The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
Basic assumptions
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來自 National Research University Higher School of Economics 的課程
Understanding International Relations Theory
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
50 個評分
從本節課中
Kenneth Waltz and Structural Theory
The Cold War became a new intellectual challenge for the IR thinkers. How to survive in the nuclear age? The module introduces to the realist answer, which took a form of the structural realism.
與講師見面
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
Let us continue our discussion about the great debates.
The other camp which has confronted the classical political realist and
classical political liberals have been
called positivist or scientific approaches at method.
Scientific or positivist approaches argued
what international relations studies in contemporary times,
meaning in the second part of the 20th century,
should focus on more scientific methods.
They basically believed those who represented these camp of the great debates,
they basically believed that the classical experiences and knowledge of history and
knowledge of the case studies and the knowledge of
memoirs until these treaties is not scientific enough.
They believed in mathematics.
We should not forget that in the second part of the 20th century,
the mathematics and precise science
has developed very much the science made huge discoveries.
Their nuclear weapons haven't invented,
the space hubs has been discouraged by the people,
the new developments of the mathematics, physics, chemics,
and the others have been developed in the second part of the 20th century and
all these achievements of their science as an opposition to
humanities has brought many arguments for those who believed that
international relations science should also be brought
closer to their classical scientific methods advocated by them.
So the first method,
according to the representatives of these positivist camp was aggregation of data.
They believed, and by the way they continued to believe that no serious study
can be done without the aggregation of a huge amount of statistics,
huge amount of data which can be later analyzed but how to analyze these data.
Quantitative analysis was brought to the field of international relations science.
The third method was application of
natural science methods to social sciences exactly taking
social science humanities to
the methodological domain of the classical nature of science.
Next, what was important for those who represented
these positivist approach was mathematical modeling.
They believed that since we have a data,
huge amount of data,
we can do a quantitative analyses.
We can predict the international relations based on
mathematical modelling as we can do it with physics for example,
or make a simulation.
If we have a huge data we can have mathematical model and then we can
simulate how the states will behave in
the international system and vis-a-vis to each others.
The only one problem with this approach that unlike in mathematics,
in politics, two plus two is not always four.
In politics for good or for bad,
two plus two is what we decide,
is what politicians decide and people who vote for this politicians decide.
That's why mathematical modeling and
all positive scientific approach exists in international relations.
It helps us to understand many issues and processes on the micro level but while
trying to predict the genuine political developments
in international relations, it generally fails.
So consequently, emergence of neorealism or structural realism
was a result of these great debates and representatives of
structural realism tried to make peace
between two confronting camps of the great debates and
it's emergence of this theoretical paradigm in the late 70s put an end to these debates.
From one hand, structural realism meant a victory of "positivist
camp" good because it has brought
scientific methodology to the international relations studies.
Since then the international relations has become a little bit less for humanities,
a little bit less connected to history than
before but from the other hand presented for example by Kenneth Waltz,
the founder of the structural approach,
new theory saved many features of
a traditional humanitarian approach of
classical realist theory and it was strongly based on it.
Now let us talk about Kenneth Waltz.
Who was Kenneth Waltz? He was a great man for our science.
He was a prominent American political scientist of Joan origin,
the key theorist of Neorealism and the founder of this theory.
In the book "Theory of International Politics" which has been published in 1979,
Waltz described the main assumptions of his structural approach
to the study of international relations and defended the main features of this approach.
And as a matter of fact,
he established the signs of international relations in its contemporary existence.
The central points of his theory was analysis of
the international politics not through their units,
not through the states and their behavior,
but through such categories as system and structure.
So, let us talk a little bit about the basic assumptions of
the structural realism as it has been developed by Kenneth Waltz in the end of 1970s.
Neorealism has taken a lot from political realism and it was basically a continuation of
political realism theory adapted for
the new realities or the new methodological possibilities which scientists had.
And like political realism,
the neorealist theory was based on such assumptions as first,
that the international system is anarchic.
The neorealist have never denied that system is anarchic they
always believed in these rule of international relations
which belongs to the classical realist approach from the times of Fukuda's.
And there is no credible power they argued
above the states that together form the system.
So here we can see something from Tomasz Gop, isn't it?
And we see the clear connection between neorealism and classical realism.
The other basic assumption which neorealist inherited from
the classic realism was the assumption that states
cannot be certain of the intentions of other states.
We do remember the problem of intentions from
the previous lectures and the uncertainty of the intentions has been
always considered by the realist theory as one of
the main prerequisites of why states don't trust each other.
This uncertainty was important and still is important in
all realist paradigm to which the neorealist theory also belongs.
Next assumption was that at least some states
have offensive capabilities and some states having
these offensive capabilities eased the basic condition of
international system and that
the other states should always take these into consideration.
The next assumption was that states have preferences which they seek to
realize and that survival is a prerequisite for realizing such a preference.
So unlike political realists,
classical realists believe that they have many preferences,
not just only one survival or domination,
but still for them survival was number one and for the state,
the most important was to ensure its survival and other preferences
could have been realized and implemented in
the political practice only if survival is achieved.
And consequently however, unlike political realist,
structural realism uses system analysis as
the basic methodological instrument and not analysis of the this certain action.
So we do know already that Kenneth Waltz has
invented and developed his integral part of the international relations theory,
the concept of system and structure.
What is a system? System is the central category of neorealist theory,
in the most general sense,
system is a regularly interacting or inter-depending group
of items forming a unified whole.
In international relations, these items are ultimately the states.
Since such approach means that political actors states,
as the elements of the system,
are strongly connected entities which behavior
influences other actions producing counter reaction.
So the states are not working in a vacuum that
their behavior is always influenced by the behavior of the artists
and all of them together influence the international environment and this environment
is the most decisive most important for their future reactions and behavior.
Such approach allowed to call the Kenneth Waltz theory defensive realism.
Why defensive, not offensive?
But because according to him,
actors within the international system are not motivated by hunger for power and glory,
but purely by security considerations and here we see
the very very clear difference from the theory of classic political realism.
For classical political realist,
any state regardless of its power and position
was motivated by hunger for power and glory.
But for the neorealist,
the survival was understood not as a domination of
the others but as assuring its own security by the very concrete stand.
And as soon as they depend on the others and have to react to their actions,
it may cause conflicts and sometimes lead to wars.
