Understanding World Politics
Lecture 1: Introduction to the Course and Preliminary Remarks
POIR8420
DR. GOVAND KHALID AZEEZ
Introduction:
Understanding the
Course
• General introduction
• How can we approach Understanding World
Politics
• What is Method?
• What is Theory?
• Course structure and outline
• Assessments and dates
Conceptual Background
• How we ought to approach politics, the world and theory?
• Three key components central to our analysis:
• Politics and state
• Economics and Relations of Production
• Theory (understanding and frameworks of analysis)
• The relationship between politics, economics and theory is complex and
multifaceted.
• To asses and understand how thought shapes and delineates political
understanding.
• International Relations as a discipline is seen as reductive and polemical
(ideological) by many philosophers and theorists.
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Why Methods is important?
• Why is it important to understand
methods for IR/GP students?
• Why methods is foundational to analysis
of knowledge and political life?
• Methods and methodologies are the
building blocks that allow us to
understand and interpret the world
around us.
• Why do we not encounter methods?
Pedagogical failure, epistemic
oversight, ideological obfuscation.
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Defining Method
• Method the collection of information about a
topic
• Research methods is understudied.
• Students and scholars do not engage
systematically with the topic and theme.
• Students of IR, global politics, political science
dedicate very little time in their work to
Research Methods.
• Selecting a research method is highly
ideological. It sets the boundary of analysis.
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Defining
Method
• ‘[it] is an active, diligent and
systematic process of inquiry in
order to discover, interpret or
revise facts, events, behaviors, or
theories, or to make practical
applications with the help of such
facts, laws or theories’ .
•A careful analysis for facts or
truths that make theories and
interpretations about a subject.
• Everyone is a political scientist?
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• We aim to survey theories of global politics:
• How do theories shape our understanding and
action?
Theories • What questions do theories of global politics
emphasise?
and Our • Ask what are the political implications and
consequences of these theories?
Course: • What have been the key debates and key thinkers?
• Engage with each theory on its own terms
• How is each theory helpful, in what ways is it
flawed?
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What is Theory?
• A scientific theory refers to a coherent group of hypotheses that
explain a group of facts or phenomena, which have been
repeatedly confirmed by testing or observation (e.g. Darwin’s
theory of evolution).
A hypothesis: a testable proposal that seeks to explain a
phenomenon.
• Students of international politics face some challenges when
applying the scientific method:
• We can’t run experiments in labs! (small ‘n’)
• We are not independent from the experiment. As Kimberly
Hitchings writes: "at the epistemological level, the [IR]
theorist does not operate in abstraction from the object of
analysis. This does not only imply that the theorist is
necessarily implicated in international politics but also that
theory is inherently political" International Political Theory
• Knowledge essentially contested / conclusions not definitive
What is ‘theory’ in global politics?
• We usually develop theories to address complex questions, rather than to explain obvious
things.
• How do we explain gross inequality?
• What or who is the subject of politics?
• What explains the rise in global migration?
• Why do we have terrorism?
• We turn to theory when we think an event reflects larger pattern of relations. James
Rosenau advises “To think theoretically one must be predisposed to ask about every
event, every situation, or every observed phenomenon, ‘of what is this an instance?’”.
• Often word ‘theory’ is used as a parallel for approaches, perspectives or worldviews – but
should it be?
Key Concepts
Ontology Axiology Epistemology Hypothesis Theory Empiricism
A branch of philosophy The Study of value and A branch of philosophy A tentative assumption A set of propositions , A theory of knowledge
tending to being norms. tending to knowledge relating to certain suppositions or A theory that highlights
The science of what is The study of good and The study of of the phenomenon constructs that that experience is
there/ how good things are in nature and scope of Dictates the variables attempts to make derived from the
gradation. knowledge, belief and and scope of research sense of reality. senses. Stimulated by
What is reality?
opinion design the rise of
What constitutes experimental science
reality? Telos of truth.
Distinguishes Truth
from error.
Questions what we
know, how we know
and who knows
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Week 1 How do we think about World Politics?
Week 2 The Method Question: Positivism versus Post-Positivism
Week 3 Classical Realism
Week 4 Structural Realism
Week 5 Liberalism and Neo-Liberalism
Week 6 International Society Approach
•Timetable for the Course
Week 7 Constructivism: The world between matter and Ideas &
Discourses
Week 8 Marxism and Critical Theory: The Question of Class,
Inequality and Ideology
Week 9 Reading Week
Week 10 Feminism: Feminist Theory for the 99% or the 1%?
Week 11 Poststructuralism and Postcolonialism: Discourses of
Power and Imperialism
Week 12 Globalization: Neoliberalism or Internationalism
Week 13 Conclusion
POIR8410 Text
• iLearn: Please read thoroughly
• Text: Dunne and Smith et al., International
Relations and Social Science, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016 [or any closer edition]
• Should be available on Leganto
• E-Books are available
• You can also find the book on ebay
• Everything else on iLearn/ links to library
Assessments
Class Participation 10%
Mid-semester test 45%
Final Essay 45%
FACULTY OF ARTS | DEPARTMENT OF MHPIR 13
