The Globalization of World Politics is an introduction to international relations (IR) and offers comprehensive coverage of key theories and global issues. The eighth edition features several new chapters that reflect on the latest developments in the field, including postcolonial and decolonial approaches, and refugees and forced migration. Pedagogical features—such as case studies and questions, a debating feature, and end-of-chapter questions—help readers to evaluate key IR debates and apply theory and IR concepts to real world events.
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Edited by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens
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Lene Hansen
This chapter examines the core assumptions of poststructuralism, one of the International Relations (IR) perspectives furthest away from the realist and liberal mainstream. It explores whether language matters for international relations, whether all states have the same identity, and whether the state is the most important actor in world politics today. The chapter also considers poststructuralist views about the social world, state sovereignty, and identity and foreign policy. Finally, it discusses poststructuralism as a political philosophy. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with discourses on the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the other relating to Russian discourse on Crimea. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether poststructuralism provides a good account of the role that materiality and power play in world politics.
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Lise Rakner and Vicky Randall
This edition examines the changing nature of politics in the developing world in the twenty-first century, with emphasis on the complex and changing nexus between state and society. It analyses key developments and debates, and this is illustrated by current examples drawn from the global South, tackling a range of issues such as institutions and governance, the growing importance of alternative politics and social movements, security, and post-conflict state-crafting. The text also discusses the Arab Spring and South–South relations and offers new case studies of Syria and the Sudan as well as China, India, and Brazil. This introduction considers the question of the meaningfulness of the Third World as an organizing concept, whether politics is an independent or a dependent variable, and a number of major interconnected global trends that have resulted in a growing convergence in the developing world. It also provides an overview of the organization of this edition.
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Vicky Randall
This chapter explores the relationship between women/gender and political processes in the developing world. It begins with a discussion of the social context and ‘construction’ of gender, as well as the ways in which the state and politics have shaped women’s experience. It then considers the women’s movement, with case studies based in Brazil, Pakistan, and South Korea, along with women’s political representation and participation. It also examines the development and impact of feminism and women’s movements before concluding with an analysis of factors affecting policy related to women, focusing on issues such as abortion and girls’ access to education.
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Robert Garner
This chapter examines a range of traditional ideologies associated with the Enlightenment, including liberalism, socialism, nationalism, anarchism, conservatism, and fascism. It first explains what an ideology is and what their general characteristics are before discussing liberalism, socialism, conservatism, nationalism, fascism, and anarchism. It is noted how all of these ideologies were shaped by the Enlightenment, either—in the case of liberalism, socialism, nationalism, and anarchism—adopting its key principles, or—in the case of conservatism and fascism—railing against them. The chapter suggests that each ideology must be understood within the economic, social, and political environment in which it emerged. It also emphasizes the impact of these ideologies on the development of world politics in the last two centuries.
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Meera Sabaratnam
This chapter looks at postcolonial and decolonial approaches to studying world politics, arguing that these are multilayered and diverse. These do not constitute a single ‘theory’ of the international but rather a set of orientations to show how to 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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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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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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John W. Young and John Kent
International Relations Since 1945 provides a comprehensive introduction to global political history since World War II. The text has been comprehensively updated to cover the period between 2001 and 2012. Discussing the World Trade Center bombing and concluding with the run-up to the 2012 US presidential elections, a new final section outlines broad developments including the changing world order and the global financial crisis. Three new chapters look at terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rise of major new powers, including China. Student learning is supported by a range of helpful learning features, including biographies of key figures and chronologies of events.
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Tim Dunne
This chapter examines the core assumptions of liberalism regarding world politics. It explores why liberals believe in progress, what explains the ascendancy of liberal ideas in world politics since 1945, and whether liberal solutions to global problems are hard to achieve and difficult to sustain. The chapter also considers central ideas in liberal thinking on international relations, including internationalism, idealism, and institutionalism. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges confronting liberalism. Two case studies are presented. The first case study looks at the rise and fall of what it terms ‘the indispensable nation’, in other words the old liberal world order, lead by the United States. The other case study examines the African concept of sovereignty: sovereignty as responsibility.
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Lene Hansen
This chapter examines the core assumptions of poststructuralism, one of the international relations (IR) perspectives furthest away from the realist and liberal mainstream. It explores whether language matters for international relations, whether all states have the same identity, and whether the state is the most important actor in world politics today. The chapter also considers poststructuralist views about the social world, state sovereignty, and identity and foreign policy. Finally, it discusses poststructuralism as a political philosophy. Two case studies follow. The first one looking at discourses, images, and the victory of the Taliban regime. The second case studies examines Covid-19, state sovereignty, and vaccines.
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Anthony McGrew
This chapter examines the characteristics of contemporary globalization and how they are reshaping world politics. It argues that both the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change are indicative of just how deeply enmeshed the fate of communities and societies across the world has become, not to mention how globalization simultaneously unifies and divides the world. It explains why globalization challenges some of our traditional ways of thinking and theorizing about world politics. It asks whether there are limits to globalization or whether it is inevitable. It also considers the extent to which globalization is responsible for the emerging shift in the structure of world power, namely the ‘decline of the West’ and the ‘rise of the rest’. Two case studies are presented: one is about global food security and the other is about multicentric globalization.
