POLS 2940 Lecture 3: Approaches to International Relations

• School: York University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 2940
• Professor: Glenn Goshulak

Document Summary

Four key ir theories that the book focuses on: liberalism and neo-institutional liberalism. Liberalism assumes that human nature is basically good. Everyone usually follows international rules/laws that have been mutually decided: realism and neo-realism. Policies based on interpretations of national interest (usually that interest is power) Structure of international system determined by power distribution: radical perspectives whose roots lie in marxism. Assumes that actions are determined by economic class. Key structures in the state system are not material: instead, inter-subjective and social. Interests of state is malleable and changes often. Discourse shapes how political actors define interest and thus modify their behaviour. Belief that states are fiction, constructed by scholars and citizens. States do not act in regularized (mediated and standardized) ways and stories told through storyteller"s filters. Attempt to deconstruct the basic concepts and replace them with multiple possible realities.