Paradigms of IR Revision Notes

IR Theory

• International Relations as a distinct academic discipline emerged in the aftermath of the First
World War.
• IR theories are at once descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. This paper is about empirical
analysis, however, not the normative study of how states ought to behave.
• Hazareesingh characterises international relations as an ‘applied theoretical discipline’. There is
a constant interaction between the real world and theories that are used to explain it.
• IR is to a large extent preoccupied with explaining either cooperation or con ict.
• As with all social science theory, IR paradigms cannot explain everything. The task at hand is to
develop theoretical frameworks that most accurately predict and explain the unfolding of
international relations.
• Donnelly (2000) notes (perhaps cynically) that “the usefulness of a particular theory or approach
is largely a matter of what we choose to study or hope to nd.”
• Recently there has been a turn away from economistic-rationalist modes of thought towards an
appreciation for categories like emotion e.g. Hall, 2015.
• Criteria for assessing a theory (one theory might better explain one facet of the criteria but not
another):
1. Ability to explain the structure of the international system.
2. Ability to explain relations between states.
3. Ability to explain a state’s foreign policy.
• Anarchy and hierarchy:
- De nition of anarchy: “formally, each is the equal of all others.” Hierarchy may exist in an
anarchic order, but no formalised political authority exists.
- Anarchy and hierarchy are traditionally cast as a dichotomy (Waltz, 1979), but Donnelly (2000)
suggests that the opposite of anarchy is governance or political authority.
- The central problematique of IR is politics under conditions of anarchy. After this lies the
question of why states engage in war when it is incredibly costly.
- Arguably anarchy is the only point of consensus between IR theories; the key variation
between theories of IR is what the consequences of anarchy are.
- Anarchy is compatible with order; “to say that world politics is anarchic does not imply that it
entirely lacks organisation” (Bull, 1977).
- Characteristics of anarchy:
- 1) There is no single rule setter and rule enforcer (sovereign).
- 2) There is no hierarchy except through power. This is contrasted to sovereign authority in
domestic politics. BUT contentious as to what constituted power / authority.
- 3.1) Realists argue that there is a constant state of con ict (Hobbesian anarchy).
- 3.2) Liberals argue that there is cooperation and even perpetual peace (Lockean or Kantian
anarchy).
- 3.3) English School scholars argue that norms, values, and institutions structure the
anarchy of a society of sovereign states (Grotian anarchy, between Hobbesian and
Kantian).
- Arguments for hierarchy:
- Hobson & Sharman (2005) argue that powerful states often assert formal political authority
in an anarchic order e.g. Security council P5; explicit in uence over institutions like the
IMF.
- Wallerstein (1974) developed world systems theory to suggest that the West had
constructed a core-periphery dynamic through imperialism, which perpetuated hierarchy.
- Economic domination e.g. US dollar the currency of reserve; US leverage over SWIFT;
China’s BRI; Chinese built Gwadar Port in Pakistan.
- Constructivists (Wendt, 1992) would argue that the social constitution of anarchy gives
di erent states di erent status.
- Sovereignty is a legal relationship that socially constitutes states as formally equal. It is the
juridicial principle that “none is entitled to command; none is required to obey’’ (Lake, 2003).
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 Realism

• Notes on realism:
- Realism is almost always cast as the primary or alternative theory of international relations in
contemporary discourse; “It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the academic study of
international relations is a debate about realism” (Wohlforth, 2008, p. 131).
- Realism is often seen to be a singular theory, but in reality it is “ a ‘big tent’, with room for a
number of di erent theories” (Elman, 1996, p. 26). Realism is often mischaracterised as such
by its critics in order to undermine it.
- Since the founding of international relations as a distinct academic discipline, four waves of
realism can be identi ed: interwar and wartime work of Niebuhr and E.H. Carr; the early Cold
War work surrounding Hans Morgenthau’s Politics among Nations (1954); the detente work
surrounding Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics; and post-cold war scholarship
surrounding Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
- Realists generally have a pessimistic outlook on world politics.
- It is useful to separate realist theoretical schools and speci c realist theories that follow from
these schools of thought.
- Realism is often praised for its simplicity; however, in recent years realist scholars have been
more open to pragmatic cooperation with other paradigms (e.g. neoclassical realism’s
attention to domestic politics). Arguably, then, realism has become more “modest”
(Wohlforth, 2008, p. 147).
- Donnelly (2000) calls realism “a starting point for or a single dimension of international
theory.” It is a corrective against naivety about power, but allows for other goals to arise.
• Premises:
- Anarchy: The international order is characterised by anarchy because there is no sovereign
world government. It follows that states endure a “perennial uncertainty about their fates”.
(Waltz, 2000). Global politics is a zero sum game that will result in con ict and war because
there can be no resort of higher authority.
- Units of analysis: States, cohered upon nationalism, are the primary actors in international
politics. However, realism is a theory that can apply to any set of groups in social interaction,
which means that realists may adopt a similar approach to domestic politics. Generally,
though, foreign policy and international relations should be examined separately.
- Egoism: states are rational, self-helping entities that compete for power. Egoism is rooted in
human nature. Realists do not assert that egoism cannot be exacerbated or mediated in
international politics. Still, egoism leads realists to consider state interest to be objective.
- Power politics: as a consequence of egoism in a world of states, international politics is
primarily a study of the sel sh pursuit of power. As such, realists mainly focus on great
powers because they shape the global order and cause the deadliest wars. However, when
realism is applied to regional systems, regional hegemons may become more relevant.
- Power is mainly analysed through material capabilities.
• Classical Realism (e.g. Morgenthau, E. H. Carr):
- Thinkers of this strain posit that the realist state of a airs arises from our innate, natural
competitiveness and lust for power. Con ict is inevitable.
- Hans Morgenthau’s Politics among Nations (1954) is a foundational work of classical realism,
which addressed almost every aspect of international relations through the realist paradigm.
- Morgenthau argued that a multi-polar system is more likely to be stable because it is easier
for great powers to form alliances to deter aggressors.
- Thucidydes, Machiavelli, and Hobbes are often cited as integral to the classical realist canon.
• Neorealism / Structural Realism (e.g. Waltz):
- Neorealism is a structure level theory that addresses the key question of security.
- In Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (1979), he explained the condition of
con ict through examining the structure of the international system rather than through
human nature. This mode of thinking focuses on the distribution of power between states.
- “The structure of international politics is not transformed by changes internal to states,
however widespread the changes may be.” (Waltz, 2000).
- Security is placed at the top of the agenda for states’ foreign policy.
- Waltz’s work (1979) was highly theoretical in nature and as such Neorealists draw largely
di erent conclusions about the nature of international politics depending on their
understanding of empirical phenomena like geography and technology.
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 • Defensive (Structural) Realism (e.g. Waltz):
- Defensive realists argue that anarchy does not make con ict ubiquitous because states
primarily seek security.
- Drawing from the idea of ‘groupism’, defensive realists have asserted that the strong group
identities formed in nation states make the conquering and subjugation of peoples more
di cult (Van Evera, 1999). This makes states less likely to initiate wars.
- The nature of technology makes states more or less defensive. For example, nuclear
deterrence makes it almost impossible for a nuclear-armed states to be entirely destroyed.
Alternatively, new technology in cyber-warfare may make it less risky for states to engage in
these less visible form of con ict.
• O ensive (Structural) Realism (e.g. Mearsheimer):
- O ensive realists that states will always seek to maximise their relative power in relation to
others. This disposition results from the uncertainty that anarchy engenders.
- Though all states seek the ideal of global hegemony (to eliminate all threats to security),
Mearsheimer argues that it is impossible for any state to become a world hegemon because
of 1) the scale of the world’s oceans and 2) the impossibility of reading total nuclear
supremacy.
- The o ensive/defensive character of international relations may result from misperceptions
about whether conditions favour the aggressor or defender in war. For example, during the
early 20th century it was believed that railways and new weapons technology would facilitate
the rapid conquest of territories where in fact the defender in war was favoured.
- The three behavioural attributes of states according to Meearsheimer: “fear, self-help, and
power maximisation” (Mearsheimer, 1999).
- Though aggressors are sometimes punished for initiating war, there is according o ensive
realists “no mechanism, other than the possible self-interest of a third party, for punishing an
aggressor” (Mearsheimer, 1999).
- In 63 major wars between 1815 and 1990, the initiator won 39 times (about 60% success
rate); however, the nature of the international system changed signi cantly both across this
period and since.
• Neoclassical Realism (e.g. Schweller; Wholforth; Jervis):
- Neoclassical realists argue that international politics cannot be explained solely by an
analysis of the international system. Instead, the interaction of internal and external
pressures is necessary.
- Emerged in the post-1989 period after realism failed to explain the collapse of the Soviet
bloc.
- Neoclassical realists do not view state interests as xed, including a cognitive and domestic
dimension in the formulation of state interests. Security is seen as based also on regime
survival and domestic pressures (not preferences) are seen to explain foreign policy.
- Balance of threat theory (Walt) and the inclusion of misperceptions (Jervis) in neoclassical
realism include subjectivity.
- Neoclassical realists see power as based on perceptions as well as material supremacy. A
state will relate to another based on its perception of how strong the other power is. Thus,
they distinguish objective and subjective reality.
- Neoclassical theorists argue that states are inherently self-interested, but that their behaviour
is based often on regime survival, which might be threatened by internal pressures. e.g.
Yanukovych was more threatened by the Euromaidan movement than a Russian invasion.
- Perceptions about power and threats are important in explaining state behaviour, especially
because states make miscalculations about their relative power. This too is a ected by the
workings of domestic politics.
- A distinction is made between revisionist and status quo powers.
- Concepts like soft power can be incorporated into (neo)classical realism because of the
importance of perceptions.
• Balancing:
- Drawing on structural realism, most realists emphasise ‘balancing behaviour’. Balancing
refers to the process whereby states maximise their in uence based on their power by
checking encroaching powers.
- Balancing is essential when a rising power threatens a state’s dominance. The result is either
1) internal balancing (the buildup of military and economic power) or 2) external balancing
(the formation of alliance blocs). The build up to the Napoleonic wars, the World Wars, and
the Cold War illustrate this.
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 - Though (Neo)realists identify balancing, the weakness of realism is that it cannot explain
when this rebalancing will occur (e.g. balancing of Japan or Germany against US unipolarity).
- Balance-of-power theory ought to be contrasted with balance-of threat theory. Under the
latter, states balance against potential threats. Threats are perceived according aggregate
capabilities, geography, and perceptions of (future) aggressive intentions. This nal factor
may be constituted in a variety of ways (see constructivism).
- Waltz argued that con ict was more likely in a multipolar international system than a bipolar
or unipolar one because 1) there is less uncertainty when there are fewer actors and 2)
collective action problems (in balancing coalitions) are not present.
- Bandwagoning around or against a hegemon causes alliance blocs. e.g. Baltic states join
NATO to resist Russia. e.g. China and Russia acting together to limit US power.
- Buckpassing is free-riding in a relationship with another power. e.g. China buckpasses the
di cult political decisions to IR to Russia in the UN; Russia free rides of Chinese economic
investment in the Belt and Road initiative.
- Chainganging refers to the hardening of alliance blocs in the international system. This may
lead to war or stasis e.g. pre-WW1 alliance systems. This is distinguished from
bandwagoning because states in the former are more equal partners whereas in the latter
there is power asymmetry. The rst is mutual defence often enshrined in treaties and the
latter is following the leader often informally.
- Banwagoning, chainganging, and buckpassing often constrain hegemony.
• Hegemonic stability theory posits that an international system is more stable when one
hegemon has the power to fully control the modes of cooperation that make it function. e.g.
globalisation and institutional cooperation in the US-led liberal international order.
- Power transition theory draws on hegemonic stability theory to assert that a Thucydides Trap
emerges when one hegemon becomes threatened by a rising power. The status quo
hegemon seeks to preserve its global primacy and as such con ict ensues when a new
challenger seeks to supplant its dominance.
• Security-dilemma theory:
- Coined by John Herz (1950), the idea of a ‘security dilemma’ refers to the risk that a state’s
increase of their capabilities will result in further insecurity by making other states feel
insecure, which will cause others to increase their own capabilities in turn.
- Jervis (1978) describes how anarchy makes security dilemmas likely, which leads to a
positive feedback loop of mistrust, rivalry, and con ict.
- A security dilemma refers to when “actions that states take to increase their security often
induce a response by adversaries and actually result in a decrease in their security” (Levy &
Thompson, 2010, p. 30). e.g. WW1.
- The security dilemma follows from the premise that relative power is most important i.e. one
state’s gain is another’s loss.
• Strengths of realism:
- Explaining shifts in the balance of power.
- Explaining the outbreak of war.
- Parsimonious.

