” have been fought against
two states (Afg. and Irq.), and that states, not the UN or HRW, have led the fight
against terrorism.
Even if they acknowledge the importance of nonstate actors as a challenge to their
assumptions, the theory still has important things to say about these groups.
● Suicide terrorism can be a rational, realistic strategy for the leadership of national
liberation movements wanting to get rid of democratic powers.
● Some nonstate groups are now able to resort to violence.
Standard realist doctrine predicts that weaker states will ally to protect themselves from
stronger ones and hereby form and reform a balance of power. Yet no combination of states
or other powers can challenge the US militarily, and no balancing coalition is overhanging.
➢ Some theorists say that the US’ geographic distance and relatively benign intentions
have tempered the balancing instinct.
➢ Others insist that armed resistance by US enemies, and reluctance by its formal allies
actually constitute the beginning of balancing against US hegemony.
But instead of resisting US dominance militarily, states have tried to undermine US
moral legitimacy and constrain the superpower in a web of institutions and treaties.
These conceptual difficulties notwithstanding, realism’s alive, well, and creatively
reassessing how its root principles relate to the post-9/11 world.
Despite changing configurations of power, realists remain steadfast in stressing that policy
must be based on positions of real strength, not on empty bravado or hopeful illusions about a
world without conflict.
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