State and Society in International Relations

Abstract

Since the early 1970s much of the theoretical debate within International Relations has focused on the question of the state. Some discussion has been around the analytic primacy of the state as the constitutive actor in international relations, while some has focused on normative questions, of the degree to which the state can be regarded as the primary guarantor of what is good, within and between states. ‘State-centric’ realism has reasserted traditional positions on the state and has, through the emergence of neo-realism, affirmed new ones, especially in the field of international economic relations. Other paradigms have challenged the primacy of the state, either by asserting the role of non-state actors, as in theories of interdependence and transnationalism, or by asserting the primacy of global systems and structures over specific actors, state or non-state. All three of these approaches have been influenced by broader trends within political science: realism by mainstream political theory; transnationalism by the pluralist and behavioural rejection of the state in favour of studying actions; structuralism by theories of socio-economic determination.