Realism’s Understanding of International Institutions and International Law

• Mearsheimer argues that cooperation is only motivated by self-interest.

• Although states may purportedly adhere to the jurisdiction of international institutions, there is
no coercive mechanism for enforcing their authority. As such, when institutions threaten states
interests, they often are ignored:
- USA invaded Panama and mined in Nicaraguan waters in open violation of international law
despite legally agreeing to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.
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 Realism’s Understanding of power in the current system

• In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), the o ensive realist Mearsheimer argues that:
- Insular nations like Britain and the USA maximise their interests by maintaining a reasonable
balance of power on the main continents.
- Mearsheimer dismisses the claim that democracy, economic interdependence, or
international institutions reduce a state’s fundamental aim to maximise its relative position.
- Mearsheimer is also sceptical about the role of ideology in causing war. This draws on the
assertion that domestic politics is irrelevant to state behaviour.
- Mearsheimer follows the ‘Thucidydean trap’ argument, asserting that con ict is inevitable
when a rising power confronts the status quo hegemon. As such, Mearsheimer argues that
America’s willingness to promote economic growth in China is misguided. A rich China would
seek regional hegemony and inevitably aim to counter American in uence.
- Merasheimer nds that balanced bipolarity systems are the most stable and unbalanced
multipolar systems the least. e.g. France seeks hegemony 1793-1815 (unbalanced
multipolarity); Germany seeks hegemony 1903-1918 (unbalanced multipolarity); Germany
seeks hegemony 1939-1945 (unbalanced multipolarity); 1945-1990 Cold War balanced
bipolarity.

Critiques

• Critique from Liberalism:

- It is wrong to conceive of inter state relations as a zero sum game. There can be mutual
bene t via close cooperation (e.g. Europe).
- Mearsheimer’s aggressive realism fails to explain the e orts of liberal democracies to e ect
humanitarian aid (e.g. Balkans, Somalia, Haiti) at considerable expense in ways that do not
necessarily bene t them.
- The internal politics of a state clearly a ects its foreign policy. e.g. Japan and Germany vastly
overextended their military capabilities during the 1940s out of a power hungry ideological
fervour that bordered on insanity.
- Waltz asserts that the moral self-image and proselytising tendencies of democracy may
increase the incidence of war; however, no wars have broken out among democracies, so
surely there is some link between internal and external politics.
- The distribution of information can have material e ects on international politics (as
Mearsheimer concedes), so hard materialism is not feasible.
- Institutionalists assert that realists often subtly agree with them. Though realists should see
institutions only as re ections of power, Grieco explains Germany’s sacri cing of sovereignty
in the EU as the result of institutions promoting absolute gains; this sacri ces the realist claim
that states will only maximise relative gains.
- Moravscik (1997, 516) asserts that “Liberal theory is analytically prior to both realism and
institutionalism because it de nes the conditions under which their assumptions hold.” e.g.
the constitution of state preferences.
• Critique from the English School:
- A strategy designed to augment a state’s power incorporates the expected reaction of other
states (classical and neoclassical realism address this). Thus, norms and expectations shape
the operation of realism.
- Realism struggles to explain how world orders transition e.g. feudalism to sovereignty
(constructivism might level a similar critique). In contrast, the English School explains the
evolution of the international system towards an international society.
- Hurrell argues that a commitment to the primacy of the state in IR does not mean that
cooperation cannot occur. Indeed, states cooperate continuously in their pursuit of security.
- Any working ‘balance of power’ depends to a large extent on shared norms and assumptions
within any stable system. It is the assumptions of nuclear deterrence not the operation of
nuclear arms systems that prevents nuclear war.
- Power is a means to an end, so it is important to understand the way that motives leading to
the application of power come about.
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 • Critique from Constructivism:
- The constructivist critique is fundamentally ontological rather than epistemological.
- Realists take the rationalist, materialist, individualist posture of states to be given. In contrast,
constructivists examine the ontology of IR. Wendt (1999) argues that “despite their seeming
intractability, ontological issues are crucial to how we do and should think about international
life, and that IR scholarship today is insu ciently self-conscious about them.”
- “The apparent explanatory power of ostensibly "materialist" explanations is actually
constituted by suppressed constructivist assumptions about the content and distribution of
ideas.” (Wendt, 1999, p. 96).
- Waltz’s theory carries two implicit assumptions about the distribution of interests: rst, that
states will seek to help themselves and, second, that states will be egoistic in their activities.
- Nicholas Kitchen’s neoclassical realism allows for the independent agency of ideas. Indeed,
realism asserts that actors make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. As such,
expectations, which are shaped by ideas, play a key role in the formulation of policy.
Goldstein and Keohane describe how ideas function as ‘road maps’ to help negotiate these
conditions of uncertainty.
- Waltz is wrong to assume that survival is a state’s only interest.
- Realists fails to explain why states often act more or less aggressively than their relative
power would seem to dictate (e.g. post-WW2 Germany and Japan less aggressive; Vietnam
and 18th century Prussia more aggressive). Constructivism can explain this by pointing to
the social construction of identity and multiple logics of anarchy.
- Individualistic theories of the international structure are useful in explaining causal
relationships, but holistic ones are needed if the constitutive e ects of the international
structure are to be appreciated.
- Classical and Neoclassical realism examine notions of status, prestige, reputation, and
hegemony; constructivism has forced realists to examine how these are socially constructed.
- Some constructivists critique Waltz’s ‘state systemic project’ whereby IR is characterised by
the interaction of individual, unitary, rational states because:
- International politics has not always revolved around states (e.g. city states, city leagues,
confederations, empires).
- Non-state actors exert a large in uence on international politics.
- A disproportionately large distinction between state politics and foreign a airs is made.
- Waltz calls his theory structuralist and utilises a microeconomic inspired model which is
highly individualistic, and yet states that the system constructs actors, but only to a very
limited extent.
- “A micro-economic approach to structure does not tell us what structure is made of.”
(Wendt, 1999, p. 16)
• The thinning of realism’s distinctive approach:
- Legro and Moravcsik (1999) assert that the only theoretical principles that realism has
retained are that of anarchy and rationality; neither are speci c to realism (shared by
institutionalists and liberals).
- Realism has dealt with its de ciencies by relying on ideas from other paradigms.
- “Realism has become little more than a generic commitment to the assumption of rational
state behaviour.” (Legro & Moravcsik, 1999).
- (Neoclassical) realists now concede that state preferences, beliefs, and international
institutions shape states’ calculations about how to interact.
- Realists used to assert that states have uniform and con ictual goals; the abandonment of
the distinctively ‘realist’ way of thinking occurred when defensive and neoclassical realists
began to incorporate preferences, beliefs, and international institutions shape states’
calculations about how to interact with one another, especially because these factors can
trump calculations of material power.
- However, o ensive realists prioritise materialist capabilities in making sense of IR. For them,
cooperation in the name of international institutions, shared norms, and appeals to shared
norms and identities cannot occur. The global balance of power can only re ect the material
balance of power. Neoclassical and defensive realists have abandoned this premise.
- Examples of realists incorporating domestic politics: Snyder’s theory of imperialism; Zakaria
explains late 19th century America’s slow expansion by referring to domestic politics and the
unwillingness of democratic American society to support foreign adventures due to
ideological and cultural convictions (i.e. actions based not just on material capabilities).
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 - Neoclassical realists often explain that states are either more o ensive or defensive because
of regime type, economic interests, cultural values, political identity, etc. This constitutes “the
slide from power to preferences” (Legro & Moravcsik, 1999).
- By incorporating perceptions, preferences, and norms into an explanation of a state’s IR,
realism loses its distinctiveness. e.g. Wohlforth argues that the end of the Cold War came
about when changing Soviet perceptions led to a crisis of con dence about its power in
relation to the USA. As such, power becomes what people perceive it to be.
• Soft power:
- Whereas soft power does not t easily into realist theories, it ts into all of English School,
constructivist, and liberal theories of IR
- In Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), Joseph Nye argues that “in
today’s world, it is best to be both [feared and loved]” (Nye, 2004, p. 1).
- Nye de ned soft power as “getting others to want the outcomes that you want” (Nye, 2004,
p. 5). He summarises it as “attractive power” (Nye, 2004, p. 6).
- Nye suggests that soft power and hard power exist along a spectrum between coercion and
co-option. Hard power capabilities may enhance soft power. Thinker who focus solely on
material capabilities are “one-dimensional players in a three-dimensional game” (Nye, 2004).
- Sources of soft power:
- Knowledge.
- Culture.
- Friendship.
- Historical cooperation.
Examples

