Abstract
Scholars have developed various sets of conceptual tools in order to make sense of the international system. It is assumed that there is some sort of pattern in the world and that the international system is not just ‘one damn thing after another’. For example, in an earlier chapter, we discussed briefly the causes of the First World War about which there are many different views. The disagreements are not, for the most part, over facts, which are largely known, but over the interpretation of facts. In other words, people have different theories of how international relations operates. Therefore we need to consider these theories if we are not to regard such things as the First World War as one of a series of haphazard if unfortunate events.
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Further Reading and Sources
On theory in general Chris Brown, Understanding International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1997),
is an excellent recent introduction. Rather more old-fashioned and not considering many of the topics such as feminism which are widely discussed today is Philip Reynolds, An Introduction to International Relations (London: Longman, 1994, 3rd edn), which has a good rigorous attitude to theory.
Various essays on international relations and its philosophical underpinnings are edited by Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski, International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
More directly on the philosophical underpinnings is the excellent book by Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding in International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).
My own views on these problems are in Michael Nicholson, Causes and Consequences in International Relations: A Conceptual Study (London: Pinter, 1996).
A. J. R. Groom and Margot Light (eds), Contemporary International Relations: A Guide to Theory (London: Pinter, 1994), is a collection of bibliographical essays by various experts in aspects of international relations theory. It is invaluable as a source of further reading.
The title of the book is descriptive of its contents in the case of James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr, Contending Theories of International Relations (New York: HarperCollins, 1990).
Another broad survey is S. Burchill and A. Linklater (eds) Theories of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1996).
There are only a very small handful of books on international relations which one might recommend to one’s friends to read for fun. Most are from the realist stable, but see Irving Janis, Groupthink (Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin, 1992, 2nd edn),
and Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1992, 2nd edn). One would have to be unbelievably pure not to be charmed by the cynicism of Machiavelli’s The Prince (first published in 1532 and available in numerous editions) which adds to its charm by being short.
Another realist masterpiece is by E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1939, 2nd edn 1946).
On realism we can go back almost indefinitely. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, is often quoted as the father of realism dating from the 5th century BThere are many translations and editions. Hobbes, Leviathan (in many editions, but try that of J. Plamenatz (London: Collins, 1962)), should be read at some point by the serious international relations scholar. More recently, Hans Morgenthau is the classic and I would recommend reading selectively from Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1st edition 1948, 6th edition revised by K. W. Thompson 1985). A powerful critique of realism is given by John Vasquez in The Power of Power Politics: A Critique (London: Pinter, 1983).
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley 1979) is the classic on structural realism.
Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), is a collection of articles on the state of the debate which is still important.
That rational self-interest can nevertheless result in cooperation is argued in Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
On critical theory Andrew Linklater’s Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1990), is very readable. The journal Millenium contains many articles on critical theory, postmodernism and feminism as they apply to international relations and often carries articles which mark the state of the debate.
The quotation from Marx comes from ‘Theses on Feuerbach X1’ in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Collected Works (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1950). There are numerous other editions.
Cynthia Enloe has added to feminist international relations in a major way. See anything by her, but I mention particularly her Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Relations (London: Pandora Books, 1992).
A good collection of papers by various authors is edited by Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland, Gender and International Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991).
Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan, Global Gender Issues (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), has also been influential.
Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986) is a more general discussion of science and feminism which has had significant impact in international relations.
In a more general book Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheat-sheaf, 1992), makes postmodernism comprehensible.
A general introduction is by Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt, Postmodernism for Beginners (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1995) though its relationship to international relations is not at all direct. One of the central texts for an understanding of postmodernism in international relations is the International Studies Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3 (September 1990). This journal normally publishes hard-headed behavioural analysis of international relations but it was handed over to a special issue on postmodernism called ‘Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissidence in International Studies’.
See in particular the first essay by Richard K. Ashley and R. B. J. Walker. A critical approach to postmodernism in social science is Pauline Rosenau, Postmodernism and the Social Sciences; Insights, Inroads and Intrusions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). She relates it specifically to international relations and political science in ‘Internal Logic, External Absurdity; Postmodernism in Political Science’, Paradigms, vol. 4, no. 1 pp. 39–57 (1990).
I cite three important studies in international relations and related topics in the text. The first is by Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Cavendish Press, 1981). Sen’s work has been fundamental in altering our understanding of the causes and processes of famines.
The second is by Lewis Fry Richardson, Arms and Insecurity (Pittsburgh Pa: Boxwood Press, 1960), published posthumously. Richardson was the pioneer in the 1930s of what is now called the behavioural approach to international relations and is regarded by many as the founder of peace research. By many in this tradition (including myself, though many of my friends regard me as eccentric in this matter), Richardson is regarded as one of the finest minds to have applied themselves to international relations. This is a minority view in Britain though many hold it in the United States.
Equally important is Richardson’s Statistics of Deadly Quarrels also published in 1960 by the same publisher. John Vasquez, The War Puzzle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), is an important, more recent study of the causes of war. Much hard research has gone into investigating the causes of war.
See, for example, J. David Singer, A Peace Research Odyssey (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1990).
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© 1998 Michael Nicholson
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Nicholson, M. (1998). Theories of International Relations. In: International Relations. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26481-0_6
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