Rousseau on War and Peace

1963 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
World Politics ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
200Th Anniversary ◽  
The Social

For many reasons Rousseau's writings on international relations should interest students both of Rousseau and of world politics. The former have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of Emile and of The Social Contract. Those works, and the Discourse on Inequality have been analyzed incessantly and well. But Rousseau's ideas on war and peace, dispersed in various books and fragments, some of which are lost, have had only occasional attention, and some of that is of the hit-and-miss variety. Incomplete as his own treatment of the relations between states remains, the frequency and intensity of his references indicate the depth of his concern.

Reality-congruence, emancipatory politics and situated knowledge in International Relations: a process sociological perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
André Saramago
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Orientation Process ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
Process Sociology

Recent discussions of the epistemological and political implications of the situatedness of knowledge in International Relations (IR) have raised important questions regarding the future development of the discipline. They pose the challenge of understanding under what conditions human beings develop more or less reality-congruent knowledge about world politics and what are the implications of such knowledge for emancipatory political activity. This article argues that process sociology should be understood as a relevant complement to these discussions. Assuming a fundamentally ‘realist’ orientation, process sociology provides a sociologically informed analysis of the material, ideational and emotional forces shaping the development of knowledge. As such, it can help those concerned with the implications of the situatedness of knowledge in IR reinforce their capacity to both understand the social conditions under which it is possible to develop more detached and reality-congruent knowledge about the world and better identify and explain the historically emergent values that should orientate the emancipatory transformation of world politics.

Communism, fascism and counter-revolution in world politics

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-686
Author(s):  
Michael Mann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
The Social ◽  
Effects Of War

This is a rich, impressive and timely book. At a time when American and neoliberal triumphalism deny the significance of any revolution later than 1776, and when almost no-one in the social sciences is still studying either revolution or class, Fred Halliday has demonstrated that we have been living in a revolutionary age, dominated by the conjoined effects of war and class revolution. In case you find his sub-title mysterious, Karl Marx noted that the Europe of his time was dominated by five Great Powers, but Revolution, ‘the sixth Great Power’, would soon overcome them all. Halliday would suggest that Marx was only half-right. Revolution did not overcome all five Powers, but it did transform them all—and their successors. Hannah Arendt and Martin Wight also emphasized that couplings of war and revolution have dominated much of modernity. But Halliday adds that these are not to be seen as ‘disruptions’ of International Relations, they are International Relations, since they have set the overall parameters of the modern international system. They did so, he says, in three distinct revolutionary phases from the sixteenth century to the present-day: sixteenth-seventeenth century religious wars/revolutions, late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Atlanticist wars/revolutions, and twentieth century wars/revolutions which became increasingly dominated by communism.

Political Approaches

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-78
Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett ◽  
Martha Finnemore
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social World ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Interstate Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
World Organization

This chapter examines how prominent theories capture the various ways that the UN affects world politics. Different theories of international relations (IR) cast the UN in distinctive roles, which logically lead scholars to identify distinctive kinds of effects. We identify five roles that the UN might have: as an agent of great powers doing their bidding; as a mechanism for interstate cooperation; as a governor of an international society of states; as a constructor of the social world; and as a legitimation forum. Each role has roots in a well-known theory of international politics. In many, perhaps most, real-world political situations, the UN plays more than one of these roles, but these stylized theoretical arguments about the world body’s influence help discipline our thinking. They force us to be explicit about which effects of the world organization we think are important, what is causing them, and why.

Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Peter J. Katzenstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Real World ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

