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Chapter One: An Introduction To Global Politics: Change And Continuity
Review |
This chapter introduces the study of global politics and the themes of this text, change and continuity. It then introduces the tools that political scientists use to analyze global politics: levels of analysis and theory. It describes the different kinds of theory and their purposes and it provides an overview of the dominant theoretical approaches to global politics.
1. Threats and opportunities
Global politics combines destructive factors and trends that threaten our well-being and perhaps even our survival with opportunities to enlarge human capacities and to cope with, insulate ourselves from, and perhaps even avoid some of the worst dangers we face.
2. History and global politics: change and continuity
The world is changing in ways that can seem frightening. Global political actors can respond to such changes by seeking global cooperation or conflict. Historically, conflict has been the norm, but an understanding of the past can help present decision-makers to avoid conflict.
3. Levels of analysis
a) Levels of analysis are a tool used by political scientists to simplify a complex world. Each level lends a different insight into global politics.
b) At the individual level, researchers look at the characteristics of individual leaders; at the state level, they look at decision-making groups or agencies; and at the global system level, they consider key features of the world as a whole.
4. Making sense of a complex world: theory and global politics
a) This chapter introduces the ideas of theory, theorizing, and method.
b) It examines the major theoretical debates in the field, the kinds of theory that exist, and the uses to which theory is put.
5. What is theory and why do we need it?
a) Theory is a tool political scientists use to simplify the world and to uncover regular patterns in the activities of global actors.
b) Empirical theory analyzes what is and normative theory considers what ought to be in global politics.
c) Theory serves three purposes: explanation, prediction, and prescription.
6. The great debates: an introduction to different world views
The study of global politics has been characterized by numerous debates over what actors and issues to study and how best to study them.
a) Realism versus Liberalism
- This debate revolves around the relevant actors and issues in global politics.
- Realists believe that there is no natural harmony of interests among people and that power and security are the central elements of global politics. Actors are naturally competitive and conflict is and always will be the norm.
- Neorealists emphasize the structure of the international system, anarchy, as the source of conflict and all global activity. They are even more pessimistic regarding change.
- Liberals believe actors can cooperate to overcome conflict and poverty. They are optimistic such change can occur.
- Neoliberals emphasize the linked fates of actors, otherwise known as interdependence.
b) Traditionalism versus Science
- This debate focuses on how best to conduct research in global politics.
- Traditionalists argue that human behavior is very complex and unpredictable. It cannot be studied with scientific methods. Global politics is similarly complex. Understanding it requires a detailed understanding of individual actors and the context in which they operate.
- Scientists argue that there are patterned regularities to global politics that can be uncovered with scientific methods. Finding them requires foregoing detailed knowledge of specific actors and context, but one the patterns are found they can be used to predict and prescribe policies.
c) Postpositivism, constructivism, and the “Third Debate”
- Postpositivists reject empiricism and claim there is no objective reality that can serve as a basis of theories of global politics.
- Constructivism emerged as an effort to narrow the gap between empiricists and postpositivists, According to various postpositivists and constructivists, language and identity influence the meaning of concepts and the theories political scientists create.
d) The agent-structure problem
- The agent-structure problem is the label for the controversy about whether individuals and groups play the major role in explaining global politics or whether features of global structure determine the behavior of actors.
- For constructivists, agents act freely within the constraints of structure. Their perceptions of their environment and their interaction with one another influence their behavior, which in turn shapes, or constitutes, structure.
e) Feminist international relations
- Feminists argue that gender is a principle way of signifying power relationships and that gender relations affect every aspect of human relations, including global politics.
- In its analysis of global politics, feminist theory views the world from the perspective of the disadvantaged and takes greater account of economic inequality, ecological dangers, and human rights in defining security than conventional (male) international relations theory, which emphasizes military issues.
f) Marxism
- Marxists turn to economic forces to explain and predict global politics.
- Economic actors are the key actors in the approach. States are the instruments of the dominant class and political conflict–within and between states–is a product of class conflict.
7. Many Theories, Many Meanings
People differ in their interpretations of global politics because the different theoretical approaches emphasize different explanatory factors and because people are simply different in terms of their backgrounds, cultures, ages, and personal experiences. All these factors influence how one views and analyzes global politics.
