Key Concepts and Theories of International Relations
Key Concepts in International Relations
- Anarchy
- The absence of ultimate power and authority over states.
- Security Dilemma
- When one state expands its military capabilities to increase its security, it increases fear in other states about their own security, prompting them to do the same.
- International Regimes
- Norms and patterns of behavior, sometimes organized into international agreements and managed through international organizations.
- Sovereignty
- The legal status of having control over a territory and the people who reside there, and being recognized by other sovereign states as having such control and being entitled to be regarded as sovereign.
- Intersubjective
- Ideas and concepts that are held in common by a group.
- Referent Object
- The object, entity, or value that is threatened and needs to be protected.
- Securitization Speech-Act
- The act of representing a specific issue as an existential threat to security.
- Epistemic Violence
- The imposition of one knowledge system onto other peoples, practices, and places in a way that actively denies, discredits, and destroys other knowledge systems treated as inferior.
- Subaltern
- Individuals or groups who have been excluded, marginalized, or silenced in world politics.
- Patriarchy
- A social system in which males hold primary power in political leadership, moral authority, and social privilege.
Major Theories of International Relations
Realism and Neo-realism
Neo-realists view anarchy as pressure from the international community. This pressure of insecurity causes a need for control over territories that can only end in an arms race and/or war, with one state winning.
- Power: Power is a defining feature of the international environment. It is achieved through the resources available to a state for building military capabilities, such as wealth, population, and technology.
- Security: Security is a central concern and is achieved by increasing power and engaging in power balancing to deter potential aggressors.
- Insecurity: The insecurity of the state lies in threats posed by another state or actor with the potential to enter into an armed conflict or arms race.
Liberalism and Neo-liberalism
Neo-liberals believe that while anarchy exists, it will not necessarily lead to violence. They argue that the more countries interact, the less likely they are to go to war, and that economic integration can lead to stable peace.
- Power: This theory concerns itself with the distribution of power, seeing it in two forms: Hard Power (military) and Soft Power (culture, influence, non-military). Whatever order exists in the world is a product of the current hegemony.
- Security: Security lies in attenuating conflict through interaction. Eventually, enough interaction leads to interdependence or integration and a “condition of stable peace.”
- Insecurity: Insecurity lies in the lack of a hegemony or a relationship with other state actors.
Social Constructivism
Social constructivists believe that anarchy is not a natural part of the international system. Instead, it is constructed by actors who believe in anarchy and its resulting insecurities.
- Power: Power can be gained through knowledge and interaction between actors. As a result, material capacity means very little.
- Security: Security lies in the ability to promote and maintain positive interaction, confidence-building measures, and sharing norms and/or identity.
- Insecurity: Insecurity lies in the inability to achieve this.