The IR Theory Knowledge Base

balance of power predicts that rapid changes in international power and status—especially attempts by one state to conquer a region—will provoke counterbalancing actions. For this reason, the balancing process helps to maintain the stability of relations between states

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approach to the study of politics or other social phenomena that focuses on the actions and interactions among units by using scientific methods of observation to include quantification of variables whenever possible

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e power pursuit propensity of states is derived from the basic nature of human beings as power maximisers.

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f collective defence with regards to NATO can be found in Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty: 'The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them... shall be considered an attack against them all

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arrangements for facilitating peaceful settlement of disputes,' assuming that the mechanisms of preventing war and defending states under armed attack will 'supplement and reinforce each other' (19

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ollective security goes beyond the pure idea of defence to in

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'system for maintenance of international peace... intended as a replacement for the system commonly known as the balance-of-power' (

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'complex interdependence' was developed by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye and refers to the various, complex transnational connections (interdependencies) between states and societi

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. Interdependence theorists noted that such relations, particularly economic ones, were increasing; while the use of military force and power balancing were decreasing (but remained important

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rplay between strategic and constitutional innovation changes the constitutional order of the state. In putting his thesis, Bobbitt also contends that: epochal wars have brought a particular constitutional order to primacy; a constitutional order achieves dominance by best exploiting the strategic and constitutional innovations of its era; the peace treaties that end epochal wars ratify a particular constitutional order for the society of states;

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ry rejects the basic assumption of neo-realist theory that the state of anarchy (lack of a higher authority or government) is a structural condition inherent in the system of states. Rather, it argues, in Alexander Wendt's words, that 'Anarchy is what states make of it'. That is, anarchy is a condition of the system of states because states in some sense 'choose' to make it so. Anarchy is the result of a process that constructs the rules or norms that govern the interaction of states. The condition of the system of states today as self-helpers in the midst of anarchy is a result of the process by which states and the system of states was constructed.

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pproach or methodology which seeks to take a critical stance towards itself by recognising its own presuppositions and role in the world;

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rounds for the justification and criticism of the institutions, practices and menta

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Kenneth Waltz's balance-of-power theory (neorealism). Defensive realism holds that the international system provides incentives for expansion only under certain conditions. Anarchy (the absence of a universal sovereign or worldwide government) creates situations where by the tools that one state uses to increase it security decreases the security of other stat

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endency theorists assert that so-called 'third-world' countries were not always 'poor', but became impoverished through colonial domination and forced incorporation into the world economy by expansionist 'first-world' powers. Thus, 'third-world' economies became geared more toward the needs of their 'first-world' colonial masters than the domestic needs of their own societie

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errence is commonly thought about in terms of convincing opponents that a particular action would elicit a response resulting in unacceptable damage that would outweigh any likely benefit. Rather than a simple cost/benefits calculation, however, deterrence is more usefully thought of in terms of a dynamic process with provisions for continuous feedba

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patory international relations is characterised by a number of schools of thought most broadly falling under the umbrella of Wesern or Hegelian Marxism, such as neo-Gramscian theory and approaches to IR based on the Frankfurt School philosophy. These approaches to emancipatory IR can be shown to be reformist rather than revolutionary, in the sense that visions of an alternative world order fail to transcend the state.

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archist political philosop

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s relates to facts and provides an explanation or prediction for observed phen

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ocus on purposes or tasks, particularly those performed by organisation

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ly international organisa

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states and societies are increasingly being 'disciplined' to behave as if they were private markets operating in a

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tability of the international system requires a single dominant state to articulate and enforce the rules of interactio

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Idealists believe strongly in the affective power of ideas, in that it is possible to base a political system primarily on morality, and that the baser and more selfish impulses of humans can be muted in order to build national and international norms of behavior that foment peace, prosperity, cooperation, and justice. Idealism then is not only heavily refo

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mperialism as a national foreign policy aimed at acquiring more power than the state actually has, through a reversal of existing power rela

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state cooperation and especially regional integration (e.g. EU) as a function of the alignment of state interests and preferences coupled with power

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) states rightfully go to war (jus ad bellum) with just cause, as in self-defense in response to aggression, when the decision to go to war is made by legitimate authority in the state, as a last resort after exhausting peaceful remed

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ry that identifies international law with positive acts of state consent. Herein, states are the only official 'subjects' or 'persons' of international law because they have the capacity to enter into legal relations and to have legal rights and duties

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on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual. It favours civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authorit

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Karl Marx. It emphasises the dialectical unfolding of historical stages, the importance of economic and material forces and class analysis. It predicts that contradictions inherent in each historical epoch eventually lead to the rise of a new dominant cla

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international institutions play an important role in coordinating international coopera

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he same assumptions used by realists, except for the following: where realists assume that states focus on relative gains and the potential for conflict, neoliberal institutionalists assume that states concentrate on absolute gains and the prospects for cooperatio

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Neoliberal institutionalists believe that the potential for conflict is overstated by realists and suggest that there are countervailing forces, such as repeated interactions, that propel states toward cooperation

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enneth Waltz in which states seek to survive within an anarchical system. Although states may seek survival through power balancing, balancing is not the aim of that behaviour. Balancin

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is a product of the aim to survive. And because the international system is regarded as anarchic and based on self-help, the most powerful units set the scene of action for others as well as themselves.

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major powers are referred to as poles; hence the international system (or a regional subsystem), at a particular point in time, may be characterised as unipolar, bipolar or multipolar.

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. New wars are part of a globalised war economy underpinned by transnational ethnicities, globalised arms markets and internationalised Western-global interventions. The new type of warfare is a predatory social condition which damages the economies of neighbouring regions as well as the zone of conflict itsel

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eals precisely with values and value preferences.

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luralism can be seen to derive principally from a liberal tradition, rooted in Locke's 'Second Treatise of Government', and to pose an anti-realist vision of the centrality of the state in world politics. Pluralists make four key assumptions about international relatio

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non-state actors

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competition, coalition building, and compromise

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lash of competing interest

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national security as well as economic, social and environmental issues.

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count for the dynamics of change and anticipa

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individuals, a

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macro level of collectivities and their glo

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state-centric world of sovereignty-bound actors and the multi-centric world of sovereignty-free

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reme branch of Critical Social The

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minant narrative of modernity upholds reason as the foundation of objective truth and the source of progr

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ernational realm is anarchic and consists of independent political units called states; states are the primary actors and inherently possess some offensive military capability or power which makes them potentially dangerous to ea

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cial constructivism is about human consciousness and its role in internatio

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y intersubjective dimension of human action: the capacity and will of people to take a deliberate attitude towards the world and to lend it significa

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quire human institutions for their existence (money, property rights, sovereignty, marriage and Valentine's Day, for

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t share the stage with a whole host of other ideational fa

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stems analysis is not a theory or mode of theorizing, but a perspective and a critique of other perspectives within social scien

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geopolitical emergence of the Third World in the late 1960s and the manifest insufficiencies of modernization theory to account for what was happe

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