IR Theory Intro

okay so I want to provide a brief overview of what a theory is in general and what are specific international relations theories so let's start by just talking about what a theory is and and what theories do so think of whatever um particular theory that you're familiar with let's go with a Big Bang Theory um which as a side note is one of my favorite shows but the big bang okay so what does this Theory do it's supposed to describe how the universe began it explains all the different scientific um ideas about how molecules and atoms and all the different elements came together to create the universe and supposedly try to predict what's going to happen in the future we want all theories to do that we want things described for us explained to us and most importantly we want theories to predict future Behavior so if we think about political science we want theories that explain describe and predict how states are going to behave in the International System okay so I've written down a definition for you of a theory which is a set of propositions and Concepts which explains phenomenon by spec uh by specifying relationships among the concepts all right so we want a Grand theory of international relations to explain why States engage in Cooperative Behavior we want a theory to explain why the states go to war with each other we want theories to explain how and why International institutions impact states behavior and all this can lead to hypothesis about why states do the things they do what are the conditions that lead states to go to war so why does War occur we have a theory um that might help us explain that that's going to lead to some hypotheses where we posit the relationship between several Concepts so in the field of Human Rights we might want to explain why is it that some states are more likely to violate the rights of their citizens than others so we might think well democracy might matter so democracy is a concept that we're going to test to see whether or not it influences a state's likelihood of violating its citizens and we can develop a theory about that a theory that in democracy citizens have more say in their government um we could develop the theory further to say that in democracies there are um institutional constraints that lead um that prevent leaders from engaging in repressive Behavior so that's going to lead us to a hypothesis that suggests that the more democratic a state is the less likely they are to engage in human rights violations so with our theories and our hypothesis we want to test test these things in order to try to verify whether our theory is viable or not we never say that a theory is proven in international relations or political science in general or the social sciences really because if you prove a theory then you have a law and we don't have laws in political science because we're dealing with the Human Condition okay let's talk about before we dive into the theory something called the levels of an analysis and this is used in international relations in order for us to be able to study the different phenomena that we're interested in so these levels of analysis um we can point to three major levels some particular books look at four or five but we can break the study of international relations into three basic levels at the individual level which is in the center of the circle what we're doing is taking a micro level of approach to IR in what ways in the terms of someone's education socialization personality traits and physical health does a particular opponent of a major role in making foreign policy differ from other individuals who have held positions of Authority for example so one favorite question um by many revisionists is what if Hitler hadn't been the leader of Germany would that would would things have um unfold differently in terms of the Holocaust in terms of World War II and so explanations at this level must relate differences in the characteristics of decision makers to differences in the decisions they make so you're really looking at individual Behavior to see everything else held constant do these differences in personality perceptions activities choices really make a difference in the decisions they make and you might have guessed it's going to be very difficult to try and determine and measure individual levels of analysis all right the nation state this level of analysis allows us to use a decision a decision-making approach and to investigate in far more detail the condition and processes within states that affect foreign policy choices so here we're looking at State characteristics what kind of government do they have are they a democracy or are they authoritarian what kind of economy do they have are they welldeveloped economically what's the per capita GDP we can look at the national interest of the state are they particularly engaged in trade are they particularly interested in developing nuclear weapons um and then we can look at some of the interest groups at the state level then we have the International System level and this is the most comprehensive level of analysis really permitting us to study international relations as a whole and that is to look at the overall global patterns of behavior among states between States and the level of interdependence among them and so we're going to look at this level focusing in on the overall distribution of capabilities resources and status in World politics and so you can look at some of the things that we look at at the system level like alliances like International rules and Norms that all falls under this category of inter um international law and organizations we have these different organizations on the bottom part of the circle that make a difference and the different theories that I'm going to introduce to you will have different things to say about these different levels of analysis okay so there's really two major theories of ir realism which is the oldest theory of international relations it began um or the influences of realism can be traced back to thiddies um who he's often referred to as a father of international relations and then liberalism is the classic counterpart to uh realism all right so the second lecture in this series is going to focus in on realism and liberalism

Channel: Rhonda Callaway

Views: 60,905

Keywords: IR Theory

Id: 0xio789NVxg

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2013