Talk:International relations theory

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 9 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mayaspring.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

English school

I added a section, copied from the main article about the English School, surely this most rational of theories needs to be represented here?

Constructivism

I added a paragraph on constructivism (which had been shockingly missing - do I sense a realist plot?), but I'm not sure it's very clear. Feel free to improve. Nicolasdz 07:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the claim that "social-constructivism" is becoming main stream in IR Theory requires citation. Many IR Theorists have little respect for constructivism, so it's move toward the mainstream is a surprise to me. 164.67.44.90 18:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Pursuant to the dictum of being bold, I've moved Constructivism under critical theories, as that's where Richard Price and Chris Reus-Smit see it stemming from. I've also added a citation to the introduction about Constructivism becoming mainstream, partly because I can't seem to escape it in Grad School and also because Reus-Smit explicitly says that on two pages of the article cited. I also dropped the Social- at the start of the word, as I've never seen it that way, nor does wikipedia refer to it as such anywhere else; the other articles just call it constructivism. Thus, changed. Feel free to flame my temerity.. but you can't accuse me of timidity.  :) (and yes, i did add a reference to my own comment) Shigernafy 02:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Liberalism over Idealism

I would suggest that Idealism becomes a subsection of Liberalism, the term is pejorative. It was coined at the start of WWII when the possibility of applying liberal values to IR obviously seemed idealist. It would be better to define the school as Liberalism because the school of Liberalism/Idealism is based around the extension of Liberal thought to an international environment. Wilsonian Idealism and other variants of liberalism are all based around the normative element. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.205.77.36 (talk) 20:54, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Merger?

Why is this page separate from the entry on International relations?

Theory about international relations is only a subfield of the larger study of international relations. The international relations article needs a lot of work. When it's brought up to shape, it will be clearer why the IRtheory page has its own article.—thames 17:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

External Links Section

How about a link to The IR Theory Web Site (www.irtheory.com)?

Realism "inherently agressive states"

I think someone needs to qualify the claim that realists believe states are inherently agressive, or at least specify that only some forms of realism adhere to it. Structural Realists such as Kenneth Waltz don't subscribe to this view, because he believes it implies that nations are in a constant state of war. I don't want to debate whether that's true or not, but the article needs to be clearer to reflect Neo-realist differences with classical realism 164.67.44.90 18:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Although it's quite an important school in IR I miss Postmodernism in this article.86.83.133.52 09:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition

Should the example of the Billiard Ball Pardigm be mentioned under Realism, and the Cobweb Paradigm under Liberalism? Int'l knowledge (talk) 21:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

What are they? (This would be my preemptive way of saying probably not, though). Michael Sheflin 02:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

It is kind of metahpor..realists see the worlds as lots of unit actors (billiard balls), liberals see the world as a cobweb - lots of interactions between NGOs, non-state actors, etc. It should go in the article somewhere. This article is really underdeveloped at the moment... Francium12  16:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting, I've never heard that (at all...), so again I'd personally suggest no. Realists generally look at the global system as a global state system (a la Waltz). Ironically, Morgenthau's original theories of realism dealt far more with first and second image issues whereas realism has sort of been lumped together with Neorealism specifically and thus been consistently seen as a largely state-based theory ontological. Conversely, liberalism (particularly neoliberalism) is at least in part a critique to realist theories and so frequently has characterized important elements of IR as related to different elements of governance - as you say, non-state actors (which are NGOs and IGOs (and INGOs etc etc etc)) - but also are international institutions that don't directly fall into that purview - like NATO, the UN, the WTO. I'm not sure those are really NGOs in a meaningful sense. The entire transnational project (which I do not think was actually intended to break down realism) and the respective (and combined) focuses of Keohane and Martin concentrated on transaction costs and information. This leads into a later "New School" or "Critical Theory" response and a later solidification of constructivism. I've never heard those cobweb/billiard ball metaphors. I do not think they are helpful.