• America used force, if covertly, to undermine the democratically elected governments of Chile
and the Dominican Republic during the Cold War.
• Realism’s predictions (Waltz):
- Realism primarily explains broad trends rather than the speci c causes of speci c wars.
- States will balance against rising threats.
- Bipolarity is more stable than mulit-polarity.
- The spread of nuclear weapons will prevent war.
• Realism’s success:
- A long-term view of history suggests that it is right to suggest that rising powers often come
into con ict with the status quo hegemon (Thucydidean Trap).
- Bipolarity did secure peace between great powers during the cold war.
- Nuclear deterrence seems to ensure peace between nuclear states.
- States do seem to prioritise security.
- Inter-state con ict continues to occur.
• Empirical challenges to realism:
- Realists nd it di cult to explain the end of the Cold War
- The persistence of NATO through the end of the Cold War
- The existence of humanitarian intervention; the importance of non-state actors in
contemporary geopolitics (e.g. terrorist organisations and multinational corporations)
- The pursuit of democratisation; why states do not balance against the US
- Why the US hasn’t yet signi cantly tried to contain China
- Why powerful states lose wars (now they lose more than they win).
- War’s changing character evaluates the assumptions of realism.
- Economically strong countries like Japan and Germany have wilfully avoided rearmament
despite the possibility that they could become great powers.
• The Return of Geopolitics:
- In the emerging International order, inter-state wars are rare.
- Fukiyama called the end of the Cold War (and the triumph of capitalism and liberal political
economy) the ‘end of history’. He thought that all states would become alike.
- There is a debate over whether the USA’s global in uence is in decline.
- Some consider the US’s unipolar hegemony is dangerous.
- Realists contend that we are in an unusual; phase of international relations.
• Major dynamics:
- The rise of China.
- The resurgence of Russian foreign policy, especially with the war in Ukraine.
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 - Instability in the Middle East.
- The relative proliferation of nuclear weapons (e.g. India, Pakistan, and China).
- Economic growth in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
- America’s ‘pivot to Asia’.
- Potential con ict in contested territories in China.

Liberalism

• Notes on liberalism:
- Liberalism is often misconstrued as a utopian, ideological theory of IR. This is partially
because it is associated with the idealism of the interwar period, which hopelessly failed to
prevent the Second World War (see critique in Carr, 1940).
- Liberalism (and institutionalism) gained renewed attention in the post war years as scholars
sought to study the e ects of new international institutions on IR.
- It is often posited that liberalism is generally best at explaining peacetime IR rather than
explaining why con ict breaks out.
- Liberal IR theorists hail Kant as their canonical founder. In Perpetual Peace (1795) he argued
that an international society of republics could avoid war and achieve mutual gains.
Following the First World War, ideal theorists like Woodrow Wilson attempted to implement
liberal international principles.
• Premises:
- Societal actors (individuals and associations) are the primarily actors in IR. They are risk-
averse and seek to maximise their material and ideational interests through politics.
- States represent some subset of domestic and transnational ciivl society. Thus, state
preferences can vary according to a particular balancing of material and ideational interests.
- State preferences are interdependent, so relate to both domestic and international politics.
- Anarchy in international politics is mitigated by:
- 1) Economic interdependence.
- 2) International institutions.
- 3) The benign e ects of democracy.
- Despite anarchy, international relations is a positive sum game. Progress is possible.
- Shared values and democracy bring about peace.
- Liberals analyse power in a more di use, less state-centred way. Power is less directly
con ated with material capabilities to coerce.
• Analytical Liberalism:
- Pioneered by Andrew Moravcsik, this analytical framework is further from realism than liberal
institutionalism. Previously, liberalism has been portrayed as an idealist, prescriptive theory
or an interpretation of history rather than an analytical paradigm like realism.
- State preferences are constituted on many levels and their interests are not xed, even if they
are rational. Moravcsik asserts that states are “embedded in a domestic and transnational
society that creates incentives for its members to engage in economic, social and cultural
interactions that transcend borders” (Moravcsik, 2008, p. 234). As such, liberalism stresses
the multiple causes behind state behaviour.
- The crux of analytical liberalism is that “state-society relations — the relationship of states to
the domestic and transnational social context in which they are embedded — have a
fundamental impact on state behavior in world politics” (Moravcsik, 1997, 513).
- This strain of liberalism can be divided between: 1) ideational liberals, who assert that state
preferences are based on promotion of desirable forms of political, cultural, and
socioeconomic order; 2) commercial liberals, who stress interdependence; and 3) republican
liberals, who prioritise domestic politics, leadership, and institutional design.
- Globalisation provides the impetus for transnational interactions, which in turn create the
forces that shape state behaviour through domestic politics.
- Liberals are often accused of utopianism; in contrast, however, liberals explain war by
looking at how economic, ideational, and political factors can lead states towards con ict.
For example, strong clashes in identity may lead to war, economic interests may advocate
con ict for personal gain, and individuals who stand to gain from war (by constituting a
privileged minority) may use their political power to advocate war (which is always costly).
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 - For liberals, the state is a vehicle for individuals and groups to advance their interests. It is
constantly remade, so its interests cannot be xed. “Deriving state preferences from social
preferences is thus the central theoretical task of liberal theory” (Moravcsik, 2008, p. 237).
- Liberals distinguish state behaviour determined by changing preferences and behaviour
caused by changing strategies employed to achieve the ends of preferences.
- Liberals conceive of state preferences and strategy as interdependent i.e. states behave in
interaction with one another. Furthermore, states try to compromise with one another, even in
times of con ict in order to reduce the costs of war.
- Liberals can explain long term changes in the international system through “complex
interdependence” (Keohane & Nye, 1997). e.g. why European states cooperated in resolving
the Yugoslav Civil war, but came to war 100 years earlier over the same issue. Moravscik
(1999, 535) similarly suggests that liberalism can explain the particularity of the modern
international system.
- Liberals explain the deviation of states from power maximisations by identifying “the slide
from power to preferences” (Legro & Moravcsik, 1999).
• Variants in analytical liberalism:
- Ideational liberals suggest that ideas about social and political organisation a ect the way
that states interrelate. Social identities arise because of national, political/constitutional, and
socioeconomic organisational tendencies. e.g. Kalevi Holsti, 1991; David Lumsdaine, 1993.
- Commercial liberals prioritise transnational economic incentives. Commercial actors interact
across borders and press their governments towards certain policies. Though this is a non-
idealist theory, it suggests that trade integration prevents war. e.g. Helen Milner, 1988.
- Republican liberals explain state behaviour through the nature of domestic political
representation, focusing on whose interests in society are represented by government. e.g.
Robert Ekelund and Robert Tollison 1981
- Moravscik (1999) suggests that these variants ought to be considered together; indeed, he
asserts that one strength of liberalism is its ability to incorporate multi-causal explanations.
• Liberal institutionalism:
- Liberal institutionalists assert:
- 1) Institutions have an independent e ect on international relations.
- 2) If they did not, great powers would not spend money and energy creating them.
- Liberal institutionalists accept that international politics occurs under conditions of anarchy,
but they posit that International institutions can mitigate anarchy e.g. Robert Keohane.
- Institutionalists conceive of institutions as independent variables in IR with their own agency.
However, institutions ultimately come about because of states’ self-interest. Realists, on the
contrary, assert that they can only re ect and underlying balance of power.
- International institutions are de ned broadly as “principles, norms, rules, and decision-
making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area”
(Krasner, 1982, p. 185).
- Due to its game theoretical approach, liberal institutionalism is seen to have converged to a
large extent with realism. They both share a rationalist approach. However, realists argue that
institutions are epiphenomenal because they merely re ect the interests of the powerful.
- Institutionalism ts inside analytical liberalism, but the latter sustains other more far reaching
analytical conclusions.
- Moravscik sharply contrasts analytical liberalism from institutionalism, which sees the
distribution of information and institutional power as important to determining the structure of
IR. He argues that institutionalism like realism fails to explain state preferences.
• In their classic Power and Interdependence (1977), Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye argued
that international economic, ideational, and institutional networks structured state behaviour in
ways generally overlooked by realists and idealists:
- Keohane and Nye emphasise how “complex interdependence” a ect (but do not eliminate)
power relations between states. It served to mitigate con ict.
• Liberal Internationalism is a normative, prescriptive theory of international relations that calls for
states to obey the rule of law and to promote peace and prosperity:
- Liberal internationalists support the mediation of international anarchy through international
forums like the UN.
- Many liberals support R2P whereby a state’s treatment of its citizens is considered to be of
concern to entire international community. As such, sovereignty is more limited.
- Liberal internationalists support the (cautious) promotion of liberal democracy because liberal
democracies do not go to war against one another.
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 • Strengths:
- Parsimonious.
- Systemic theory.
- Allows for the in uence of non-state actors / forces.
Critiques

• Critique from realism:

