The Teaching of International Relations in the United States

1961 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. R. Fox ◽  
Annette Baker Fox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Formal Organization ◽  
American Experience

INTERNATIONAL relations, as a subject of instruction, has flourished more in the United States than elsewhere and more in recent years than ever before. What forces explain its growth and its present shape? How have methods of teaching it been affected by the goals of the teacher, by his relation to research, and by the formal organization of international studies in American colleges and universities? To what extent is the American experience so rooted in uniquely American conditions that it is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere? These questions will be considered in turn.

The Study of International Relations in Great Britain: Further Connections

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Political Experience

Aside from language, students of international relations in the United States and Great Britain have several things in common: parallel developments in the emergence of international relations as a field of study after World War I, and more recent efforts to broaden the field by drawing security issues and changes in the international political economy under the broad umbrella of “international studies.” But a review of four recent books edited by British scholars demonstrates that there is also a “distance” between British and American scholarship. Compared with dominant trends in the United States, the former, though hardly monolithic and producing a rich and varied literature, is still very much attached to historical analysis and the concept of an “international society” that derives from the period in modern history in which Britain played a more prominent role in international politics. Because trends in scholarship do, in fact, reflect national political experience, the need continues for transnational cooperation among scholars in the quest for strong theories in international relations.

Interwar International Relations Research: The American Experience

1949 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. R. Fox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Future Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The Future

What is today in the United States conventionally known as international relations is a subject different in content and emphasis from its counterpart of even two decades ago. Much of what seemed important in 1929 seems irrelevant, and some of it even trivial, in 1949. Another twenty years may perhaps bring a similar judgment on work now being done. But we ought at least to be aware of the direction in which we have been moving if we are to control the future development of the field.In 1930 the following statement passed unchallenged in a discussion among some of Ameria's leading social scientists: “The emotional drive is so highly developed in the kind of person who goes into the international relations field that it often leads to unclear thinking.” The implication that no one without this drive could conceivably be persuaded to enter the field is a commentary on the disesteem with which international relations research was then regarded.

The Empirical, Normative, and Theoretical Foundations of International Studies

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
World War ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
The Way

International relations have been the object of widespread study and review in the United States since World War I. Attention has focussed alternately on the flow of events, the goals and standards, and the underlying principles of world affairs. Primary emphasis has been directed to empirical, normative and theoretical problems. Along the way, scholars, statesmen and observers have singled out certain factors from the myriad dimensions of international society. Students have looked for concepts and methodologies by which order and meaning could be derived in this as in other complex fields.

scholarly journals American Commonalities and Roots of European Integration

2021 ◽  
Vol 13(49) (3) ◽  
pp. 121-142
Author(s):  
David Reichardt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
European Integration ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
American Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
European Thought

This article looks deeply into the historical parallels between the American and European experiences of state integration, which have resulted in the United States of America and the European Union, respectively. It first defines the key international relations concept of state integration and compares American and European thought on the idea. It then turns to examine some of the highpoints in the history of integration in the American and European cases. Given the remarkable historical commonalties between the two processes, the article puts forward the idea of the American experience as a chief inspiration and source for European integration. It concludes by suggesting that without the historical example of the United States, as well as massive American post-war assistance to Europe, it is highly doubtful that European integration would have commenced when and as it did.

The Role of Geographic Education in International Studies

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Shelley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Geographic Education ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World

Geography has been a formal academic discipline in the United States since the early twentieth century. During the first six or so decades of this period, geographic education was dominated by the legacies of environmental determinism and orientalism. These concepts were representative of a Eurocentric worldview that showed contempt for non-Western cultures and economies, treating “natives” of non-Western cultures as backward, ignorant, and lazy. Presentation of material about non-Western areas of the world in geography textbooks and publications has been characterized by assumptions of Western cultural superiority. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw geographic education undergo considerable transition, as geographers pay more and more attention to perspectives like dependency theory and world system theory. Renewed interest in geographic education coincided with the revival of geography as an intellectual pursuit and recognition of the importance of place in the world economy and in international relations, along with the explosive growth of information made possible by television, the internet, and other technologies. More importantly, the orientalist biases that have historically characterized geographic education in the United States and other Western countries have gradually disappeared. It has been argued that improved geographic education will help overcome geographic illiteracy and promote public awareness of international relations, but such awareness must be intertwined with the changing role of educational institutions in managing information, and to recognition of the changing relationships between education and information.

US Dominance in International Relations and Security Scholarship in Leading Journals

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cullen S Hendrix ◽  
Jon Vreede
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
English Language ◽  
Large Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Language Bias ◽  
Scholarly Attention

AbstractThis article investigates the factors that affect scholarly attention on particular countries in four major international relations (IR) journals: International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics for the period 1970 to the present. The analysis supports three basic conclusions. First, the United States receives the most scholarly attention in leading IR journals by a large margin. Second, a baseline model of scholarly attention, including just population, gross domestic product (GDP), and a dummy for the United States fits the data rather well. Additional factors such as membership in prominent international organizations or involvement in armed conflicts improve model fit, but only marginally, with little evidence of regional or English-language bias. And third, there is only weak evidence that countries with stronger economic and security linkages with the United States receive more attention. However, Israel and Taiwan—two countries with unique security relationships with the United States—receive more scholarly attention than either the baseline or augmented models would predict. Our analysis of bibliometric data from leading IR journals indicates the United States is the three-hundred-thousand-pound blue whale of IR scholarship. However, this emphasis is not particularly outsized when its large population, economy, and its extensive history of participation in interstate wars are taken into account.

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