Core Module International Relations lecture notes
Week 1
Dutkiewicz, J., & Smolenski, J. (2023). Epistemic superimposition: The war in Ukraine and the
poverty of expertise in International Relations theory. Journal of International Relations and
Development, 1-13.
Critique on realism
- Fails to explain war in Ukraine
- Claiming expertise based on theoretical rather than empirical expertise
- Reading empirics selectively
War according to Mearsheimer and realism
- Three reasons for war
NATO enlargement
EU expansion
Democracy promotion
- Threat to Russia’s power offensive realism
- Wrong predictions
Holds on to realist theories, even when proven wrong
Selective sources
Epistemic superimposition
- Theory provides schema for understanding political phenomena
- But, should be tested rigorously with empirics of a phenomenon
Mearsheimer: theory holds regardless
- Epistemic superimposition is the methodological error of overlaying abstract theories onto
unique historical and political contexts, which can lead to poor engagement with empirical
evidence or to ignoring empirical evidence altogether.
- Problem for knowledge production when scholars (“experts”) provide analyses and
prescriptions with the goal of shaping public or policy discourse
- Mearsheimer not only realist to do this likely to happen in realism
- Scholars are not real experts when they don’t know the specific context of a political
phenomenon
Acharya, A. (2014). Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds. A New Agenda for
International Studies. International studies quarterly, 58(4), 647-659.
Goal
- There is ethnocentrism and exclusion in IR
- Make IR more inclusive
Global IR
- Why is there no non-western IR?
The main theories of IR are deeply rooted in the history, intellectual traditions and agency
claims of the West
Hegemonic status of established IR theories
Possible sources of non-western IR theories in indigenous history and culture, ideas of
nationalist leaders, local and regional interaction patterns and writings of scholars working
on different regions and world affairs more generally
- What makes Global IR different from Traditional IR
It is founded upon a pluralistic universalism
, o Not monistic universalism (“applying to all”), but recognizing and respecting the
diversity in us.
It is grounded in world history, not just Greco Roman, European, or US history.
o Ideas, institutions, intellectual perspectives, and practices of Western and non-
Western societies.
It subsumes, rather than supplants, existing IR theories and methods.
o Using insights from non-Western world to enrich theories of IR and rethink their
assumptions and broaden the scope of their investigation
o Postcolonialism and feminism already did this.
It integrates the study of regions, regionalisms, and area studies.
o Acknowledgement of regional diversity and agency.
o Does not mean that world is being fragmented into regional blocs.
It eschews exceptionalism.
o Exceptionalism: the tendency to present the characteristics of one’s own group
(society, state, or civilization) as homogenous, unique, and superior to those of
others.
o Claims about exceptionalism fall apart because of cultural and political diversity
within nations, regions and civilizations.
It recognizes multiple forms of agency beyond material power, including resistance,
normative action, and local constructions of global order.
o In Global IR agency is material and ideational
o Goes beyond military power and wealth and avoids privileging transnational norm
entrepreneurship
o Political actors can be individuals, states, and nonstate actors
Global IR Research Agenda
- Discover new patterns, theories, and methods from world histories.
- Analyse changes in the distribution of power and ideas after 200 plus years of Western
dominance.
- Explore regional worlds in their full diversity and interconnectedness.
- Engage with subjects and methods that require deep and substantive integration of disciplinary
and area studies knowledge.
- Examine how ideas and norms circulate between global and local levels.
- Investigate the mutual learning among civilizations, of which there is more historical evidence
than there is for the “clash of civilizations.”
Waltz, K. N. (1959). Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis Download Man, the State
and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press. Foreword and chapter
1.
Causes of war
- Waltz attempts to explain causes of war and how the world can be more peaceful
- Three distinct categories of theories (“images”)
Nature of human beings (“within man”)
o “Our miseries are the product of our natures”
o Human nature causes wars?
Internal structure of states that comprise the international system (“within structure of the
separate states”)
o Society makes people bad (Plato, Rousseau)
o Bad states lead to wars and good states lead to peace?
Structure or architecture of the international system (“within the state system”)
o Balance of power and preventive wars to prevent defeat (Thucydides,
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau)
o Bad relations between states lead to wars and good relations to peace?
, Causes of war in each image
- Prescriptions for a more peaceful world related to one or a combination of these “images”
Lecture 1
Introduction
International Relations
- As power relations among nation-states in the international system
Power decline of USA
Rise of China and India
International order (UN, WTO)
- As international conflict, war, violence and physical security
War in Ukraine and Palestine
Threat of war between China and USA
- As international political economy
Trade, money, migration, etc.