- Some argue that institutionalism can only explain peacetime IR. Realists suggest that the end
of the Cold War has led liberals to a sort of self-delusional hubris. Realists see their laws as
timeless and inevitable; conversely, realism is accused of only explaining wartime IR.
- Realists assert that institutions merely re ect the existing balance of material power between
states:
- Liberals have asserted that the survival of NATO past the end of the Cold War illustrates
the potential for international institutions to serve idealist ends; however, Waltz asserts that
institutional bureaucracies acquire a self-perpetuating ethos.
- In addition, the survival of NATO is explained by realists as a means of the USA imposing
its will on the foreign policy of European states. However, if one examines its actual post-
Cold War commitments, it has served humanitarian goals. Indeed, the Iraq War
demonstrates that it was by no means a guarantee that NATO allies would follow the USA
into the con ict: France did not send any troops to Iraq.
- “International institutions serve primarily national rather than international interests.”
(Waltz, 2000). BUT a central claim of liberalism is that they can help everyone. Waltz
asserts that liberal institutionalists amount to realists by supporting the view that
institutions are dependent on state interests as well as independent.
- “Either international conventions, treaties, and institutions remain close to the underlying
distribution of national capabilities or they court failure.” (Waltz, 2000).
- The term institution has often been used so widely (e.g. borders or even anarchy become
institutions) that it loses its explanatory value.
- Liberals are woefully optimistic about the scope for cooperation in the international anarchy:
- E.H. Carr (1940) famously chastised the idealists of the interwar years.
- Although states may appear to act out of ideological beliefs, Waltz argues that these only
become relevant when they either bene t or harm a political actor. e.g. humanitarian aid in
Yugoslavia was motivated by the issue forming an important part in the next US election.
- BUT Moravscik is not optimistic, but rather analytical in his liberalism. Indeed, above point
about US elections exempli es an anti-realist consideration for internal politics.
- Economic interdependence is not always conducive to peace:
- Indeed, interdependence “multiplies the occasions for con icts that may promote
resentment and even war” (Waltz, 2000).
- States may forgo economic interests if their security is threatened e.g. Germany and
Britain were close trading partners before WW1.
- Economic interdependence gives states an interest in other states’ internal a airs, which
augments the appeal of intervention. e.g. opium war (1839-42).
- Ultimately, Waltz concludes that economic interdependence is of weak explanatory value.
There was a high degree of interdependence within states like the USSR and Yugoslavia,
but they both fell apart nonetheless — and at a tremendous economic cost.
- Democratic peace theory is sustained by weak causal logic:
- DPT does not explain but rather asserts that democracies do not ght one another.
Indeed, as the Fashoda incident of 1898 demonstrates, democracies have often prepared
to ght one another but backed down because of realist calculations (Britain and France
worried about intervention by Germany).
- Waltz asserts furthermore that democratic peace theory rests on the awed assumption
that the causes of war are internal a airs of states.
- Waltz criticises democratic states for viewing non-democracies as a threat simply because
of their non-democratic character.
- Democracy promotion has been dangerous and misguided; “If the world is now safe for
democracy, one has to wonder whether democracy is safe for the world.” (Waltz, 2000).
- Institutions are often dysfunctional and ine ective e.g. disputes on UN Security Council; utter
failure of CIS.
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 - Liberalism’s focus on state preferences has led many to dismiss it as FPA, not IR. BUT, the
distribution of preferences in national and transnational society is analysed on a systemic
level like capabilities or resources:
• Critique from the English School:
- Like constructivism, the English School would question liberalism’s understanding of how
international order changes. At least traditionally, liberals have seen a progressive impulse
towards peace and economic interdependence (Kantian ideas) whereas the English School
gave more scope for international society to deteriorate.
- Liberalism is more empirical than the English School, which gives greater attention to ideas,
norms, and practices rather than the procedural outcomes of international institutions for
cooperation.
- With realism, the English School might perceive liberalism to be too optimistic.
• Critique from constructivism:
- Liberals adhere to rationalism and materialism, which means that they fail to evaluate the
ontology of their theoretical commitments (see critiques of realism).
- Liberals assume a Lockean or Kantian mode of anarchy where constructivists explain how
di erent logics of anarchy may come into e ect.
- Constructivists would support liberalism’s attention to internal a airs and transnational
values. Furthermore, its focus on regime type is somewhat analogous, although
constructivists would place more emphasis on shared ideas and identity rather than
empirical outcomes.
- Constructivists assert that international institutions a ect IR in that they a ect the distribution
of ideas.
• Critique from Post-Colonial and Marxist approaches:
- Liberal institutions are cast as a means for Western, capitalist elites to exercise economic
and ideological power over the rest of the world.

Examples

• Since 1945, the following international institutions have dramatically increased the range and
depth of their activities:
- The United Nations: Most of Millennium Development Goals set out in 2000 have now been
achieved.
- The World Bank:
- The IMF:
- NATO:
- The EU (originally the EEC):
- The International Criminal Court:
- Various other regional organisations e.g. ASEAN, the African Union, the Arab League,
Mercosur
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 The English School

• Notes on the English School:

- The English School constitutes a distinctive and systematic alternative to the more
positivistic mainstream theories of American IR scholars. Though historically overlooked, it
has gained con dence in an approach which synthesises theory, history, values, power,
agency, and structure in a sort of ‘middle way’ between the rationalist paradigms of the US
and constructivism, thus avoiding false dichotomies. Furthermore, it gained attention in the
1990s as paradigm that could explain the prevalence of values-driven con ict.
- The English School grew out traditions in 19th century legal theory, especially the principle
that law presupposes the existence of society.
- The rst phase of the English School (1950s-1980s) coalesced around the work of Hedley
Bull, Herbert Butter eld, Charles Manning, Adam Watson, Martin Wight, and R. J. Vincent.
From the 1990s, scholars like Andrew Hurrell, Barry Buzan, Edward Keene, Andrew Linklater,
Richard Little, James Mayall, Hidemi Suganami, and Nicholas Wheeler.
- English School scholars in the late 1990s noted that constructivism’s focus on the social
constitution of state interests strengthened interest in constructivism. Constructivists,
however, lack a holistic direction for moving from the destabilisation of ontology.
- “Rather than ‘operationalising’ concepts and formulating ‘testable’ hypotheses [like American
IR paradigms], the emphasis upon contending concepts is driven by a search for de ning
properties that mark the boundaries of di erent historical and normative orders” (Dunne,
2008, p. 271).
• Premises:
- States interrelate under conditions of anarchy, so they avoid con ict by establishing norms,
values, and institutions that dictate their interrelationships. Cooperation is motivated by
insecurity.
- Despite the absence of a sovereign, international relations is characterised by order, which
Headley Bull de ned order as “A pattern [in the relations of human individuals or groups] that
leads to a particular result, an arrangement of social life such that it promotes certain goals
or values” (Bull, 2002, pp. 3-4).
- States are still the primary actors in IR, but actors in international politics are guided to
varying degrees by these international values, norms, and institutions. This ideational aspect
is somewhat distinctive.
- International orders can be characterised as either 1) an international system; 2) an
international society; and 3) a world society. These are ideal type models of how states
interrelate, and they may overlap in practice.
- Bull saw quantitative analysis in IR to be somewhat futile. Instead, he argued that the
combination of philosophy, history, and law should be used
• International system:
- An international (or inter-state) system emerges among independent political communities
when the intensity of interactions leads states to “form a system in the sense that the
behaviour of each is a necessary factor in the calculations of others” (Bull & Watson, 1984).
- The idea of the interstate system is used to explain the historical development of
international society.
• International society:
- International society is an ‘ideal type’ category, so it is not problematic if states do not
behave in international society as theory might stipulate (Keene, 2009, 115).
- In contrast to international relations in a states system, in an international society states
“have established by dialogue and consent common rules and institutions for the conduct of
their relations, and recognise their common interest in maintaining these arrangements” (Bull
& Watson, 1984, p. 1).
- International society emerges when states “conceive themselves to be bound by a common
set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common
institutions” (Bull, 2002, 13).
- International society is the result of conscious endeavours to mitigate anarchy through
diplomacy, norms, values, institutions, and other vehicles of cooperation. "Within the system
of states that grew up in Europe and spread around the world, notions of right and wrong in
international behavior have always held a central place" (Bull, 1977, 48).
- International society is grounded in the mutual recognition of sovereignty by all states.
- Political and foreign policy elites are agents acting through states in international society.
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 - States behaviour is constituted in relation to other states (similar to constructivism).
- Non-state actors may also be considered to be members of international society e.g. the
Vatican in the middle ages or INGOs today.
- International society becomes more closely integrated with the deepening on mutual interest
e.g. economic interdependence, the need for travel access, or merely stability.
- There is some debate about what constitutes membership within international society.
Generally, adherence to rules, norms, and practices is a condition for entry:
- Huntington argues that international society is fragmented along cultural and civilisational
lines (e.g. Western vs Islamic way of life). Hurrell asserts that Huntington is too simplistic in
his assessment of civilisational con ict, failing to recognise the diversity and internal
fragmentation inherent inside societies.
- Regional blocs criss cross international society (e.g. ASEAN or the EU). They
institutionalise economic cooperation and facilitate the organisation of spheres of in uence
and regional responsibility. Regions, however, should not be taken for granted and are
constantly changing.
- Rogue or pariah states may be exiled from the international society where they have infringed
upon its rules (though exile is never total). Rules are enforced by collective retaliation.
- Di erent types of technology “change the quality and character of what might be called the
interaction capacity of the system as a whole” (Buzan, Jones and Little, 1993, p. 70).
- The distribution of material and non-material power capabilities a ects the character of
international society.
- International society is “not something you see, but an idea in light of which we can make
sense of an aspect of contemporary international relations” (Linklater & Suganami, 2006).
- To understand an international society is to a large extent to understand the normative order
behind the world. This may be done through legal treaties, media, government actions,
international institutions, etc.
- Bull saw the existence of ‘international society’ (achieved) as fragile. A lack of careful
maintenance could lead to backsliding into anarchy and realist thinking.
- Hurrell (2007, 59) de nes institutions as “connected sets of norms and rules (transactional,
regulative, and constitutive) embedded in stable and on‐going social practices.”
- Bull (1977) argued that international society had four goals:
- 1) Preserve system and society of states itself.
- 2) Maintain independence or external sovereignty of individual states.
- 3) Maintain peace through absence of war.
- 4) ‘Life, truth and property’ elementary goals.
- Bull sees these institutions important for maintaining the health of the international society:
- 1) The balance of power, which preserves the integrity of independent states (more realist
thinking). Bull suggested that unipolarity would be dangerous as coalitions cannot check
global hegemony’s violation of the rules that underpin international society.
- 2) Cooperation among great powers to maintain international peace. Great powers hold
great responsibility to maintain the international order (more realist thinking). Bull was
rather pessimistic about the prospect of this.
- 3) International law based on treaties and the consent of state; however, solidarist thinkers
have more recently pushed towards the legality of human rights that override sovereignty.
- 4) Diplomacy based on the reciprocal exchange of ambassadors. Diplomacy has become
open and public. This is positive as it incorporates public opinion, but this feature also
removes exibility
- 5) War, which can preserve the integrity of the international order (e.g. Gulf War). However,
nuclear and cyber warfare undermine the e cacy of war as a deterrent against breaking
the rules.
• Solidarism vs Pluralism:
- Solidarism and pluralism prescribe di erent criteria for an acceptable violation of sovereignty.
They are normative ideas about IR, but are useful for analysing di erent phases of
international society.
- In a pluralist international society, states will focus on the preservation of security through
common rules that impose minimal constraints (Robert Jackson, 2000). A state’s sovereignty
may not be violated unless that state violates the sovereignty of another.
- In a solidarist international society, state sovereignty is limited when a regime threatens
international rules or the human rights of its citizens. In the case of some violation,
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 international society collectively enforces its rules (Wheeler, 2000). Bull was sceptical about
this where human rights rules were contested and not legally consented to.
- The West tends to interact according in a solidarist international society framework whereas
the non-West is committed to pluralism. Indeed, pluralism does not preclude the importance
of shared interests and institutionalised cooperation.
- The ‘responsibility to protect’, which gives states a right to intervene in a state that violates
human rights, was agreed to at the 2005 World Summit, even by Russia, China, and Iran.
• World Society:
- World society emerged when shared values and interests become universal across the world,
particular with reference to the protection of basic human rights or national self-
determination.
- Some argue that the universal values promulgated by the UN Charter in 1945, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998 exemplify the
development of a world society (Armstrong, 1999); however, such institutions are dependent
on the compliance of the core players in the system.
- World Society cooperation might operate on a regional level. Regional economic and security
complexes emerge to create international society. e.g. the EU.
- Buzan (2004, 2) uses the concept of world society to refer to the “non-state side of the
International system.”
• Institutions:
- Sovereignty, great power status, the balance of power, and limited war were thought of as
institutions by Bull because they dictated rules of states’ interrelationships and had
developed over a long period of time.
- Bull de ned order as “a pattern [in the relations of human individuals or groups] that leads to
a particular result, an arrangement of social life such that it promotes certain goals or values”
(Bull, 2003, pp. 3-4).
- History is important to IR because it shapes a state’s understanding of itself (its identity),
which a ects the traditions and ideologies it pursues. Institutions are to a large extent
legitimised by history.
• The historical development of international society according to Bull;
- International society changes according to:
- 1) The criteria of sovereignty e.g. dynastic to nation state.
- 2) Membership of international society e.g. civilised vs uncivilised to equal membership.
- The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended the Thirty Years War. This supposedly marked a
watershed after which European states pursued the reciprocal recognition of international
sovereignty. Before this sovereignty was a looser concept. The World of Medieval
Christendom was characterised by overlapping claims to authority (due to the feudal system
and organisations like the Holy Roman Empire e.g. English kings ruled England but paid
homage to Kings of France). The notion of packaged states with coherent borders and
sovereignty emerged after (around) 1648. Furthermore, the Vatican operated as a single
universal authority that created divinely backed rules for all of Christendom.
- The Medieval Order of Christendom was undermined 1) by the Reformation’s challenge to
canon law and papal authority and 2) by the proliferation of absolutism. The rediscovery of
Roman laws led European Kings to develop the notion that Kings were utterly supreme in
their own kingdoms.
- Some have pointed to the importance of capitalism (or other sociological / socioeconomic
considerations) in the development of the international system.
- Since 1648, sovereignty has transitioned has moved from being centred on dynastic
monarchs to being centred on national self-determination / popular sovereignty (after the
French Revolution). This principle implies that borders ought to change around these new
centres of sovereignty.
- Since the Second World War, human rights have become integral to the question of
International law. This poses a fundamental challenge to the idea of the international system
as a combination of inviolable, sovereign states.
- From its genesis in Europe, the international system has expanded across the world. The
condition of its growth has been the growth of ‘civilisation’. The English School take the view
that western values are a prerequisite for entry into the system (e.g. the Ottoman Empire,
Japan, Siam in the 19th century).
- There is a question as to how deep the percolation of western values must be to constitute
entry into the international system. One might argue that the rst condition is to recognise
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 reciprocal international sovereignty. Arguably a respect for European private property rights
and the rule of law are also prerequisite conditions.
- The English School’s historical / philosophical approach prevents quantitative analysis, but
allows more reasoned conclusions about future transformations in the International system to
be made.
- Key moments in the development of international society:
- Westphalia (1648).
- Versailles (1815).
- Versailles (1919).
- San Francisco (1945).
- Decolonisation (1960s).
• Developments within the English School:
- Mapping the institutions of international society analytically, Buzan has sought to expand the
scope of what we consider in our discussion of international institutions. Economic systems,
trade, and perhaps even colonialism ought to be considered.
- Historical sociology and global history: contemporary thinkers are trying to reduce the euro-
centricity of IR. Marxist and post-colonial thinkers follow this view.
- Hurrell (2007) marks one of the most comprehensive analyses of contemporary international
society:
- Hurrell employs concepts from the English School, liberal institutionalism, and
constructivism to assert that the international system has moved beyond what Bull called
the ‘anarchical society’ to a denser mode of interrelationships.
- Hurrell argues that Bull’s ideas are no longer appropriate because of:
- 1) Intense cooperation on issues like the environment, the global economy, and
international security.
- 2) Even more densely integrated regional architectures.
- Hurrell is distinguished for his normative arguments about the international system.
- Recognising the persistence of value pluralism, Hurrell outlined the tension between the
di ering worldview of di erent actors, but the need to cooperate towards shared
problems.
- Hurrell (2007) contrasts “the one world of globalizing capitalism, of global security
dynamics, of a global political system that, for many, revolves around a single hegemonic
power, of global institutions and global governance, and of the drive to develop and
embed a global cosmopolitan ethic”; and on the other hand “the extent to which regions
and the regional level of practice and of analysis have become more rmly established as
important elements of the architecture of global political order.”
- Aspects of liberal solidarism pervade interstate relations.
- Keene (2002) criticised the Eurocentric assumption within the English School that the modern
state system arose through the expansion of the European Westphalian order outwards:
- Two state systems existed by the nineteenth century: (1) a European state system based
on mutual respect for sovereignty; and (2) a European imposed imperialism for the extra-
European order based on bringing the ideal of civilisation, which created unequal
sovereignty.
- Keen (2002) posits that the modern state system arose through the fusion of these
Western and non-Western systems.
• Buzan’s interpretation of the current system:
- Buzan (2004, 232) that international society is pluralist, but not merely power political.
Diplomacy, dense international law, liberal economic integration, national self-determination,
sovereignty structure international society.
- Buzan (2004, 235) summarised that “this is a modestly Cooperative international society, its
Coexistence elements are quite deep-rooted and stable, whereas its Cooperative ones as yet
have shallower roots, and could more easily (which is not to say easily) be swept away by
changes in the distribution of power.”
- The West is a fully entrenched (though somewhat contested) system of cooperation,
including deep socioeconomic ties, legalised international organisations (e.g. the EU), and
shared values (liberal democracy). Other regions possess some integration (e.g. regional
institutions), but none like the West.
- Buzan (2004, 262-3) argues that international society is dominated states, but asserts that
states cede rights to international organisations who pursue solidarist goals.
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Critiques

• From Realism:
- Realism would not allow for the mitigation of power politics by rules, norms, and institutions.
BUT the English School states that this may only sometimes be the case. Indeed,
cooperation is driven by feelings of insecurity.
- The term institution has often been used so widely (e.g. borders or even anarchy become
institutions) that it loses its explanatory value.
- The English school struggles to measure how closely integrated international society is or
whether it really exists. For example, Bull argued that international society persisted during
WW2 because states adhered to treaties about the conduct of war, but even the
maintenance of sovereignty and human security had been overthrown.
• From Liberalism:
- Analytical liberalism would criticise the English School’s treatment of states as unitary actors.
• From Constructivism:
- Constructivists often assert that the English School has failed to fully develop some of its
underlying premises.
- The English School fails to acknowledge the re ective process by which values, norms,
actors, and structures are constituted. This constructivist critique likely derives from
American academic practices and American constructivists self-distancing from rationalism,
which led them to take a very meta-theoretical approach.
- The English School struggles to make predictive claims about how international/world
society come about. The problem for the English School here is that international order is
embedded in international norms and institutions but order itself helps to constitute these.
• From Post-Colonial approaches:
- Post-colonial critics argue that the international society is merely a western dominated global
order that impresses Western values onto the non-West. Indeed, they argue that the
traditional story about the development of international society is extremely Eurocentric.
- Hurrell criticises Bull’s thinking for drawing a contrast between international society and
power. If there is a system, it is to some degree shaped by shared norms, assumption, and
rules. These norms shape the exercise of power, but are themselves shaped by powers.
• The idea that rules, norms, and institutions govern state behaviour is sometimes seen as
tautological; whatever states do is seen to be a rule, so it is no way for them to not follow them:
- BUT Bull did argue that power was fundamental in explaining the international system.
Stronger states can shape international society to a greater extent.
- BUT “To believe in the importance of a common framework of rules and social norms does
not imply that power, coercion, and con ict do not play a major, often dominant, role in
international relations.” (Hurrell, 2007, 38).
- BUT “The theory of international society is not a theory without power and interests but
rather a theory of the complex institutional structure in which power and interests are played
out.” (Knudsen & Navari, 2018, 16).
• States break the rules of international society:
- Bull acknowledged that international society is "precarious and imperfect" (Bull, 1977, 52).
- States that break the rules of international society cease to be a part of it, becoming pariahs.
- The norms and institutions of international society might be contested, but they still function
in some sense.
- It is possible for multiple international societies to exist at the same time and even same
place if multiple, overlapping international societies are in play.

