Module Title
International Relations
Does the arrival of ‘new issues’ in International Relations mean that the discipline will have to be fundamentally changed and some or all of the established ways of thinking will have to be discarded? Why or Why not? Justify your answer.
The study of international relations (IR) touches or overlaps with every other social science, which leads to several problems with concepts, methods and theories in the field. The traditional focus of IR concerns the growth and change of sovereign statehood in the perspective of the larger system or society of states. Because of the scope of IR is so broad, terminology is not clearly defined leading to confusion or lack of clarity. A common term in IR might not carry the same meaning or a clear definition in Economics, Sociology or any other social science. Another problem with the concepts, methods and theories is that IR encompasses and touches all parts of life making the field as a whole hard to define, teach or learn. There are multiple methods of study and theories in IR. This is problematic and further aggrevates the study of IR. Unlike Biology, where there is one way to test theories, IR employs a variety of possible theories to study social phenomenon (Buz?n 1991: 162). In this essay we will be discussing about different theories of IR and some of the issues that can be tackled by these thoeries and the established ways of thinking will have to be discarded or not.
Theories of Internatonal Relations
Realism:
A specific outlook of the world, or paradigm, characterised by the following assumptions: the worldwide realism is anarchic and comprises of unaligned political flats called states; states are the prime actors and inherently own some attack infantry capability or power which makes them possibly unsafe to each other; states cannot ever be certain about the aims of other states; the rudimentary motive going by pressurizing states is survival or the upkeep of sovereignty; states are instrumentally reasonable and believe strategically about how to survive (Robert 2003: 41-59).
Liberalism (Liberal Internationalism):
It is a political theory based on the natural goodness of human and autonomy of the individual. It good turns municipal and political liberties, government by regulation with the permission of the ruled, and defence from random authority. In IR liberalism wraps an equitably very broad viewpoint extending from Wilsonian idealism through to up to designated day, neo-liberal theories and the popular calm thesis. Here states are one actor in world politics, and even states can help simultaneously through institutional means and bargaining that destabilise the propensity to groundwork concerns easily in infantry terms. States are interdependent and other actors’ for example Transnational Corporations, the IMF and the Untied Nations play ? role (Robert 2003: 41-59).
International Political Economy:
A procedure of investigation in relative to the social, political and financial arrangements influencing the international schemes of output, exchange and circulation, and the blend of standards echoed therein (Strange, 1988: 18). As an analytical procedure, political finances are founded on the assumption that what happens in the finances reflects, and sways, social power relations. It is basically a complex interplay between politics and economics or between states and markets in international viewpoint which is the core of IPE.
International society theory:
International society theory, furthermore called English school, focuses on the distributed norms and standards of states and how they regulate worldwide relations. Examples of such norms encompass diplomacy, alignment, and worldwide law. Unlike neo-realism, it is not inevitably positivist. Theorist have concentrated especially on humanitarian intervention, and are subdivided between solidarists, who are inclined to support it more, and pluralists, who locate larger worth in alignment and sovereignty (Robert 2003: 41-59).
IR ISSUES
After defining some of the theories of IR let’s move on to discuss some IR issues that have become a major concern for present and for the future. After discussing the issues, in conclusion of every issue we will look through the theories and see whether a particular issue can be tackled by any one of them or there should be a change in traditional approaches to deal with them.
1- International Terrorism:
Terrorism is not a new issue and it has existed since the human societies began to normalize the use of violence. There was an unimaginable intensity attack on 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington and some other attacks in Madrid, Ankara, London, and other areas that brought this issue as an International terrorism. It is obvious that this issue is a high concern to IR. In United States international terrorism is the highest rank threat to US security and due to which it has gone for a ‘war on terror’.
