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ABSTRACT
THEORETICAL
DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
By FARHAN HANIF SIDDIQI
International
Relations is a relatively newer subject in the social sciences emanating
in the twentieth century and having still not completed its centennial
celebration. Compared with political science and philosophy whose
academic history stretches to thousands of years starting with the
Greeks, International Relations is a novel discipline within the
wider social sciences.
The present paper is an attempt in understanding and reflecting
on the theories of International Relations since its evolution as
a discipline after the end of the First World War. However, before
embarking on an exhaustive analysis of theories, the paper will
deliberate in some detail on the definition of IR concentrating
on its state-centric and non-state dimensions, the latter including
the nation, international organisations, both governmental and non-governmental
as interpretive categories. Moreover, it is essential to understand,
as Chris Brown states that, how we understand and interpret the
world is partly dependent on how we define the world we are trying
to understand and interpret. Furthermore, Robert Cox reminds us
that Theory is always for someone and for some purpose. Thus, theories
of International Relations can be best construed as frameworks of
analysis in which the development of a particular framework is dependent
on the subjective analysis of the theorist. Thus, for a realist
the essential issues in International Relations are that of war
and peace which include questions of security, anarchy and the notion
of self-help. For a neo-liberal, it is international cooperation
perpetuated by non-state actors which are a key to understanding
how the international system works.
With such an analytical focus, the paper will present an outline
of theories in International Relations starting off with the liberal
internationalists (idealists) and coming down to advances made in
post-positivist theory which includes the constructivists and post-modernists.
All along a critical assessment of each theory will be attempted
in terms of its problem-solving and normative disposition and it
will be expressly argued that theories based on the latter framework
are needed if the century old question of how to end war and how
to guarantee peace is to be resolved.
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