This introductory chapter provides an overview of global politics, starting with an account of the global political sphere as a specialized area of study—more conventionally known as the discipline of International Relations (IR)—and including an explanation of the distinction between the ‘global’ and the ‘international’. It also addresses the extent to which the world is ‘globalized’, even as some pundits herald a halt to globalization and a return to the closed politics of nationalism. The chapter then explores the history of globalization, which provides an essential backdrop to the understanding of the phenomenon in the present, and the challenges to it. This includes attention to the interweaving of globalization’s political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions and some of the implications for the current state-based world order. Finally, the chapter considers the role of theory and method, including concerns raised by the notion of a ‘post-truth’ world.
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1. Introducing Global Politics
Book
Edited by Meera Sabaratnam
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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1. Critiquing the Canon in International Relations
Meera Sabaratnam
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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2. Hedley Bull
Andrew Hurrell
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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3. Kenneth N. Waltz
Joseph MacKay
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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4. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
David L. Blaney
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
5. Martha Finnemore
Arjun Chowdhury
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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6. Alexander Wendt
Charlotte Epstein
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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11. Postcolonial and decolonial approaches
Meera Sabaratnam
This chapter looks at postcolonial and decolonial approaches to studying world politics, arguing that these are multi-layered and diverse. These do not constitute a single ‘theory’ of the international but rather a set of orientations think about it. The chapter starts by separating a number of different elements involved in theorizing the world, and how postcolonial and decolonial approaches look at them. These include questions of epistemology, ontology, and norms or ethics. It then examines the historical context in which postcolonial and decolonial approaches arose, showing that there was a dynamic relationship between political struggles for decolonization and the development of different intellectual arguments. It considers where postcolonial and decolonial approaches have emerged and where they depart from each other in terms of analysis and focus. Having traced these traditions through the twentieth century, the chapter describes the key concepts used in postcolonial and decolonial thought across different disciplines, before looking at their impact on the field of international relations (IR). The chapter also explores the similarities and differences between different approaches and other theories in the field of IR. Finally, it contemplates the on-going popularity of postcolonial and decolonial approaches in the present day.
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8. Empire
This chapter contests the myth that imperialism has ended by showing how imperial attitudes, racialised power hierarchies, and material inequalities that structured the era of empires remain in place today. It discusses why the field of International Relations conventionally sidelined the issues of imperialism and racism. Dismantling structural racism and imperialism requires long-term work on many fronts. Campaigns combining Postcolonial and Decolonial theories like ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ and ‘Why is My Curriculum White?’ have resulted in new publications and toolkits that decolonise the university. The chapter also recognises the need to review programmes, modules, and reading lists to include perspectives from outside the West, as colonialism and imperialism are at work in core disciplinary concepts and theories.
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4. The English School Of International Relations
This chapter explores the English School of international relations (IR). It details the significance of the work of Martin Wight and Hedley Bull in the establishment and development of the English School. The English School is a theoretical perspective that resonates with core themes in both classical realist and liberal IR scholarship while also offering a basis for critiquing both. The chapter highlights a number of strands of pluralism and solidarism, and also looks at the notion of an anarchical society of states as key features of the English School. It also considers the key aspects and overlapping themes of Barry Buzan's reappraisal of the English School.
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2. Realism
This chapter discusses the key concepts of realism in International Relations (IR) and relates this to foreign policy. It explains that realism continues to be a relevant theoretical perspective on foreign policy which informs a rich array of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholarship. Realism offers an outside-in perspective that focuses on the relative power position of states in the international system to explain foreign policy. The chapter then focuses on the neorealist model to explain foreign policy before introducing its modifications: post-classical realism and neoclassical realism. It mentions how realist FPA lacks diversity as the field continues to be dominated by male, Western authors.
Chapter
1. Introduction Myth-Making
This chapter introduces the concept of myth-making and global politics. It begins by explaining how myths about global politics disempower us because they rest on convention, established power relations, and particular interests that should be questioned. One way of overcoming limiting myths about global politics is to adopt a similar critical orientation towards the academic disciplines and theories we use to study global politics. These include the ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ theories of International Relations, such as Liberalism, Realism, Constructivism, Marxism, Feminism, Postcolonial Theory, and Poststructuralism. The chapter then outlines specific myths and mysteries, before introducing the idea of ‘everyday global politics’. It also explores theoretical thinking, asks why students should be encouraged to theorise from the start of their studies, and why the myths upon which intuitive understandings of politics are based are a good place to start this theorising.