Examples

• China was not granted full sovereignty until January 1942 when the western powers renounced
the unequal treaties because it had not achieved the standard of civilisation that Western
powers required for entry into international society. Though it might have been part of the
international system, it was not part of international society from 1843 to 1942.
• Decolonisation provides many cases of states being slowly integrated into the international
society. In some senses, the mandate or trusteeship system was an early phase of this.
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Constructivism

• Notes on constructivism:
- Constructivism at its core is not a paradigm of international relations, but rather a ‘second
order’ approach to the eld. It used modes of analysis from sociology to question the
unstated ontological assumptions of other theories. O shoots from its early theorists (Wendt,
Onuf, Kratochwil) have developed more concrete theories of IR based o of its more
philosophical premises.
- Since constructivism is a (primarily) ontological approach, “There is no contradiction between
rationalist and constructivist models of the social process” (Wendt, 1999, pp. 365-366).
- Ontology in IR: the nature of actors, the structure, and basic premises.
- Epistemology in IR: more speci c things like power structures, processes. Conclusions about
higher order things that we are trying to make assumptions about (ontology). e.g. liberal
epistemology is about cooperation.
- Rationalist theories of IR see interests as xed and more important than beliefs in causing
actions. Realism and liberal institutionalism see state preferences as rational and shaped by
certain constraints. They relegate the role of ideas in explaining state behaviour.
Constructivism rejects this rationalism.
- Like other critical theories, constructivism is more explicit about its ontological and
epistemological commitments than the mainstream paradigms.
- Constructivism is associated with American scholars. It is a reaction to the dominance
neoliberalism and neorealism. It has less appeal in the Europe because many of its
arguments are already assumed in British and continental theories of IR.
- Constructivism emerged in the new world order that emerged after the end of the Cold War.
It responded to the need to understand such a change in world order, which liberalism and
realism had failed to predict. It also addressed the high incidence of ethnic / identity con ict
in the 1990s. Though its understanding of interests was initially controversial, it has been
widely internalised across the discipline (e.g. Mearsheimer, 2001 recognised non-material
aspects of power; Moravscik, 1999 explains the constitution of state through domestic
politics).
- Constructivism is arguably more humanistic than other strains of IR because questions which
historical forces are most important in a country. Still, constructivism can avoid essentialism
by demonstrating that identities are very changeable.
- A Social Theory of International Politics (Wendt, 1999) is a seminal constructivist text.
• Premises:
- States seek security (and cooperation) under conditions of anarchy, but “anarchy is what
states make of it” (Wendt, 1992); there are multiple logics of anarchy because the way that
states perceive one another varies.
- State identities and interests are socially constructed (or mutually constituted) in a relational
process. Shared ideas, beliefs, and expectations are the basis of social existence. This
makes constructivism ‘holist’ because interests are not individually determined.
- The distribution of shared ideas rather than material capabilities shapes international politics;
it is an ideal rather than materialist theory.
- Shared ideas constitute state identity and interests as well as the character of the
international system.
- Perceptions, historical memory, identity, and beliefs contribute to the constitution of identity
and interest. “A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act
towards objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meaning that the objects have for
them” (Wendt, 1992, pp. 396-7).
- Many constructivists (e.g. Wendt) agree that states are the primary units of analysis in IR.
• The constitution of state interest:
- Perceptions cannot be ignored when it comes to an understanding of friendship or animosity
between states; “500 British nuclear weapons are less threatening to the United States than
5 North Korean nuclear weapons” (Wendt, 1995, p. 73).
- Material power is signi cant, but only in the context of the social system that dictates how
actors will exercise it.
- History shapes the distribution of interests. “The explanatory signi cance of the distribution
of power depends on historically contingent distributions of state interests.” (Wendt, 1999, p.
109).
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 - Constructivism allows the IR theorist to account for how the international system shapes
state behaviour and preferences, but also how domestic factors do this as well.
- State identities evolve because of both natural and cultural selection.
- State interest is a ected by “the constitutive e ects of ideas” (Wendt, 1999, p. 24)
- Materialists think about causes (A causes B) whereas idealists relate phenomena together as
constitutive (A is A by virtue of a relationship with B).
- The culture that exists within and between states is important for determining the
international system.
- Individualists conceive of a social structure as the outcome of interactions between
individuals which are independent of the structure; holism sees a social structure as having a
causal and constitutive e ect on agents. Individualism is bottom up whereas holism is top
down.
• The importance of ideas:
- Idealists see knowledge and ideas as the fundamental causes of a social structure. They are
embodied in values, norms, and institutions, which facilitate or inhibit cooperation, shape the
interests and goals of actors, and shape expectations. For idealists, material forces are
signi cant but secondary. e.g. material inequality may shape the international system, this is
dependent on the distribution of ideas in society.
- In contrast, materialists focus on ves factors in shaping the structure: 1) human nature; 2)
natural resources; 3) geography; 4) forces of production; 5) forces of destruction. Ideas may
play a role in a materialist structural theory, but only in a secondary way.
- “Ultimately it is our ambitions, fears, and hopes - the things we want material forces for - that
drive social evolution, not material forces as such.” (Wendt, 1999, p. 113).
- Ideas constitute state interests because they:
1. Shape perceptions through the agency of language, culture, and history.
2. Structure the courses of action an individual can take towards a certain goal. This is
especially important because rational decision making is always based on incomplete
information, so ideas structure expectations and, as such, strategy.
3. Stimulate deep feelings of emotion, especially when related to identity.
4. Facilitate or inhibit cooperation between actors.
5. Become embedded in institutional structures or laws that propagate them as the
status quo.
- The neoliberal Goldstein & Keohane (1993) distinguish the impact of three types of ideas on
IR:
- World views, which have the most potent impact on IR. e.g. from the Peace of Westphalia
states begin to conceive of themselves in terms of sovereignty.
- Principled beliefs, which specify certain courses of action (e.g. murder is wrong); two
opposing principled beliefs may both share the same worldview (e.g. slavery in Christianity
in past discourse).
- Causal beliefs, which outline how certain means can attain speci c ends. e.g. scienti c
belief provides a plan for deterring climate change; non-violent protest in Hungary and
Poland in 1989 gave activists in East Germany and Czechoslovakia a path to victory.
These shift more quickly than principled beliefs and world views.
- Causal beliefs dictate an actor’s course of action based on information whereas principled
ideas structure courses of action in areas of uncertainty.
- “Ideas are not so much mental as symbolic and organisational; they are embedded not only
in human brains but also in the ‘collective memories’, government procedures, educational
systems, and in the rhetoric of statecraft” (Legro, 2005, p. 6).
- Like other critical theories in IR, constructivism seeks to understand the history and politics
of knowledge production.
- The location of an idea a ects its policy outcomes. e.g. if prevailing public opinion is more
important than the beliefs of the elite, the ideas of the former will be more signi cant in
shaping policy.
- States have some interests that are not socially constructed because of objective demands
that speci cally relate to the maintenance of security; “States are not constituted by each
other all the way down” (Wendt, 1999, p. 245). They require:
- Autonomy, which is “the ability of a state-society complex to exercise control over its
allocation of resources and choice of government.” (Wendt, 1999, p. 235).
- Economic well-being, which means that it will assert control over the economic means of
production. In capitalism, growth is required, but not in other modes of political economy.
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 - Collective self-esteem.
- Wendt (1999) does not argue that power and interests are not relevant. “The claim is rather
that power and interest have the e ects they do in virtue of the ideas that make them up.”
- Brute material force is signi cant in explaining:
- 1) That materially strong states have more power than materially weak ones, so they can
achieve objectives like conquest if they seek to exercise that power.
- 2) The technology available in an époque has an e ect on what type of system is possible
and how di erent states interrelate.
- 3) Natural resources and geography a ects the interests of states and how they behave
because they are intrinsically related to states.
- The relevance of ideas and historical experience allows constructivists to better explain the
emergence of soft power.
• Three logics of anarchy:
- Wendt perceives cultures of anarchy to be self-ful lling. If they are su ciently internalised
and reciprocated, they come to characterise international relations, though never absolutely.
- Hobbesian anarchy: states conceive of one another as enemies or ‘others’ intent on
destroying them (e.g. conservatives against the French Revolution, Nazis against the Jews,
Palestinian and Israeli fundamentalists); kill or be killed. Hobbesian conditions can occur, but
the relative peacefulness of states suggests that it is rare.
- Lockean anarchy: live and let live; Westphalian sovereignty of states despite their weaker
power; rivalry is common, even if peaceful; enmity is rare, but states see one another as
competitors; institutions (e.g. sovereignty) limit anarchy. Lockean anarchy has dominated
international relations.
- Kantian Anarchy: states behave towards one another in a friendly manner, even when
interests might con ict (e.g. North Atlantic States generally peaceful); war becomes rare;
friendship de nes relations between states; friendship entails the non-violent resolution of
con ict and cooperation between Kantian states against common enemies; collective
security; identi cation between states, though this is rarely total.
- Helen Milner asserts that anarchy and hierarchy (a dichotomy) should be conceptualised on a
spectrum. This suggests that the tradition anarchy problem of IR ought to be reconsidered
since relations between (especially Kantian) states can be characterised by legality or
‘governance without government’.
- The structure of international politics a ects the culture of anarchy. States respond to
incentives and shift their identities and interests accordingly.
- In identifying that logics of anarchy might vary, constructivism can explain how the character
of the international system changes in the long term (but perhaps not why).
• Variations in constructivism:
- There is some debate between positivist and post-positivist constructivists about the
epistemology of IR. The former (e.g. Wendt, Finnemore) argue that the social sciences can
derive veri able cause and e ect relations whereas post-positivist constructivists (e.g.
Campbell) reject there objectivity of social sciences research and instead try to explain how
power produces knowledge.
- Some constructivists assert that interests are wholly constituted by ideas whereas others
conceive of a dialectical relationship between ideas and interests. Neither is separable from
the other, but they must be analysed separately in some instances.
- Constructivists disagree over whether states are the primary units of analysis. The fact that
all agents and structures are co-constructed diminishes this controversy, but it still poses
problems for outlining agency in IR.
- Though most early constructivists recognised anarchy as the problematique of IR, some
have more recently argued that hierarchy is self-evident because certain authorities direct the
legitimacy of certain courses of action. Normative structures like IOs, international law, and
customs about legitimate intervention are often directed by a few states, who then have a
privileged status. BUT there is always hierarchy, but just contested and made under
conditions of anarchy.
- Some feminist constructivists (e.g. Peterson and Tickner) bring an alternative approach.
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Critiques of Constructivism

