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Key theories of international politics

Theory guides our thinking

Each theory represents a particular view of the world

no theory is ‘neutral’: they all put forward a particular set of beliefs, assumptions and values

Realism

- Classic realism

- Hans Morgenthau (1948)

- About power

- Political man is an innately selfish creature

- Neo-realism

- Kenneth Waltz (1979)

- The behaviour of states is shaped by the ‘structure’ of the international system

- Long-term cooperation is impossible

Liberalism

- Woodrow Wilson

- Democratic Peace

- Cooperation between states is possible

- Aim = international regimes

Critical

- Marxism

- capital and class struggle

- Constructivism

- role of ideas and the social construction of reality (i.e. the world as a man-made construct)

- Poststructuralism

- identities and discourse -- บรรยาย สนทนา

- Feminism

- gender and masculinity

- Ecologism

- the environment and sustainability

- Post colonialism

- the west and ethnocentrism -- ภูมิใจในชาติของตนเอง

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The Cold War and Beyond

The cold war 1945-1990

Ideological competition between the US and USSR.

The End of the Cold War

Beyond the Cold War

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The Challenge to the Western Order

Order

Realism: order as balance (of power)

States prioritise the defence of national sovereignty and power relationships in order to confront anarchy

Liberalism: order as rules

The central role of institutions in constraining unilateral behaviour as a means of curbing anarchy

Constructivism: order as identity

Removing the sense of ‘the other’ to transcend anarchy

Western order