Theories of International Relations: Contending Approaches to World Politics

402 Pages·2016·1.58 MB·English

by  Stephanie Lawson

Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface and Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: Theorizing International Relations
Theory, Norms and Methods
Epistemology and Ontology
Power and Interests
The Purpose and Scope of International Relations
The Emergence of IR Theory
The Rise of States
Modernity and the Sovereign/National State
Conclusion
2 Classical Realism
Thucydides and Machiavelli
Religious Thought and the State of Nature
Hobbes, Spinoza and Rousseau
Clausewitz and Weber
Carr and Aron
Niebuhr, Morgenthau and Herz
Conclusion
3 Other Realisms and the Scientific Turn
Kenneth Waltz and the Foundations of Neorealism
John Mearsheimer and Offensive Realism
Neoclassical Realism
Positivism and ‘Scientific’ IR
Critical Realism
Conclusion
4 The Foundations of Liberal Thought
The Origins of Liberal Thought
The Rise of Liberal Political Economy
Liberalism and Evolutionary Theory
From Natural Law to International Law
The Quest for Perpetual Peace
Liberalism and International Politics in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Conclusion
5 Liberal International Theory
Liberalism and the Rise of International Institutions
Human Rights, Self-Determination and Humanitarian Intervention
Neoliberalism in the Postwar Period
Liberal Political Economy from Keynesianism to Neoliberalism
‘The End of History’, the Democratic Peace and Soft Power
Conclusion
6 Marxism, Critical Theory and World-Systems Theory
Marx and the Emergence of Marxism
From Marxism to Leninism and Maoism
Gramscian Critical Theory
Frankfurt School Critical Theory
World-Systems Theory
Historical Sociology
Conclusion
7 Social Theories of International Relations
Social Theory
The Social Construction of Reality
The English School
Constructivist IR
The Postmodern/Poststructuralist Turn
Conclusion
8 Feminism and Gender Theory
Feminism(s) in Historical Perspective
From Feminism to Gender Theory
Feminism and Gender in IR
Gender, Global Political Economy and Representation
Gender and War
Conclusion
9 Postcolonialism, Culture and Normative Theory
Colonialism and Postcolonialism
Orientalism and Subaltern Studies
From Négritude to Afrocentrism
Pan-Asianism as Postcolonial Discourse
Culture, Normative Theory and the Communitarian/Cosmopolitan
Divide
Postcolonial IR
Conclusion
10 Green Theory
The Emergence of Environmentalism
Green Political Theory
Ecologism and the Green Theory of Value
Deep Ecology, Bioregionalism and Biocentrism
Eco-Authoritarianism and Eco-Anarchism
The Greening of IR
Conclusion
11 Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Case Studies
1.1 Normative Theory and the Eradication of Smallpox
1.2 The International Consequences of the Syrian Civil War
2.1 Thucydides, The Melian Dialogue and the Civil War in Corcyra
2.2 Hans Morgenthau and the Vietnam War
3.1 Kenneth Waltz’s Critique of NATO and the Implications for Russia
3.2 Realism, Neoconservatism and the Iraq War
4.1 The Thirty Years’ War and the Emergence of International Law
4.2 The Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Europe
5.1 The United Nations and Liberal Institutionalism
5.2 Democratic Peace, Democratic War and US Interventionism
6.1 Revolution in China
6.2 Western Hegemony and the World System
7.1 Humanitarian Intervention and the Rwandan Genocide
7.2 Jean Baudrillard and the War That Never Happened
8.1 Political Discourses of Manliness in the ‘Iran–Contra Affair’
8.2 Gender and Political Representation in Global Perspective
9.1 Orientalism, Occidentalism and the Rise of al-Qaeda
9.2 The ‘Asian Values’ Debate
10.1 Survivalism versus Prometheanism in the Climate Change Debate
10.2 Sovereignty and World Heritage Protection
To Liisa Adele, James Kofi, Thomas Grainger, Annabel Grace and Kaito
Maximus
Theories of International
Relations
Contending Approaches to World Politics
Stephanie Lawson
polity
Copyright © Stephanie Lawson 2015
The right of Stephanie Lawson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with
the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2015 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Malden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
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the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9512-9
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawson, Stephanie.
Theories of international relations: contending approaches to world politics/Stephanie Lawson.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7456-6423-1 (hardback) -- ISBN 0-7456-6423-7 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-0-7456-6424-8
(paperback) 1. International relations. 2. World politics. I. Title.
JZ1242.L4 2015
327.101--dc23
2014036013
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Preface and Acknowledgements
The discipline of International Relations (IR) was formalized as a field of
academic study in the immediate aftermath of the First World War and dedicated
to addressing the causes of war and the conditions for peace in a systematic and
sustained manner. It has since developed into a highly complex, multifaceted
field of intellectual endeavour which, although remaining very much attuned to
war and peace at an international level, now addresses a variety of issues under
the general rubric of security – food and water security, energy and resource
security, environmental security, gender security, and so on. Allied to these are
concerns with justice and equity at a global or transnational level. These relate in
turn to poverty and development, and all have a very clear normative dimension.
The academic study of these issues cannot confine itself to mere description. The
task of the IR discipline is also to explain, interpret and analyse the range of
events, structures and institutions, as well as the behaviour of agents, both
individually and collectively, who drive events, create structures and build
institutions. This task requires the conceptualization of the various dimensions of
the subject matter – war and peace, anarchy and order, power and interests,
justice and security, among many others. Beyond this, it requires a theoretical
imagination capable of bringing together these various dimensions to tell a
coherent story about why the world of international politics is as it is. In
addition, most theoretical enterprises have much to say about how the world
could and should be like and are therefore explicitly normative.
This book is organized in a fairly straightforward manner, examining the
principal schools of thought, beginning with political realism in its ‘classic’ form
and proceeding through to issue-oriented formulations of theory in the
contemporary period. This is not the only way to organize a book on IR theory,
but for readers coming to the subject for the first time it has the virtue of
simplicity. Having said that, readers will soon find that each school of thought is
itself complex and that there is contestation within schools as well as between
them. At the same time, elements of different schools of thought overlap, and
there has been much interaction between them. Indeed, to some extent they
‘feed’ off each other as they critique, and counter-critique, each other’s
assumptions. Another preliminary point to note is that the book does not
champion any particular school of thought, or any variant within a school, but
advises the reader to consider the merits and shortcomings of each one and to
reflect critically on the contribution that it makes to understanding the complex