• Too thin to constitute a paradigm:

- Constructivism, with its de nition of highly changeable identities, can at once predict
everything and predict nothing. BUT its unique understanding of the social construction of
state identity and interest is distinctive and invaluable; “Constructivism is not a theory of
international politics.” (Wendt, 1999, p. 193).
- Realists assert that constructivism can only ll in the gaps in the ontology of IR. It cannot
stand alone as a theory of IR. BUT recent research programmes have been directed at the
more substantive implications of constructivism.
- Though English School might assert the same about constructivism, Wendt describes
Headley Bull as a constructivist because of his attention to norms, ideas, values, and
institutions as well as his understanding of the changeable nature of anarchy.
• Western centric
- The values that constructivism prioritises are western dominated.
- It is questionable whether consensus across ‘shared ideas’ can exist between vastly di erent
cultures.
• Too optimistic:
- In its IR analysis: opposing ideas can cause con ict as well as prevent it. BUT Wendt actually
acknowledges this. e.g. historical ties between Russia and Ukraine a cause of cooperation
between elites during the soviet era, but now a source of con ict.
- In its theoretical convictions: Wendt has been criticised for his positivism; he asserted that
social sciences could nd objective truths in the same way as the natural sciences. e.g. it
could be argued that the USA’s democratic identity de nes its interactions with the outside
world. Wendt saw this identity as a measurable quantity.
- Critiques (e.g. David Campbell) assert that identities are neither intrinsic or treatable like
substances. Something like democracy is not easily measurable and is a highly contested
term. There is no intrinsic quantity behind democratic actions; actions are paramount.
- The post-structuralist critique (Campbell) investigate the power that asserted identities can
provide great powers. They focus on language, meaning, and knowledge to understand
power

Examples of Constructivism

• Examples of ideas shaping policy:

- For example, Canada will assume a more congenial posture to the USA than Georgia will to
Russia.
- Security is a state’s most fundamental interest, although a state may sacri ce peripheral
regions by its own accord (e.g. Czechoslovakia, though Bohemia was always the core of the
Czechoslovak state).
- John Ikenberry argues that the prevalence of Keynsianism among policy makers in the post-
WW2 foreign policy elite in the USA helped to shape the post-1945, US-hegemonic order.
- Legro argues that ideas are most important in shaping foreign policy in moments of calamity
where a country’s policy path is unclear.
- Nina Halpern argues that the Stalinist command economy model spread through communist
states for ideational as well as power-based reasons.
- While it might be argued that Eastern European states had to follow this course of action
due to fear of reprisal from the USSR, China adopted a Stalinist command economy in the
face of opposition from the USSR.
- The Stalinist model helped to provide a plan towards socialist development and unite
competing views of development; its adoption was not necessarily the result of political
and economic exigencies.
- Rationalists assert that communist elites adopted the stalinist model because they either
owed their political position to Stalin (Eastern Europe) or stood to gain military and
economic aid from him (Yugoslavia and China). The timing and substance of reforms to
political economic demonstrate this.
- Stalinist political economy persisted after the death of Stalin.
- China failed to adopt Stalinist policies while Stalin was alive, but pursued them after his
death and against the wishes of the USSR.
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 - Tito adopted Stalinist policies more rapidly than Stalin desired.
- Stalinism provided a model for the problems of coordination and future development
facing post-war communist regimes. In the absence of alternatives, Stalinism seemed to
provide the best solution.
- Robert Jackson (1993) argues that changing ideas of legitimacy fuelled decolonisation from
the 1950s in the absence of major changes in power.
- European ideas about liberty, equality, the rule of law, and self-determination became
incompatible with colonialism because the condition of subject peoples’ ability to rule
themselves was dropped. Once colonisers’ view of self-determination had shifted,
imperialism became impossible.
- This change was not the result of a massive change in material power dynamics, but
rather one of legitimacy.
- Jackson argues that fundamental institutional change is usually caused by the creation or
import of new ideas.
- Colonialism, which had previously been taken for granted as a moral institution, lost its
normative force when non-Western and Western gures alike questioned its compatibility
with self-determination.
- Colonialism had been upheld both because Great power interests demanded it, but also
because it was seen as part of a legal and moral civilising mission. Colonial powers
regarded their activities as wholly legal.
- The ‘General Act’ that resulted from the 1884-5 Berlin Conference stipulated conditions for
European rule in Africa, including the development of indigenous civilisations, the
suppression of slavery and the slave trade, and the (limited) respect for the human rights
of indigenous persons.
- “The entire colonial enterprise was deeply normative” (Jackson, 1993, p. 119); when this
normative justi cation fell apart, so did colonialism. This occurred because indigenous
independence activists removed the condition of development from self-determination.
- While European powers su ered from WW2 and struggled to contain independence
movements, their power did not diminish to the extent that colonialism totally collapsed.
The swift end to European dominance resulted from changes in ideas.
- The economic viability of colonialism actually increased following the Second World war.
They were seen by many as an integral part of Europe’s economic recovery. Furthermore,
the Cold War made the ideological control of the Third World evermore important.
- States which tried to maintain colonial dominance — South Africa, Rhodesia, and the
Portuguese Empire — became pariah states.
- “Thus, although power was obviously involved, the anticolonial struggle and victory were
fundamentally and nally normative.” (Jackson, 1993, p. 130)
- The institutionalisation of democratic and representative principles in the West gave
colonised peoples rm grounds for complaint.
- The institutionalisation of self-determination makes outright colonialism impossible today,
even if power dynamics might facilitate it.
- Post-WW2 focus on human rights as a universal ideological commitment.
- The Peace of Westphalia institutionalised predating ideas of sovereignty. Lutheranism had
asserted states’ independence from Rome and many polities acted as sovereign before
1648; however, this institutionalisation of sovereignty enhanced its e ective power.
- Wendt argues that realism cannot explain the end of the Cold War whereas constructivism
can.
- Anne Clunan (2009) examines ve competing identities of the Russian state and explains why
the the statist developmentalist one became triumphant under Putin. This examination of
Russia’s identity explains its recent resurgence in international a airs:
- Clunan argues that it is essential to examine the sources of a country’s national identity in
order to understand how its national interests are formed.
- Political elites make decisions according to rational value maximisation as well as in order
to promote collective self-esteem.
- National interests and preferences are adjusted to maximise collective self-esteem in
relation to images of a country’s past. Political elites use national imagery to relate a
country’s rightful place in global politics.
- A certain national identity is selected if it carries the most legitimacy among the political
elite. This legitimacy is secured through competitive public discourse in which national
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 identities and self-images are evaluated according to their historical appropriateness to a
country as well as their feasibility.
- Cunan calls her theory an “aspirational constructivist theory of identity and interest
formation” (Cunan, 2009, p. 204).
- Russian political elites introduced ve distinct streams of self-imagery in the competitive
political discourse of the 1990s: 1) Western liberal internationalism and democratic
developmentalism; 2) Eurasion statism and developmentalist statism; 3) slavophilism; 4)
neocommunism; 5) national restorationism.
- Statist self-images sought to propagate Russia’s in uence on international a airs through
the internal strengthening of the Russian state.
- According to Clunan, each conception of Russia’s national identity placed it in relation to
the great powers, the West, and the former soviet republics.
- Russia perceived its past as that of a great power with a signi cant role in shaping
European a airs as valuable and distinctive. As such, the softness of Andrei Kozyrev’s
liberal internationalism was deemed historically inappropriate.
- Statist self-imagery prevailed from 1994 because it adhered to Russia’s identity as a
distinctive great power. It saw Russia as a status quo great power with interests in Europe;
however, statist conceptions have struggled to survive e cacy tests since Russia knows
that it cannot compete with the USA for great power status.
- Russia has been con dent in asserting its self-image as an in uencer of international
a airs, but it has not been able to decide on a distinctive path towards domestic
development. Though the propagation of great power status was agreed upon, the
Russian political elite has not settled the question of whether it ought to follow Western
patterns of development or adhere to Russian traditions.
- e.g. in 1994 Russia decided to form an independent line on the Yugoslav crisis, although
this line conformed to NATO’s; NATO’s control of mediation in former Yugoslavia helped
nostalgia for the Soviet period to grow; following the Orange Revolution in Ukraine
(2004-5), uno cial Russian spokesman Gleb Pavlovsky asserted the former USSR as
Russia’s sphere of in uence where domestic a airs contrary to Russian interests would be
interfered with.
- Katzenstein demonstrates how di ering values and norms have led ‘hollandised’ Germany
and Japan to enforce domestic security against terrorism is di erent ways:
- Japan and Germany have been extremely reluctant to engage in armed con ict because of
the historical memory of the Second World War.
- Realists argue that Japan and Germany have been passive in world a airs because they
exist under the protection of US hegemony; however, though both states have engaged
extensively in the world economy and avoided con ict, they have interacted with
international institutions in very di erent ways.
- Japan and Germany were confronted with uncertain circumstances during the 1960s: the
mass proliferation of protest movements and, later, the threat of domestic terrorism.
- Germany has tried to cooperate with other countries to remedy the threat of domestic
terrorism whereas Japan has worked alone.
- German law has been formed under the premise of the ‘lawful state’. This concept a rms
the state, not the people or morality, as the grounding of the law and law enforcement. As
such, Germany has been comfortable with sacri cing some civil liberties in order to
prevent terrorism.
- In Japan, the law is formed from social norms rather than the other way around (really?).
Katzenstein argues that this explains why the number of lawyers and judges in Germany is
proportionally much greater.
- The Japanese police operates according to social norms that it may question individuals
more extensively than in Germany; however, the police’s greater e ective power is
underpinned by social norms and public opinion rather than greater legal power. Of 1,785
charges against the Japanese police for abuse of authority, just 4 cases were prosecuted.
The police has been one of the most popular institutions in Japan.
- Germany has been willing to engage more closely with international institutions. The
legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, Katzenstein asserts, underpins its commitment to EU
integration and inter state cooperation.
- Germany, seeing itself as part of a community of nations, has been active, if somewhat
cautiously, in international security cooperation. Japan, in contrast, focuses on functional,
economic cooperation.
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 - Following the end of the Cold War, many realists predicted that Japan and Germany would
emerge as regional hegemons with bolstered security apparatus. In fact, both countries
avoided this course of action thanks to their harrowing experience of the Second World War:
- Norms are shaped by historical experience and institutions.
- Ideas; e.g. European economic integration was possible despite individual self-interest
promoting di erent policies. Ideas glued cooperation that could bene t everyone. e.g.
divergent ideologies emerged in 1620s England about the authority of the King to tax, which
eroded trust and cooperation between the two.

