INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Relations (IR) as a course of study reflects the dynamics of the International System.
 The System is a complex web with multiple but mutually functioning components and is characterized
by interfacing changes and continuities, which are instrumental in the dynamic nature of the discipline.
 IR is a broad discipline that encapsulates the multivariate aspects of man in the global contexts.
o It is what can be described as ‘a fusion of social science disciplines’, as it deals with the basic
elements of the social man; the only difference is that it looks at such essentials in relational
contexts beyond national borders.
 What makes IR all the more distinct is its broad scope. Men have been living in social clusters: family
units, hamlets, clans, villages, towns, cities, communities, and nations. There has always been a basis
for social interactions as well as need to go beyond borders. This reinforces the thesis of the inevitability
of mutuality or interdependence of men.
 So, history is replete with the interdependence of national groups, who having defined their boundaries
have found one another in an unavoidable situation of mutual interaction.
o Such economic factors as scarcity and wants; social factors as friendship, enmity, intermarriages,
expansion and land hunger; political factors as power, authority, influence and diplomacy; as well as
military factors as coalition, alliance, and war; among other factors, have defined the contexts of IR.
o These historical basics have also been responsible for the two fundamental or recurring elements of
international politics namely, cooperation and conflict.
 The entirety of IR cannot be discussed in a single chapter. Indeed, there are volumes and volumes of IR
texts and journals that have not exhaustively captured the issues or topics. There are new developments
and new grounds broken every day, even as older issues have not yet been exhausted because there are
newer interpretations and theories to such historical issues, which even expand the bounds of IR
knowledge. What each volume therefore does, is to examine selected issues or themes.

This chapter is thus an introductory attempt for the understanding of the rudiments of IR. It deals essentially
with the basic concepts and elements of International Politics (IP), which is pertinent for beginners
(undergraduates) in the International Relations discipline.

Concept of International Relations

A basic problem in the study of International Relations (IR) is the understanding of the definitional contexts.
There are three basic levels of understanding.
 These include IR as a course of study, as a situation, and as a principle. We are therefore going to
do a conceptual clarification of each of these.
 As a course of study, IR refers to our discipline, what we are currently studying in that specialized
Political Science class in which we are learning the politics among nations.
o It is the field or body of knowledge that examines the totality of human relations across national
boundaries.

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 o Goldstein (2010), reminiscent of Carr (1964) submits that IR is that branch of Political Science that
deals with interactions between state and non-state actors in the international system.
Brown in his book, Understanding International Relations (1995), notes that such relations
transcend the political and governmental.
Such non-state actors include intergovernmental organizations (IGOs, international non-
governmental organizations (INGOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
transnational companies (TNCs) or multinational corporations (MNCs), which are not
necessarily political in nature.
o Hoffman (1977) defines IR as,
The discipline …concerned with the factors and the activities which affect the external
policies and power of the basic units into which the world is divided (Hoffman, 1977).
 Hoffman attempts to view IR as a field that studies the foreign policies of states and factors
determining the nature of such policies.
 The view is reinforced by Ola (1999) who argues that "International Relations are the study of all
forms of interactions that exist between members of separate entities or nations within the
international system".
 This perspective corroborates the earlier submission that IR is an expansive field of knowledge. IR
as a course of study has been studied for hundreds of thousands of years, as part of other disciplines
such as Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, and of course History and Political
Studies.
 For instance, the likes of Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes and
Clausewitz who were espousing the principles of political realism in the context of uses of power
within and outside the state were laying the foundation for a popular and distinct school of thought
today in IR study.
 IR is a hybrid of several other disciplines. It was not until after the Second World War that bold
attempts were made in the United States and Western Europe to carve a distinct course of study.
o The methodological approaches of such disciplines as Political Studies, History, Law, Philosophy,
and Sociology, within which IR was subsumed at the time, did not allow for empirical, deeper and
easy comprehension of international affairs.
o The combination of paucity of statistics and data, just as normative prisms denied professionals of
those fields of predictive capacity.
 It was not until after the First World War, that universities in the United States began to include
scientific methodologies such as behavioralist approaches that Political Science emerged to look at
issues more critically, stressing the human rather than the institutional actors. But this was not enough to
make IR a distinct. The positive contributions of the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, the London
School of Economics and the Wright Sisters also went a long way in the development and establishment
of IR as a distinct department or course of study.

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 o It is however pertinent to note that IR has different names in different social templates and
institutions in the world. These include, International Studies, International Affairs,
International Politics, and International Diplomacy, to mention a few.

As a situation, IR describes the state of interaction between two or more actors in separate national boundaries.
 Put differently, it describes the relationships that take place by members of the international community.
These include all or any aspects of their relationship such as war, conflict, dispute, separation,
belligerency, settlement, pact, treaties, cooperation, conferences, and organization.

As a principle, IR refers to a set of ideas that constitute the public policy that a state makes for the purpose of
the external context.

 It describes the foreign policy of a state, international organization or region, which are articulated,
formulated and implemented by an International Department, or a State Department or Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
 The totality of such policy process is what is sometimes referred to as, for instance, the International
Relations of Ethiopia, or International Relations of Africa or International Relations of the United
Nations. In some cases, it is referred to as the International Diplomacy of Africa. In some literature,
preference is for International Politics of Ethiopia or a particular institution or state.