Erdin Erdem 14621 POLS 540 International Relations Theory Review Paper Summary of the First Week Introduction

16/02/2011

This paper endeavors to highlight and summarize the basic points of the articles of Stanley (1995), Walt (1998), and Smith (2007). To this end, I will first examine Stanleys arguments on why International Relations as a discipline has developed primarily in the United States. After this, I will point out and explore his principle claim that the discipline of international relations lacks a great theory that comprises all the aspects of international politics. Second, I will move on with clarifying the basic points in the article of Walt. In his article, I will especially pay attention to three dominant theories having different rationales in explaining the international affairs. Finally, I will summarize the basic arguments of Smith, who argues that variety of theories enable us to examine international relations in terms of more number of aspects. Stanley (1995), in his article titled An American Social Science: International Relations, firstly explains why international relations could not develop as a real social science with a normative part. He argues that the reason for the absence of normative dimension in the discipline of international relations is the lack of concern from political philosophers and theorists on international domain; they have mostly concentrated on domestic matters (1995: 214). On the other hand, he emphasizes that the discipline of international relations has developed in the United States because of having three features all together unlike European countries or other parts of the world which do not have either any or some of these features: intellectual dispositions, political circumstances, and institutional opportunities (1995: 218). Among these factors, his main concern is the relationship between scholars and policy-makers in the United States. He argues that universities in the U.S. are more flexible and competitive, which provide scholars with autonomous research arenas, than other parts of the world (1995: 226). In this respect, these scholars work almost hand in hand with the policy-makers by either providing them with ideas and methods to examine the international politics and make actions for the benefit of the country, or participate directly into the process of creating and shaping the possible strategies of the country to follow in the international domain (1995: 225). Stanley also asserts that the discipline of international relations has a significant problem, that the international relations does not have common sense clues, and the key variables are more obvious in domestic political systems (1995: 229). What he means by this statement is that due to its very nature, international relations has been unsuccessful in coming up with a general theory. In this sense, he argues that although a science can still be a science with a paradigm; and in the case of international relations, this paradigm has been the realist paradigm. However, even in this case, there is a triple fragmentation that the field has both benefited and suffered: level of analysis problem, fragmentation in each level of analysis, and functional fragmentation that there is no comprehensive general theory (1995: 231-232). The fragmentation in the field is also examined by Walt (1998) in the article titled International relations: One world, many theories. Walt (1998) emphasizes the necessity of theory in order to explain how the world works. However, in the field of international relations, no single theory can explain the complex nature of world politics (1995: 1). In this respect, he argues that the discipline of international relations can best be comprehended as contesting ideas of realism, liberalism, and radical traditions (1998: 1). Therefore, he touches upon the main features of these theories and others that have evolved out of them in time. Finally, he argues that the dominant theories of international relations, that of realism, liberalism, and constructivism, have tendency for convergence in our day; the boundaries of each paradigm has been getting blurred (1998: 5). Nevertheless, one can not understand and explain all aspects of

world politics from only one paradigm; s/he must be well aware of realisms emphasis on the significance of power; s/he must consider liberal stress on the role of domestic actors; and also understand constructivisms vision of change (1998: 5). Similar to Walt, Smith (2007) also stresses the necessity of theoretical formulations in order to explain actions of states and statesmen. He argues that although there is no single theory in the field of international relations, this is not always a bad thing; variety of theories enables us to examine international relations from more aspects (2007: 7). He explains that until recently, international theory has consisted of three paradigms: realism, liberalism, and Marxism. Unlike the general opinion, that these three approaches are competing for explaining the same world, he claims that there is also another part of this debate which argues that the three approaches were rather dealing with different aspects of international relations, and their main disagreement was solely on which events should be the focus of the field (2007: 4). Moreover, he argues, by opposing Holsti, that the proliferation of theories after 1980s made the discipline much healthier (2007: 7). These theories are not completely separate set of assumptions; they have three features in common: 1) they have a shared commitment to the importance of theories in explaining the international affairs; 2) they all have histories; 3) All of them link theory with practice (2007: 8). Therefore, Smith highlights the significant role of theories in the disciple of international relations. In conclusion, in this paper, I aimed at highlighting the basic points and main arguments of the above mentioned three articles. In doing so, I tried to examine how the field of international relations has evolved, why there is no general theory that could explain all aspects of this field, and the necessity of theories to understand the international affairs.