Critical Theories

• Critical theories emphasise power in knowledge and supposedly neutral order.

• Generally, critical theories seek to uncover hidden normative assumptions in the language,
ontology, and epistemology of international relations. They might be more normatively directed,
but they assert that purportedly descriptive accounted are normative as well.
• The concept of intersectionality allows us to consider these critical theories collectively.
• Post-colonialism:
- Post-colonial theory is often about critiquing IR theory rather than presenting radically
alternative explanations of the international order e.g. Owens, 2017.
- Post-colonial and decolonial theory constitutes more a particular critical orientation than a
paradigm in IR (Sabaratnam in Baylis, Smith and Owens (eds), 2019)
- Critiques of mainstream theories:
- Universal theories are formulated based purely on the European experience of IR.
- Imperialism and racism have been essential to the development of the modern
international system, but is overlooked by mainstream theories.
- The mainstream attachment to anarchy overlooks hierarchies that persist since
decolonisation. Furthermore, it ignores how states are constituted di erently by their
experience as colonisers and colonised.
- Important texts include Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1965) and Edward Said’s
Orientalism (1978).
- It is widely recognised that most theories of IR are very Eurocentric (even Marxism):
- Barry Buzan and Amitav Acharya (2019) trace the relevance of non-Western thought on IR
and how it might be incorporated into a truly global social science. e.g. Chinese thinking
about hierarchy and vassal states, but not great power status.
- The question of race has only been taken seriously in IR very, very recently.
- The genesis of IR was about explaining why di erent races had di erent levels of power. At
this time scienti c racism was commonplace. e.g. Foreign A airs used to be called ‘The
Journal of Race Development’. IR sees itself as having been born after WW1 as a way of
averting war; instead, IR was from the beginning about maintaining race domination.
- Racial minorities played an important role in early IR, but they have been written out of its
intellectual history. e.g. Merze Tate, the rst African-American woman to attain a graduate
degree from Oxford.
- John Hobson argues that racist IR thinking engendered realism and colonial, racialised
domination resulted in neoliberal power relations.
- Post-colonial thinkers argue that to view IR in terms of anarchy erases an understanding of
the theft of land during colonial times (but surely theft is the result of anarchy).
- Critical race theories argue that race is not a truth from a scienti c or ontological point of
view. Race is a discourse that produces identity out of apparent physical di erences. Race is
not inherent; instead, humans have been racialised.
- Racialisation results in the production of ‘whiteness’ as a position of privilege. Whiteness is
just as fabricated as any other racial identity.
- Race is an ordering principle of global politics because it divides humanity into a hierarchical
system of di erent groups.
- Post-colonial thinkers argue that capitalism is not just about class; it includes ideological
assumptions about race and gender which shape the exploitation that occurs under
capitalism.
- V. Spike Peterson: “there is a racialised and gendered division of labour that historically
precedes and structurally enables capitalism.”
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• Feminism:
- Main arguments:
- Centrally asserts that patriarchy is essential to understanding international politics.
- Gender approaches to IR focus as much on men and masculinity as they do on women. e.g.
ideas of masculinity have provided the impetus for violence in war.
- Gendered war roles are seen as a means for a society to dominate another. Ideas of
masculinity centre on the honour of ghting in order to save the ‘weak’ woman. As such,
gender division is a precondition for success in war.
- Just as racial studies must analyse ‘whiteness’, gender studies need to deconstruct
‘masculinity’ as well as femininity. Gender is merely a category of analyse. It is also an active
verb which relates to arti cial meaning attached to di erent sexes.
- Feminist theories of IR are very diverse. However, they all agree that gender a ects world
politics and that gender is shaped by IR as well.
- Gender theorists argue that classical approaches to IR misunderstand global politics
because they do not pay attention to women. Women do in fact have a role to play in
geopolitics e.g. cheap labour of women.
- Gender hierarchies are central to global economic and military systems. They must be
recognised alongside ‘high politics’.
• Marxism:
- Marxists have approached the international system since before the discipline IR was
founded.
- Main arguments:
- Capitalism is a central agent in IR, primarily working to the detriment of the working class
and the Third World. e.g. Benno Teschke casts the development of the international
system as a result of dialectical materialism.
- Globalisation and the rise of international nance have created new dynamics in the
international system, especially an informal American imperial system.
- The marxist approach understands the international order in terms of the dominant form of
social organisation (i.e. capitalism).
- While realism claims continuity in understanding of IR (e.g. Athens vs Sparta = China vs
USA), Marxists argue that di ering modes of production result in di erent forms of
international orders.
- Changes in IR are caused by changes in the mode of production and labour. Historical
materialism is the driver of change in IR.
- Capitalism de nes international relations. Capitalism permits exploitation through a system of
private property and wealth (although slavery is compatible with capitalism).
- Late 19th century imperialism was driven by capitalism’s search for new markets and labour.
- Lenin argued that war between capitalist states was inevitable because of the search for new
markets.
- Rosa Luxembourg argued that militarism resulted from capitalism’s need to nd new
markets. It could not survive inside its own states.
- Dependency theory arose in 1960s Latin America. It asserts that global inequality is the result
of how poorer nations were integrated into the global capitalist system rather than a result of
certain nations’ inherent underdevelopment.
- Dependency theory argues that poorer nations are kept poor by an international division of
labour. IR operates because poorer states become dependent on supplying raw materials to
richer, higher skilled economies.
- Marxists argue that classical approaches abstract timeless truths in order to maintain their
global domination.
- Global capitalism, even in the post-colonial era, transfers wealth from the Global South to the
Global North because of domination through neo-colonialism. The power imbalance of the
post-colonial world persists because international institutions maintain the dependency of
poorer states on richer one.
- Gramscian approaches explain consent to the exploration of global capitalism because of
cultural hegemony. Our ideological understanding of the world is shaped through civil society
(e.g. education, religion, norms).
- America’s cultural hegemony is enforced through a mixture of soft and hard power.
Acceptance of capitalism is socialised through international institutions. Elites in poorer
nations extend capitalist principles to their own states.
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- There is a parallel between the Gramscian idea of cultural hegemony and Foucault’s
disciplinary power.
- Overall, Marxist IR theorists conceive of IR in terms of the global system of production rather
than merely in terms of relations between states. The ‘social whole’ de nes IR. Class
relations are signi cant in explaining how the international system has emerged.
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 Exam Report

• Question the assumption of statements in ‘discuss’ type questions.

• Highlight the strengths and weaknesses of di erent approaches.
• Show an awareness of recent developments in the eld.

Past Question

‘The overlaps among classical approaches to international relations are far more signi cant than
their di erences.’ Discuss. (2021)

In what ways can critical theories of international relations help understand the post-1990 world
order? Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE of the following: constructivism, Marxism,
feminism, post-structuralism. (2021)

‘Hierarchy, rather than anarchy, is the de ning feature of the contemporary international order.’
Discuss. (2020)

‘The non-material aspects of power in international politics are more important than the material,
but also harder to analyse meaningfully.’ Discuss. (2020)

How far is anarchy what states make of it? (2019)

Which theoretical framework or approach o ers the best insights about the power of international
actors? (2019)

Which theoretical approach best explains the changing role of NATO since 1990? (2018)

Do norms merely express the values and preferences of dominant actors in the international
system? (2018)

Has globalisation increased Western domination of the international order? (2018)

‘In international relations it only makes sense to think of power in material terms.’ Discuss. (2018)

‘Power is the most essential and the most elusive concept in the international relations tool kit.’
Do you agree? (2017)

’The importance of material forces is overestimated by realists, and underestimated by

constructivists.’ Discuss. (2017)

‘The co-operation produced by international institutions has done little to alter the essentially
anarchic nature of the international order since 1990.’ Discuss. (2017)

Is the ideal of international distributive justice merely another form of Western imperialism? (2017)

‘Since only material power is measurable, there is little point discussing non-material forms of
power in international relations.’ Discuss. (2016)

Which of the main approaches to international relations provides the most analytically useful
account of the role of the State? (2016)

Do theories of international relations rely too much on the concept of rationality? (2016)

Which theoretical framework or approach best explains the nature of power in the international
system? (2016)

How can we know that a state’s behaviour is in uenced by norms? (2016)

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Which of the main approaches to international relations provides the most analytically useful
account of the role of the State? (2016)

Which theoretical framework or approach best explains the nature of power in the international
system?

How can we know that a state’s behaviour is in uenced by norms? (2015)

‘Realism’s greatest failing is its incapacity to take domestic politics into account.’ Discuss. (2015)

What is the most important purpose of a theory of international relations, and which theoretical
approach best ful ls that purpose? (2014)

About what do the major theoretical approaches to international relations disagree? Answer with
reference to AT LEAST TWO of: realism; liberalism; the English School; constructivism. (2013)

'The insights of the English School combined with an ambiguous ontological claim.' Is this a fair
judgement on constructivism? (2012)

'Realist theory is obsolete.' Discuss. (2011)

Is the international society approach just a 'better packaging' of realist principles? (2010)

EITHER: 'Disagreement over the notion of anarchy is the main dividing line between the major
theories of international relations'. Discuss. (2009)

To what extent do EITHER constructivists OR international society theorists underestimate the

importance of material forces? (2007)

Has the balancing behaviour of the great powers since the end of the Cold War been consistent
with neo-realism? (2002)

Does the notion of 'international society' present a fundamental challenge to realism? (2001)

Does the theory of international society overlap more with realism or with liberalism? (2000)

‘The chief purpose of the study of international relations is to understand the consequences of
international anarchy.’ Do you agree? (sample)

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the principal theoretical approaches to the study of
international relations? (sample)
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