- As more complicated cross-border interaction
Emergence of the Netherlands and breaking up of the HRE
Germany meddling with Russian politics during WW1 (Lenin)
Wagner group fighting in civil wars in Africa
European Union meddling with Hungarian politics
IR as Multi-level Global Politics
- Subnational politics
Neighbourhoods
Cities
Provinces
E.g. crime in Amsterdam
- National politics
Countries/sovereign nation-states
E.g. Dutch elections
- International politics
Relations between sovereign nation-states
E.g. international conflict and cooperation (BRICS, NATO, trade, war)
- Regional politics
Relations between sovereign nation-states in a region
E.g. international conflict and cooperation in Europe, NAFTA or Arab League
- Supranational politics
Relations between actors who are not sovereign nation-states
E.g. MNC-led globalization corporations, terrorist networks (ISIS)
Explore theoretical and empirical controversies/debates in IR
- Exploring debates means focusing on a particular question (or few key questions) to which we
see different, competing answers
- We explore questions and their competing answers, rather than ‘merely’ looking at key
‘perspectives’ that often combine, in untransparent ways, answers to multiple questions (or
dimensions)
- Kinds of debates
Descriptive
Explanatory
Normative
- Depth/breadth of debates
‘Mid-level’ debates: Context- and problem-specific, partly resolvable through empirical
research
, Perennial debates: All-encompassing, ‘paradigmatic’, difficult-to-resolve through empirics
(i.e. realism versus liberalism versus marxism)
Explore a framework for understanding Multi-level Global Politics
1. Which levels are where the action is? (national, supranational, etc.)
2. How do levels influence one another?’
3. How do political actors seek goals at one level by taking action at another level?
- E.g. Germany sending Lenin to Russia to destabilize Russia (national), which improves their
chances of winning the war (international)
- This framework moves beyond ‘methodological nationalism’, avoids Western-centrism and
recognizes equal normative value and agency for everyone
- Amitav Acharya’s (2014) inclusive six-part ‘Global IR’…
1. …founded upon a pluralistic universalism: not “applying to all,” but recognizing and
respecting the diversity in us.
2. … grounded in world history, not just Greco- Roman, European, or US history.
3. …subsumes, rather than supplants, existing IR theories and methods.
4. …integrates the study of regions, regionalisms, and area studies.
5. …eschews exceptionalism.
6. …sees multiple forms of agency beyond material power (e.g. resistance, normative action,
local constructions of global order).
Four skills to answer questions about global politics
1. Argument-mapping
2. Connection-seeing
3. Empirical testing
4. Being courageously curious
Lecture 2
Debate 1: What is the role of power in IR? (Realism vs. Idealism)
IR Theory and the perennial debates
Why these debates?
- They informed IR thinking for decades
- They are focused on one key dimension or question about IR
- They are salient and unresolved
Two views on the role of power
Idealism Realism
Role of power and Not usually main or only cause Most important cause shaping
power-seeking in IR shaping motivations and outcomes. motivations and outcomes. Power
politics Power co-determined by material mainly deter mined by material
and non material conditions (e.g. conditions (e.g. geography, guns,
also ideas, diplomacy, institutions, technology)
practices)
Goals of IR analysis Often(but not only) normative: To More narrowly ‘positive’ empirical:
visualize, and identify path towards To reveal what actually occurs/exists,
peace, democracy, etc. and why.
‘Makeability’/ Emphasis on makeability/agency Emphasis on political constraint
agency
(Maakbaarheid)
Unit of analysis Individuals, groups, nations, Sovereign nation-states and the
Week 1
Dutkiewicz, J., & Smolenski, J. (2023). Epistemic superimposition: The war in Ukraine and the
poverty of expertise in International Relations theory. Journal of International Relations and
Development, 1-13.
Critique on realism
- Fails to explain war in Ukraine
- Claiming expertise based on theoretical rather than empirical expertise
- Reading empirics selectively
War according to Mearsheimer and realism
- Three reasons for war
NATO enlargement
EU expansion
Democracy promotion
- Threat to Russia’s power offensive realism
- Wrong predictions
Holds on to realist theories, even when proven wrong
Selective sources
Epistemic superimposition
- Theory provides schema for understanding political phenomena
- But, should be tested rigorously with empirics of a phenomenon
Mearsheimer: theory holds regardless
- Epistemic superimposition is the methodological error of overlaying abstract theories onto
unique historical and political contexts, which can lead to poor engagement with empirical
evidence or to ignoring empirical evidence altogether.
- Problem for knowledge production when scholars (“experts”) provide analyses and
prescriptions with the goal of shaping public or policy discourse
- Mearsheimer not only realist to do this likely to happen in realism
- Scholars are not real experts when they don’t know the specific context of a political
phenomenon
Acharya, A. (2014). Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds. A New Agenda for
International Studies. International studies quarterly, 58(4), 647-659.
Goal
- There is ethnocentrism and exclusion in IR
- Make IR more inclusive
Global IR
- Why is there no non-western IR?
The main theories of IR are deeply rooted in the history, intellectual traditions and agency
claims of the West
Hegemonic status of established IR theories
Possible sources of non-western IR theories in indigenous history and culture, ideas of
nationalist leaders, local and regional interaction patterns and writings of scholars working
on different regions and world affairs more generally
- What makes Global IR different from Traditional IR
It is founded upon a pluralistic universalism
, o Not monistic universalism (“applying to all”), but recognizing and respecting the
diversity in us.
