Chapter 2: Guiding Questions
(F) Day of the week: Thursday Class: IS207 Created Time: March 12, 2020 2:01 PM Database: Class Notes Database Date: March 12, 2020 2:01 PM Days Till Date: Passed Last Edited Time: June 9, 2021 10:42 AM
I. The four classical theorethical traditions in IR are Realism, Liberalism, International Society, and International Political Economy.
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Realism assumes that all humans are selfish, the international system is anarchic, nations won’t trust one another, and conflicts will inevitably solved by war. International relations is dominated by great powers and lesser states or international organizations are of less importance or none at all.
Classical Realism: focuses on national security and state’s survival
Social Science Realism: focuses on scientific approach to realism
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Liberalism: views humans as cooperative, international relations as more helpful and less conflicting, and see the potential of human progress. Liberalism is divided into four strands
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sociological liberalism: cross cultural, interconnecting activity that spreads culture will create
common values and identities.
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interdependence liberalism: transactions stimulate cooperation because their economy and societies rely on one another, so cooperation is the better option. Military and security isn’t as important as before.
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institutional liberalism: international institutions are set up to deal with common problems, by providing information and reducing cost of multilateral decision makings.
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and republican liberalism.
- The International Society says international relations should be understood as a society of sovereign states and consist of practices of statecraft where statepeople or elites act on behalf of the state.
The middle ground between Classical Realism and Classical Liberalism
- International Political Economy: say economic and political aspects are the most important in world politics. It studies the complexity between economy’s pursuit of wealth and society’s pursuit of power, between the states and markets.
The three theories of IPE are Mercantilism, Economic Liberalism, and Marxism.
II. Utopia liberalism and traditional liberalism
III. After the second World War Woodrow Wilson proposed 2 points for a more peaceful world.
- Promotion of democracy and self determination
- Democratic states do not go to war with one another
- Intelligently build International Organization to strengthen international relations
- Not to get rid of states and statepeoples but use sets of rules and international laws to restrict them and send them in the right direction.