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10. The State
This chapter explores why the state is treated in International Relations (IR) as the most significant actor in global politics. It looks into interrelated myths that the state was founded by some divinely inspired social compact, and that today’s versions of sovereignty and anarchy are the only way to truly grasp the mechanics of global politics. These IR building blocks suggest that the locus of all power in global politics lies naturally and exclusively with the state. However, the chapter demonstrates that states are more often shaped and maintained by a myriad of power relations which operate beyond the remit of state authority. It also discusses the social contract theory variations of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Chapter
1. Introduction
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the field of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It presents theory-guided explanations of foreign policy to establish the foundations of foreign policy. FPA is a distinct subfield of International Relations (IR) that draws on insights from other disciplines to provide theory-driven explanations of foreign policy. Additionally, foreign policy covers a range of different issue areas, such as questions of war and peace, and states' decisions on the use of force. The chapter notes how the book is structured to address the thematic blocks of major IR theories, the interplay between domestic and international influences, psychological and cognitive approaches, and further development of FPA.
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5. Critical Theories
This chapter looks at the contribution of critical theories to the study of foreign policy. It then discusses the key general characteristics of critical International Relations (IR) theories before elaborating on the three strands of critical theories: feminism, postcolonialism, and Marxism. Critical theorizing in IR brings out the open structures of power and ensuing hierarchical social relations among actors. The chapter explains how critical theories can broaden the understanding and awareness of power relations in foreign policy research while also widening perspectives on relevant agencies in foreign policy research. It shows how critical theories give voice to marginalized, oppressed, and silenced actors in foreign policy.
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1. Introduction: What is Security Studies?
Alan Collins
This chapter provides an introduction to Security Studies, the sub-discipline of International Relations that deals with the study of security. War and the threat to use force are part of the security equation, but the prevalence of threats is far-reaching for Security Studies. They encompass dangers ranging from pandemic and environmental degradation to terrorism and inter-state armed conflict. The latter is actually a sub-field of Security Studies and is known as Strategic Studies. This edition examines differing approaches to the study of security, such as realism, liberalism, social constructivism, and postcolonialism. It also investigates the deepening and broadening of security to include military security, regime security, societal security, environmental security, and economic security. Finally, it discusses a range of traditional and non-traditional issues that have emerged on the security agenda, including weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, energy security, and health.
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14. Military Security
Sheehan Michael
This chapter examines the continuing importance of military security. It notes that International Relations has historically seen security almost entirely in terms of the military dimension, before going on to review the impact of the broadening of the concept of security on approaches to the study of its military dimension. It then analyses the key aspects of the traditional approach to military security and some of the most common ways in which states have sought to acquire it historically, such as war, alliances, and, more recently, nuclear deterrence. The chapter then reflects on some of the difficulties in acquiring military security, and ways in which its pursuit can sometimes reduce, rather than increase, security, before concluding with a reminder of the continuing centrality of military security, even within a significantly broadened understanding of security as a multifaceted concept.
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24. Energy Security
Sam Raphael and Doug Stokes
This chapter examines growing concerns over global energy security, as continuing demand for fossil fuels by industrialized economies is matched by increasing uncertainties over future energy reserves. With a particular focus on the politics of oil (which remains the key global energy source), it will assess the ways in which increasing energy insecurity amongst the world’s major powers will impact upon international security more broadly, and will discuss different understandings of the likelihood of future ‘resource wars’ and a new era of geo-political rivalry. The chapter will also examine the impact that the search for energy security by states in the Global North has upon the human security of communities in the oil-rich Global South. Finally, the chapter will examine the central role played by the USA in underpinning global energy security in the post-war era, and the impact that this has had for oil-rich regions.
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29. After the Return to Theory: The Past, Present, and Future of Security Studies
Ole Wæver and Barry Buzan
This chapter presents an interpretation of the past and present of security studies with an emphasis on the changing periods of theory production and practical problem solving. The field started out as a distinct US specialty much shaped by the new conditions of the 1940s set by nuclear weapons and a long-term mobilization against the Soviet Union, two factors that created a need for a new kind of civilian expert in defence and strategy. From an American, think-tank-based, interdisciplinary field, security studies became institutionalized as a part of one discipline, International Relations (IR), increasingly international and with theory anchored in the universities. Since the 1990s, the field has been in a new period of high theory productivity, but largely in two separate clusters with the USA and Europe as centres of each. This analysis is used as a basis for raising some central questions and predictions about the future of the field.
