Chapter One

What is international relations, it is the relationship of many factors,

variables which come together to give us meaning to event and situation in
international politics. International relations involves, human rights, diplomatic
relations among states, humanitarian assistance, bilateral relations, war, conflict
resolution, peace talk, peacekeeping, sport competition among countries and many
more that shows how countries interact.
International relations basically tell about geopolitics and geo-economics.
Geopolitics is how geography influences politics and politics affects geography. It
sometimes involves dispute over territory which might result into conflict or war. It
also involve territorial expansion, human rights, arms races, drug smuggling,
refugees and ideological conflict like the problem between the Hindu and Muslims
that resulted to the partition of the India into the states of India and Pakistan.
Geo-economics is how geography influences economics and economics
affects geography. It sometimes involves dispute over trade, intellectual property
right, economic development, Multinational Corporation, industrial policy. It also
involves economic relations that are not always resolve with violence or war.
Realism equals to power politics
Realism is the theory that wants to maintain the status quo. It believes in the
state system, and sees the state as unitary actor in international politics. The realist
believes every state is always looking for its survival; therefore every state would
want power for its survival. The urge for survival leads to struggle, competition,
fear, insecurity and combat among states, hence a state of anarchy arises.
According to the realist, an anarchical situation is when there is no central
government to forcefully maintain order among states in the international system.
Hegemonic power is believe to be the only solution to the state of anarchy.
Therefore hegemony is the capability of a state to influence other states to follow
certain rules. This could be diplomatic, political, economic or cultural power.
Realist see in every state national interest as their primary interest, that is
the protection of their sovereignty, that is the protection of the state from
insecurity, being influenced and dictated to by another state. The process of
protecting and avoiding insecurity threat leads state to maximization of power.
Idealism (Liberalism) equals to Alternative to power politics
(Realism)
Idealism can simply be understood from three points of view (three schools
of thought) actually, idealism is based on morality as a theory of international
politics.

The first school of thought believes that states are like individual. This idea is
based on the view of David Hume and John Locke that human being is not always
bad as the realist believes. They believe that goodness lies in man, while custom
shapes human behaviour and orientation. Hence, it can be said that human being is
the prisoner of his society, because he lives by the norms, rules and regulations
(social construct) of his society
The second school of thought believes that states are not as bad, struggling
to get power or troublesome as hold by the realist, rather failed state are the ones
that portray bad behaviours. Autocratic states are always bad and wanting to go to
war. This is why they say democratic states will do not always go to war, although
that statement is debateable
The third school of thought believes that states could share certain value
among themselves; there could be cooperation, goal and aspiration, interaction
among state which could result into international institution. This is one of the
reasons why idealism is called an institutional theory. It is as a result of this 3 rd
school of thought that such institutions like (League of Nations, United Nation
Organization and other regional organization such as SARC, EU, AU, and ASEAN)
came to being.
Marxist Critical theory
This theory speaks about how the Marxists view international politics. They
believe that the present world order is a world of the capitalist, which has created
the have and have-not, and a structure based on market-value affairs (commodity)
It is the belief of the Marxists that capitalism wanted to control the market
and maximise on the potential of the masses for their own benefits. That is
capitalists are always looking for opportunity to exploit the masses. They also see
international politics as the creation of the capitalist, such that the state system has
been formed in order to exploit peoples raw material at low cost and sell at high
price, which is can be termed as imperialism. So what they are saying is that the
concept of nation-state is the product of capitalism. This capitalism system
according to the Marxist further brought about the structure of dependency.
Dependency theory is blamed on capitalist imperialism, which divided the world into
three world system. These structures is known as Core or the advance industrial
countries of Western Europe and America exploiting the semi-periphery known as
the developing countries (partially industrialised countries) and the periphery
countries which are known as the underdeveloped countries with little or no
industrialization.
Welfare state concept is a bridge between the capitalist and the workers.
Socialist as well as Marxist believes that such a state (welfare state) will break
down the class system which was created by capitalism. In the welfare state
everyone will be almost equal, as resources of the state will be evenly distributed
and there will be little difference between the rich and the poor.

Feminism is the theory that tries to express the subjugation of womens role
in international politics. It basically wants to show that women have also played
significant role in the making of international politics. It is wrong to put in the
background role of women, since there are female prime ministers, president,
queen and decision makers. It believes that the whole interpretation of international
relation or world politics is masculine, meaning that it is male-centred. It is the
definition of men only without any reference to women active participation.
Postmodernism is another school of thought in international politics that
question the whole of international relations as the definition of the world by certain
scholars according to their own view. It is believe that all views are equally invalid
or incorrect. Meaning that the international relation has multiply reality, no one
should try to define it only in certain way. There could be many meaning to a
particular thing, the whole is multi-dimensional. This theory goes along with the
Traditionalist theory which believes that international relations can not simple be
understood from graphs, history and simple facts that we table, rather the
understanding of international politics can come through interdisciplinary approach,
that is bringing in ideas from different disciplines, field of studies.
Constructivism believes in the objectivity reality but without any law other
than change is constant.