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Introduction
From international politics to world politics
Patricia Owens, John Baylis, and Steve Smith
This text offers a comprehensive analysis of world politics in a global era. It examines the main theories of world politics—realism, liberalism, Marxism, social constructivism, poststructuralism, post-colonialism, and feminism. It reviews the main structures and processes that shape contemporary world politics, such as global political economy, international security, war, gender, and race. Furthermore, it addresses some of the main policy issues in the globalized world, including poverty, human rights, and the environment. This introduction offers some arguments both for and against seeing globalization as an important new development in world politics. It also explains the various terms used to describe world politics and the academic field, particularly the use of ‘world politics’ rather than ‘international politics’ or ‘international relations’. Finally, it summarizes the main assumptions underlying realism, liberalism, Marxism, social constructivism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, and feminism.
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Siri Gloppen
This chapter examines how social movements in the developing world and ‘bottom-up’ alternative politics, supported by new technology and globalized networks, can strengthen democracy. It first traces the origins of social movements, showing how different forms of social movements have emerged and been influential during different periods, before discussing the main theoretical perspectives about why this is so and how we should understand this phenomenon. It then considers past and present social movements and alternative politics in the developing world, focusing on three categories: movements concerned with democracy and governance, movements concerned with identity politics, and movements concerned with social justice. It also describes the increasing globalization of social movements and explains what makes such movements successful.
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John Ravenhill
This chapter assesses regional trade agreements (RTAs). The number of RTAs has grown rapidly since the World Trade Organization (WTO) came into existence in 1995. Roughly one-half of world trade is now conducted within these preferential trade arrangements, the most significant exception to the WTO's principle of non-discrimination. Governments have entered regional economic agreements motivated by a variety of political and economic considerations. They may prefer trade liberalization on a regional rather than a global basis for several reasons. The chapter then reviews the political economy of regionalism: why RTAs are established; which actors are likely to support regional rather than global trade liberalization; the effects that regionalism has had on the trade and welfare of members and non-members; and the relationship between liberalization at the regional and global levels.
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Michael Freeman
This chapter examines the concept of human rights, which derives primarily from the Charter of the United Nations adopted in 1945 immediately after World War II. It first provides a brief account of the history of the concept of human rights before describing the international human rights regime. It then considers two persistent problems that arise in applying the concept of human rights to the developing world: the relations between the claim that the concept is universally valid and the realities of cultural diversity around the world; and the relations between human rights and development. In particular, it explores cultural imperialism and cultural relativism, the human rights implications of the rise of political Islam and the so-called war on terror(ism), and globalization. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the new political economy of human rights.
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This chapter focuses on fundamental assumptions that researchers make about how we can know and develop knowledge about the social world, such as assumptions about the nature of human behaviour and the methods appropriate to studying and explaining that behaviour. The main objective is how to carry out a systematic and rigorous investigation of social phenomena. The chapter considers three different answers to the question of how to approach the study of social phenomena: those offered by positivism, scientific realism, and interpretivism. It also explores the differences among these answers and their implications for conducting political research. Finally, it discusses the use of a positivist (rational choice) and interpretivist (constructivist) approach to the analysis of ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
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Alex J. Bellamy and Stephen McLoughlin
This chapter charts the debate between those who believe that the protection of civilians from genocide and mass atrocities ought to trump the principle of non-intervention in certain circumstances and those who oppose this proposition. This has become a particular problem in the post-Cold War world where atrocities in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur prompted calls, in the West especially, for international society to step in to protect the victims with military force if necessary. While intervening to protect populations from mass atrocities does have moral appeal, humanitarian intervention causes problems for international security by potentially compromising the rules governing the use of force in world politics. Since the end of the Cold War, a broad international consensus has emerged around a principle called the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). The R2P holds that states have a responsibility to protect their populations from genocide and mass atrocities and that the international community has a duty to help states fulfil their responsibilities and use various measures to protect populations when their own states are manifestly failing to do so. In 2011, the principle helped the UN Security Council authorize the use of force against a sovereign state for human protection purposes for the first time in its history.
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This chapter investigates critical approaches to global politics. While liberal and realist theorists probe each other’s ideas for faults and weaknesses, neither have challenged capitalism and its implications for social, economic, and political order. Marxism, on the other hand, which developed around the mid-nineteenth century, has provided very different perspectives and presents a significant challenge for mainstream approaches to global order in both theory and practice. Post-Marxist Critical Theory, along with historical sociology and world-systems theory, emerged in the twentieth century, giving rise to schools of thought which continue the critique of capitalism and the social and political forces underpinning it. Meanwhile, ideas arising from social theory, such as the extent to which perceptions of reality are socially conditioned and indeed ‘constructed’, achieved greater prominence following the end of the Cold War, an event which prompted many scholars to start asking new questions about global politics and the assumptions on which traditional theories rested. Constructivism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism remain concerned with issues of power and justice but provide different lenses through which these issues may be viewed in the sphere of global politics.
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Milja Kurki and Colin Wight
This chapter focuses on the major debates within International Relations theory with regard to the philosophy of social sciences. The philosophy of social science has played a key role in the formation, development, and practice of IR as an academic discipline. Issues concerning the philosophy of social science are frequently described as meta-theoretical debates. Meta-theory primarily deals with the underlying assumptions of all theory and attempts to understand the consequences of such assumptions on the act of theorizing and the practice of empirical research. The chapter first provides an historical overview of the philosophy of social science in IR before discussing both the implicit and explicit roles played by meta-theoretical assumptions in IR. It then considers the contemporary disciplinary debates surrounding the philosophy of social science and concludes by analysing how theoretical approaches to the study of world politics have been shaped by meta-theoretical ideas.
