Final Exam preparation

KEY POINTS (Robert and Jackson, 2013: 59-60)

● The main reason why we should study IR is the fact that the entire population of the

world is living in independent states. Together, those states form a global state system.

● The core values that states are expected to uphold are security, freedom, order, justice,

and welfare. Many states promote such values; some do not.

● Traditional or classical IR scholars generally hold a positive view of states as necessary

and desirable. Revisionist scholars view them more negatively as problematical, even

harmful.

● The system of sovereign states emerged in Europe at the start of the modern era, in the

sixteenth century. Medieval political authority was dispersed; modern political authority

is centralized, residing in the government and the head of state.

● The state system was first European; now it is global. The global state system contains

states of very different type: great powers and small states; strong, substantial states

and weak quasi-states.

● There is a link between the expansion of the state system and the establishment of a

world market and a global economy. Some developing countries have benefitted from

integration into the global economy; others remain poor and underdeveloped.

● Economic globalization and other developments challenge the sovereign state. We cannot

know for certain whether the state system is now becoming obsolete, or whether

states will find ways of adapting to new challenges.

● IR thinking has evolved in stages that are marked by specific debates between groups

of scholars. The first major debate is between utopian liberalism and realism; the

second debate is on method, between traditional approaches and behaviouralism. The

third debate is between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism; and an emerging

fourth debate is between established traditions and post-positivist alternatives.

● The first major debate was won by the realists. During the Cold War realism became the

dominant way of thinking about international relations not only among scholars but also

among politicians, diplomats, and so-called ‘ordinary people’. Morgenthau’s (1960) summary

of realism became the standard introduction to IR in the 1950s and 1960s.

● The second major debate is about method. The contenders are traditionalists and behaviouralists.

The former try to understand a complicated social world of human affairs and

the values fundamental to it, such as order, freedom, and justice. 

The latter approach,behaviouralism, finds no place for morality or ethics in international theory. 

Behaviouralism wants to classify, measure, and explain through the formulation of general laws like those formulated in the ‘hard’ sciences of chemistry, physics, etc. 

The behaviouralists seemed to triumph for a time but in the end neither side won the debate. 

● In the 1960s and 1970s, neoliberalism challenged realism by arguing that interdependence,

integration, and democracy are changing IR. Neorealism responded that anarchy

and the balance of power are still at the heart of IR.