Moreover in the weaker states such as Africa terrorism is seen as a more or less permanent civil war. But on the other side powerful states also have rigorous problems with terrorism such as Britain, India, Argentina and United states. In 1960’s there was an augment in new kind of International Terrorism and that were aircraft High Jacks which even later led to the 9/11 attack. This was all due to lack of security measures. Hijacking was reduced after improvements in security measures but international terrorism is still not abolished. The US department of State listed the names of terrorism groups of which the well known group is Al-Qaeda. It is believed that terrorism from al-Qaeda will become highest threat for Western world. It is connected to radical Muslims which do not embody Islam as such (Robert, 2010).
Another form of terrorism has aroused which is suicide bombing in front of which all technology has become useless. The frequency of these activities has increased after war of U.S on Afghanistan and Iraq and is spreading across borders to Pakistan that has become a major International terror issue. This activity has lead to attack on many political leaders, innocent people and security forces.
Now coming to theoretical challenge to IR by International Terrorism Issue, There are two theories that comply with this issue. This is seen as a security threat and Realists tend to focus high on this issue. They don’t see terrorism in groups and see it as threat from other state. They act to this threat by military action not by cooperating with them. However it is not true that all realists think the same. Whereas, liberalists tend to coerce on international cooperation in dealing with terrorism. They are ready to believe on terrorist groups and want that Government agencies should cooperate with them in order to solve problem. To conclude this I would say my point of view as a student of IR that these theories help to solve this issue and to choose that which theory is the best from both we have to decide according to the intensity of threat that we are facing.
2- Environmental Issue :
Environmental issue is discussed many times over and over again in the past thirty years as a major international agenda. Many people mostly in Western countries say that it is human social and economic activities that are affecting the environment. Due to increase in world population, Living standards have increased which are negatively affecting the environment. The example to this is food production. Food surplus is created in the developed countries in the west and shortage of food is increasing more and more in poor countries. In order to cope with hunger people often use land persistently that results in deforestation and desertification in poor countries. On the other hand in developed states, environmental problem is due to use of pesticides and depletion of scarce resources. Industrial mass production is also leading towards depletion of scarce resources. Air pollution is causing a high threat to whole world leading to Global warming which means sea levels are rising. Use of CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbon) gases in different products is destroying the earth’s ozone layer. Environment has become the third most important issue of the world (Porter, Brown, and Chasek 2000: 1).
Environmental issue is debated between two groups ‘MODERNISTS’ and ‘ECORADICALS’. Modernists say that environment issue is of no danger and we can tackle it by knowledge and modern technology whereas Ecoradicals say it is drastic and can be controlled by changing lifestyle and population control.
In theoretical, this issue can be tackled by two ways, either by War or by international cooperation. For example, in the past there had been a war between Arab and Israel in 1967 over the issue of water. Middle East is the apparent example of how environment scarcity can worsen the inter-state conflict. This example shows how realists approach can be applied. The other way is cooperation that is used by the two other theories liberals and IPE’s that are used to dealing with domestic problems and with many different types of actors. However according to Hurrel, 1995 environment has created a line between domestic and international politics in many ways that are not sufficiently taken into account by Traditional approaches’ focus on International relations (Robert, 2010). To conclude I would say this issue is not well managed by IR theories because it is not yet considered internationally and everyone thinks for their own interests. This requires us to change established ways of thinking but discarding these ways is not appropriate.
3- Gender :
Gender Issue has gained a lot of attention in social sciences in recent years. Gender issue in IR is basically inequality between men and women. Men are more prioritised then women as women are seen to be less important group in the world. Box 10.10 shows the inequality between men and women in all aspects of life.
We are currently living in a world in which value matters. Men values are higher as they are rational, active, and strong whereas women values are less as they are emotional, passive and weak. After many decades there is still gender inequality and inequity in advanced industrial sector as well even if there is a higher rate of particpation by women as a workforce. Some scholars have also pointed out that the work done by men are visible and paid but work done by women is invisble and unpaid. For example, House hold work accounts for $16 trillion as whole of which $11 trillion is contributed by women as invisible output (UNDP). Gender inequality itself is an issue according to some scholars as masculine and feminine role inequality is leading to increase in population growth because poor women who are uneducated are married early and no contraception, leads to birth of many children (Robert, 2003).