This article defines, operationalizes, and illustrates the value ofanalytic eclecticismin the social sciences, with a focus on the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Analytic eclecticism is not an alternative model of research or a means to displace or subsume existing modes of scholarship. It is an intellectual stance that supports efforts to complement, engage, and selectively utilize theoretical constructs embedded in contending research traditions to build complex arguments that bear on substantive problems of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Eclectic scholarship is marked by three general features. First, it is consistent with an ethos of pragmatism in seeking engagement with the world of policy and practice, downplaying unresolvable metaphysical divides and presumptions of incommensurability and encouraging a conception of inquiry marked by practical engagement, inclusive dialogue, and a spirit of fallibilism. Second, it formulates problems that are wider in scope than the more narrowly delimited problems posed by adherents of research traditions; as such, eclectic inquiry takes on problems that more closely approximate the messiness and complexity of concrete dilemmas facing “real world” actors. Third, in exploring these problems, eclectic approaches offer complex causal stories that extricate, translate, and selectively recombine analytic components—most notably, causal mechanisms—from explanatory theories, models, and narratives embedded in competing research traditions. The article includes a brief sampling of studies that illustrate the combinatorial potential of analytic eclecticism as an intellectual exercise as well as its value in enhancing the possibilities of fruitful dialogue and pragmatic engagement within and beyond the academe.

Issues in Data Collection: International Conflict

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch ◽  
Kyle Beardsley ◽  
Sara M. T. Polo
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Specific Manner ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Shed Light

Conflict data sets can shed light on how different ways of measuring conflict (or any other international relations phenomenon) result in different conclusions. Data collection procedures affect our efforts to answer key descriptive questions about war and peace in the world and their relationship to other features of interest. Moreover, empirical data or information can answer some pointed questions about world politics, such as, “Has there been a decline in conflict in the international system?” The development of data on characteristics relevant to the study of international relations has undeniably allowed a great deal of progress to be made on many research questions. However, trying to answer seemingly simple descriptive questions about international relations often shows how data rarely speak entirely for themselves. The specific ways in which we pose questions or try to reach answers will often influence our conclusions. Likewise, the specific manner in which the data have been collected will often have implications for our inferences. In turn, proposed answers to descriptive questions are often contested by other researchers. Many empirical debates in the study of international relations, upon closer inspection, often hinge on assumptions and criteria that are not made fully explicit in studies based on empirical data.

10. Poststructuralism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social World ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
World State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Good Account ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Play

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.

Globalization and the social state

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Social State ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Territorial Boundaries

One of the most common themes in the vast literature on globalization is that it is gradually undermining the state by making it meaningless if not obsolete. This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to challenge that thesis. It does so by arguing that there are two distinct sets of processes at work in contemporary world politics: globalization and interstate interaction. While the former tends to break down territorial boundaries and replace them with new, uniform configurations of power, money and culture, the latter reconfirms territorial boundaries and the structures and processes contained by them. The interaction among states, which is often ignored by globalization theorists, may best be understood by situating it within the traditional international relations concept of an international society, provided that this is redefined to give it a more ‘constructivist’ orientation.

scholarly journals Anarchy and International Relations theory: A reconsideration

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Havercroft ◽  
Alex Prichard
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Thinking Differently

In this introduction to the Special Issue, we undertake a little ground clearing in order to make room in International Relations for thinking differently about anarchy and world politics. Anarchy’s roots in, and association with, social contract theory and the state of nature has unduly narrowed how we might understand the concept and its potential in International Relations. Indeed, such is the consensus in this regard that anarchy is remarkably uncontested, considering its centrality to the field. Looking around, both inside and outside International Relations, for alternative accounts, we find ample materials for helping us think anew about the nature of and possibilities for politics in anarchy. In the second part of the introduction, we show how our contributors develop and expand on these resources and what we hope the Special Issue brings to International Relations.

11. Poststructuralism

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-191
Author(s):  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social World ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
World State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Good Account ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Play

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.

The Present Course of International Relations Research

1949 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Well Being ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Good Time ◽  
Human Control ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fruitful Research ◽  
High Level ◽  
Made In

This is a good time to ask what are the important emerging trends in research in international relations. In the first place, the problems of world politics today are as arresting in their implications for the security and well-being of peoples everywhere as they have ever been; at the same time, they seem less subject to human control. Secondly, a generation of experimenting and high-level groping with international problems has produced, or ought to have produced, some valuable conclusions about how to proceed in carrying out fruitful research in the field. Finally, the impressive advances made in various branches of the social sciences in the last few years have provided some interesting new tools and skills that ought to be of great help to the political analyst working on the international level.

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