If by cobweb this means something similar to dependency and by billiard ball (I'm American by the way so there may be an idiomatic gap here (not sure?)) something more similar to zero-sum situations, then I suppose there might be some utility to that. But in the latter case it's better just to say liberal-interdependence, realist-self-help. I think these are more self-explanatory: in the former case, states are dependent on a global network; in the latter they are more prone to collective security and power balancing? Please explain the metaphors a little further. Comparing billiard balls and cobwebs as a means of describing more and fewer levels of analysis is like comparing apples and oranges to get North Korea back to six-party talks... Michael Sheflin (talk) 05:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I read the relevant sentence. It appears to be exactly what you said 'realists see billiard balls; liberals see cobwebs.' This is unsatisfactory as it makes precious little sense. If, after 7 years of studying IR I can't understand that sentence it probably isn't more obvious generally (particularly as it apparently solely relates to "statism" which itself is an improper heading for that section (as etatism (statism) is not related to international ontology in that way (it's related to domestic governance configurations)). Michael Sheflin (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If this (http://www.politicsprofessor.com/politicaltheories/billiard-ball-model.php) is what you mean then it is thoroughly irrelevant at this point... Likewise if this (http://www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/cobweb-theory.php) is your cobweb idea, it is more relevant to Statism, but neither is relevant to this theoretical discussion. I have no interest in editing anymore, but I guess I just want to hammer home how poorly this was all written, and how incomprehensible and internally irrelevant it appears. Needless to say, some might call me more of a cobweb, but I think of myself as a billiard ball... Michael Sheflin (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This popped up in a book on foreign policy I was reading yesterday (the billiard balls not the other) attributed to one of Waltz's books. I have not read either Man, The State, and War or Theory of International Politics in several years and this idea was never discussed in any of my classes (that I can remember). The FP book did not explain it and in context it also made precious little sense. I again say it should be clarified or removed (preferably the former since now it apparently does fit the context (of IR theory)). Michael Sheflin (talk) 18:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Link to French version

The link to the french version of this page goes to 'International Politics' instead of the (also existing) 'Théory des Relations Internationales'. I don't have any idea how to fix this though. Peerschouten (talk) 19:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done Has been fixed. Finnusertop (talk) 21:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Overhaul

I will be giving this article an overhaul over the next few weeks. When I started it contained 1 reference and omitted several key theories. Bear with me as I attempt to turn it into something useful. I would welcome some help on constructivism.  Francium12  01:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I added a number of core texts that form the basis of theoretical trends in IR, and Chernoff's book on meta-theory from several years ago describing the relationships with social science more broadly, to the additional reading section; I should have logged in before doing so, sorry. Michael Sheflin (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Carl Schmitt and Political Theology

I am not familiar with the field so I cannot judge how marginal this position is, but Nicholas Guilhot claims in "Political Theology and International Relations" that the realist "tradition", including the use of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Thucydides, was invented in order to mask the influence of Carl Schmitt, whose work Guilhot refers to as the "reactionary canon of the interwar years". Can anyone comment on whether this is a singular claim or whether it should be included in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.230.124.194 (talk) 10:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Theocracies

Theocracies are unique political theories that doesn't fit into any of these categories. Or am i missing something here?
Thank you
--OxAO (talk) 19:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is Orientalism under Alternative Approaches?

Our article on Orientalism is about a school of art, and it makes no mention of Orientalism being in competition with Realism or any other theory of international relations. While I can see how Orientalism is at least somewhat related to this article, I'm not sure how it constitutes a full-blown alternative approach to the field. -- SnarkyShark (talk) 01:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Structuralism

A few months ago, there used to be an article structuralism (international relations) but now its gone, and there is no evidence that there was any sort of deletion debate or anything. What happened? It seemed to actually contain plausible content. Can someone find this article again? Can it be un-deleted, or some reason for deletion given?

A google search reveals hits [1] [2] [3] [4] -- this seems like a valid topic, so somebodies speedy-delete seems quite unfair. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 05:50, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

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Coloured sunglasses – does it fit Wikipedias tone?

At the time of writing, the article's third sentence reads:

Ole Holsti describes international relations theories as acting like pairs of coloured sunglasses that allow the wearer to see only salient events relevant to the theory; e.g., an adherent of realism may completely disregard an event that a constructivist might pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa.

While I do not necessarily disagree with Holsti's analysis, nor deny that it is relevant, I must question if it really is relevant so early in the article. The lead section should, as per MOS:LEAD "briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. The reason for a topic's noteworthiness should be established, or at least introduced, in the lead...". Holsti's comment is not an important point of IR theory, nor does it establish or introduce the topic's noteworthyness. It is a somewhat cynical, opinionated statement, which I do not view as presenting a neutral point of view. I have removed it for now. Remember, the lead section should be the most accessible part of the article. Erbeilas (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)