In order to deal with this issue, there must be change in roles of gender. Women should be given equal rights and dominance in the society so that they can equally contribute to economy visibly. This can also help to reduce population growth rate when all women will have access to education. The realists theory is based on military actions and thinks the way masculine thinks. So we can say gender inequality will remain an issue in world politics according to realist thinking. Liberalist theory gives equal rights for and women as their main concern is freedom and happiness of individuals. They argue that women should have same access to education and economic opportunites as men. International society theory is also based on human concerns and it does support that gender issue must be resloved by giving women equal rights.
4- Sovereignty :
It is very surprising to see that sovereignty has become amongst the new issues of IR. Sovereignty is basically a position of state when it enjoys its political independence from other states. A country is called sovereign when no other state has right to intervene in its internal or external affairs or whatever it is. For example, Afghanistan and Iraq have lost thier sovereignty as America’s armed forces are fighting war against terror in thier territory. Moreover, sovereignty is being faced by many challenges. Although the world of today is a global market place which means movement of goods and services penetrate easily across borders but negative effect of this globalization is movement of illegal activities for example drugs, terrorism, and even nuclear weapons that has become a question mark for autonomous sovereign states (Robert, 2003). The other challenge for sovereign states is human rights and humanitarian law that challenges the rule of non-intervention. For example, when people are caught who unintentionally come across borders from neighbouring country are being brought back by thier state. Finally there is a challenge of monopoly of voilence which is need to be controlled. For example in USA spending on private security forces are now more than double of public police forces which cannot be prevented. And in weaker states where governments orders may not spread to some parts of country, that areas are often controlled by dissident groups (Robert, 2003).
There are many theories that take an active interest in Sovereignty issue. Neo-realists, Neo-liberals, scholars of International society and many alternative approaches are exploring different ways to face these challenges. However these theories are able to cope with this issue but some developments are needed to these traditional approaches.
5- Nuclear Proliferation :
Nuclear Proliferation is now the most hot and precarious issue in International relations. Nuclear proliferation in general, means spreading of nuclear weapons, its technology or information and fissile material to those countries who are not the member of Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty NPT. Proliferation of nuclear weapons have become a high threat to the rest of the world. Four of the countries India, Pakistan, North korea and Israel have already acquired the weapons of mass destruction. Currently, for example Iran is suspected to be involved in the development of nuclear weapons on which USA is strictly scrutinizing this matter. This issue was also taken to UN security council in which Iran argued that this nuclear program is wholly for peaceful purposes.
Due to proliferation of nuclear weapons it is believed that terrorists may get access to these weapons that can have huge destruction all over the world. For example, there have been several incidents in which Pakistan nuclear assets are attacked by terrorists after which it is clear that one day they will acquire the country’s nuclear arsenal. To stop this by happening, it was revealed that US army is training special force to “seal off and snatch back” the nuclear assets from Pakistan (Lamb, 2010). There is a global concern about nuclear weapons in Black market and U.S fears that there might be detonation of nuclear weapon by terrorists in major city of USA and Obama administration says we’ll do what ever it takes to secure our homeland (Kittrie, 2007).
In the past, for this issue Realist approach is always applied which resulted in conflicts, tension and War. An example of this is War on Iraq by U.S claiming that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And now, USA is in cooperation with Iran to stop its nuclear operations that is known as a Liberalists approach. To conclude I would say liberalist theory can sort out this issue very well.
OTHER NEW ISSUES IN IR
6- Culture,
7- Poverty,
8- Human security,
9- Global Trade and,
10- Religion
CONCLUSION:
In this essay we discussed four main theories of IR and then five important issues (others were mentioned) that can be somehow tackled by these theories. We tried to figure out whether all of the theories best fit for any of the issues but not all of the theories are perfectly in shape for the issues discussed. For every issue there is a theory that can handle the issue but not all can be suitable to some extent. For example, Liberalism theory is best applied for the Gender issue whereas realist theory cannot be applied to this issue. These are two main theories liberalism and realism that are very important and are mostly applied in every issue.
Bibliography
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