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The emergence of discipline
-The first University department about discipline was established in Wales, Aberystwyth.
- The discipline was soon used by American and British universities.
-The institutionalization of disciplines begins with the establishment of different university departments and think tanks.
- Liberal thinking appeared after WWI, several questions were asked such as: How war can be avoided? What should we do to avoid wars? -
Edward Hallett Carr
He wrote the book "The Twenty Years' Crisis" about Introduction to the Study of International Relations
Carr said: „Utopians” were guilty of „naivety” which means goal stood in the way of the analysis. -
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The First "Great Debate"
-This debate was between Realism and Liberalism.
-Since the economic crisis in the 1930s and the outbreak of the Second World War, more and more critiques of Liberal thinking raised in International Relations.
- One of the most important realists Edward Carr argued that liberalism is a utopia. -
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The double establishment of the discipline
Liberals sought to answer the question of what ought to be done to avoid war, while the realists wanted to understand the nature of power politics “as it is”. -
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The second "Great Debate"
-It is an epistemological debate between ‘behaviourism’ and ‘traditionalism’.
-"Scientific" methods try to imitate the methods of natural science to explain international politics whereas the "traditional" method is explanatory, more historical and more in line with the normative judgment. -
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The rapid development of the study of International Relations
New academic departments and centers have emerged not only in the United States and the United Kingdom but also in several other places (most importantly in Europe). -
Neoliberalism
-‘Neo-liberal institutionalist’ analysis of international regimes argued that economic and technological development required new forms of international political cooperation.
The main representatives were Robert O. Keohane, John Burton, Ernst Haas. -
NeoMarxism
-For neo-Marxists International Relations has to deal with social forces if it is to understand the nature of world order. In this approach, the question of what is most important in world politics is by inquiring into the causes of inequalities.
-The main Main representatives are Robert Cox and Immanuel Wallerstein. -
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The third "Great Debate" also called the "inter-paradigm debate"
-The debate between two main approaches which are neoliberalism and neorealism. A new approach called neo-Marxist appeared.
- This debate was called the neo-neo debate or the interparadigm debate. -
Kenneth Waltz
He was one of the original founders of neorealism, it outlined was first published in his book"Theory of International Politics".He thought the central puzzle of world politics is the international state-system and the struggle for power and security over several millennia. -
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The fourth "Great Debate"
-A new approach emerged which was called a post-positivist approach.
-Differed from the mainstream realist, liberal and critical Marxist thinking in International relations.
-The participants are constructivism, which insists that facts in social
sciences are not objective. Facts are constructed by society.
-The most important representative of the constructivist approach is Alexander Wendt.