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Focus Questions |
Q1 What are "levels of analysis" in the study of international relations and why are they important?
A1 We can look at the world around us from several perspectives. The most inclusive
is that of the international system which includes all the actors in global politics a and their interactions. We can also study the "parts" that make up the "whole" of the international system. States and other collective actors like international and nongovernmental organizations are the key parts of the system. Finally, such collective actors consist of individuals—leaders and followers—we can study their role in the global political drama. Thus, the global distribution of power and the distribution of identities are characteristics of the system as whole. By contrast, a country's level of wealth, its political system, and its ideology are examples of state-level characteristics. Finally, whether leaders are rational or not, their personalities and their individual experiences are examples of factors at the level of the individual. Comprehensive explanations of events in global politics like wars usually require us to look at factors on all three levels.
Q2 What is theory and why do we need it?
A2 The world is very complex, and to make sense of what is taking place we have to focus only on factors that we think will help us understand the world of global politics. Theory is an effort to make sense of our complex world by looking only at those factors that we believe are important and the ways in which those factors are related. Doing this greatly simplifies messy reality by omitting from consideration the vast amount of information that we think will not help us describe, explain or predict the most important aspects of global politics like wars or aggression. Theory is therefore "strategic simplification" in which scholars lay out their ideas about how the world of global politics works and what we need to study to understand that world.
Q3 What are the most important types of theory in international relations, and how are they different?
A3 There are several kinds of theory that help us understand global politics. The first is empirical theory which deals solely with facts. Empirical theory can be either explanatory, answering "why" questions or predictive, informing us of what is likely to happen in the future. Predictive theory often makes use of statistics. A second major type of theory is normative which deals with ethical questions of "right" and "wrong." Finally, a third type of theory is prescriptive or policy-oriented theory. It serves to tell us what course of action we should follow to achieve a particular objective or goal.
Q4 What are the most important theoretical approaches in the study of international relations and what are their main features?
A4 There are four major theoretical approaches in the study of global politics: realism, liberalism, constructivism, and Marxism. Realists emphasizes human nature and anarchy (the absence of a central government above states) as sources of insecurity that require that states seek power to serve their national interest and make it difficult for states to trust one another. Realists believes that war is always a possibility but that certain mechanisms, notable balance of power, may help to limit conflict. Liberals are more optimistic than realists. Unlike realists who focus especially on the system level, liberals focus on the state and individual levels. They believe that democratic states are less prone to conflict than other states and human beings are perfectible. Contemporary liberals, sometimes called neoliberals, argue that international organizations, international regimes, and growing independence in global politics foster cooperation and reduce conflict. Constructivists contend that identities determine interests and that, as identities change, so do interests. They focus on how changing identities and interests, in turn, lead to changes in global norms. Marxists see economic forces as determining identities, interests, and behavior. They believe that changes in the means of production propel history and that such change produce conflict among different economic classes. The result is revolution with the oppressed class overthrowing the oppressor class.
Q5 What is the difference between "positivists" and "post-positivists" in making sense of global politics?
A5 Until recently, most international-relations theorists were "positivists," meaning that they were empiricists who study global politics in much the same way that natural scientists study their subjects. They also believe that empirical and normative theory must be kept separate. Finally, they believe that they can slowly but surely accumulate knowledge, achieve a greater understanding of global politics, and perhaps even uncover truths about the subject by systematic observation, experimentation, and the other tools of science. Recent decades, however, have witnessed the mergence of a variety of scholars who collectively are called "post-positivists." In contrast to scientists, they believe that the interests, experiences, and political biases of observers make it impossible for them to study global politics objectively and, as a result, understanding of global politics is not cumulative. In their view, it is not possible to separate empirical and normative claims. The most extreme version of post-positivism, called "postmodernism," contends that reality is not external to the observer but instead is constructed by individuals or groups. Theory, according to postmodernists is merely the expression and reflection of power relations. For this reason, postmodernists conclude that there is no single truth and that truth claims are the result of individual interpretation. |
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