It is grounded in world history, not just Greco Roman, European, or US history.
o Ideas, institutions, intellectual perspectives, and practices of Western and non-
Western societies.
It subsumes, rather than supplants, existing IR theories and methods.
o Using insights from non-Western world to enrich theories of IR and rethink their
assumptions and broaden the scope of their investigation
o Postcolonialism and feminism already did this.
It integrates the study of regions, regionalisms, and area studies.
o Acknowledgement of regional diversity and agency.
o Does not mean that world is being fragmented into regional blocs.
It eschews exceptionalism.
o Exceptionalism: the tendency to present the characteristics of one’s own group
(society, state, or civilization) as homogenous, unique, and superior to those of
others.
o Claims about exceptionalism fall apart because of cultural and political diversity
within nations, regions and civilizations.
It recognizes multiple forms of agency beyond material power, including resistance,
normative action, and local constructions of global order.
o In Global IR agency is material and ideational
o Goes beyond military power and wealth and avoids privileging transnational norm
entrepreneurship
o Political actors can be individuals, states, and nonstate actors
Global IR Research Agenda
- Discover new patterns, theories, and methods from world histories.
- Analyse changes in the distribution of power and ideas after 200 plus years of Western
dominance.
- Explore regional worlds in their full diversity and interconnectedness.
- Engage with subjects and methods that require deep and substantive integration of disciplinary
and area studies knowledge.
- Examine how ideas and norms circulate between global and local levels.
- Investigate the mutual learning among civilizations, of which there is more historical evidence
than there is for the “clash of civilizations.”
Waltz, K. N. (1959). Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis Download Man, the State
and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press. Foreword and chapter
1.
Causes of war
- Waltz attempts to explain causes of war and how the world can be more peaceful
- Three distinct categories of theories (“images”)
Nature of human beings (“within man”)
o “Our miseries are the product of our natures”
o Human nature causes wars?
Internal structure of states that comprise the international system (“within structure of the
separate states”)
o Society makes people bad (Plato, Rousseau)
o Bad states lead to wars and good states lead to peace?
Structure or architecture of the international system (“within the state system”)
o Balance of power and preventive wars to prevent defeat (Thucydides,
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau)
o Bad relations between states lead to wars and good relations to peace?
, Causes of war in each image
- Prescriptions for a more peaceful world related to one or a combination of these “images”
Lecture 1
Introduction
International Relations
- As power relations among nation-states in the international system
Power decline of USA
Rise of China and India
International order (UN, WTO)
- As international conflict, war, violence and physical security
War in Ukraine and Palestine
Threat of war between China and USA
- As international political economy
Trade, money, migration, etc.
- As more complicated cross-border interaction
Emergence of the Netherlands and breaking up of the HRE
Germany meddling with Russian politics during WW1 (Lenin)
Wagner group fighting in civil wars in Africa
European Union meddling with Hungarian politics
IR as Multi-level Global Politics
- Subnational politics
Neighbourhoods
Cities
Provinces
E.g. crime in Amsterdam
- National politics
Countries/sovereign nation-states
E.g. Dutch elections
- International politics
Relations between sovereign nation-states
E.g. international conflict and cooperation (BRICS, NATO, trade, war)
- Regional politics
Relations between sovereign nation-states in a region
E.g. international conflict and cooperation in Europe, NAFTA or Arab League
- Supranational politics
Relations between actors who are not sovereign nation-states
E.g. MNC-led globalization corporations, terrorist networks (ISIS)
Explore theoretical and empirical controversies/debates in IR
- Exploring debates means focusing on a particular question (or few key questions) to which we
see different, competing answers
- We explore questions and their competing answers, rather than ‘merely’ looking at key
‘perspectives’ that often combine, in untransparent ways, answers to multiple questions (or
dimensions)
- Kinds of debates
Descriptive
Explanatory
Normative
- Depth/breadth of debates
‘Mid-level’ debates: Context- and problem-specific, partly resolvable through empirical
research
, Perennial debates: All-encompassing, ‘paradigmatic’, difficult-to-resolve through empirics
(i.e. realism versus liberalism versus marxism)
Explore a framework for understanding Multi-level Global Politics
1. Which levels are where the action is? (national, supranational, etc.)
2. How do levels influence one another?’
3. How do political actors seek goals at one level by taking action at another level?
- E.g. Germany sending Lenin to Russia to destabilize Russia (national), which improves their
chances of winning the war (international)
- This framework moves beyond ‘methodological nationalism’, avoids Western-centrism and
recognizes equal normative value and agency for everyone
- Amitav Acharya’s (2014) inclusive six-part ‘Global IR’…
1. …founded upon a pluralistic universalism: not “applying to all,” but recognizing and
respecting the diversity in us.
2. … grounded in world history, not just Greco- Roman, European, or US history.
3. …subsumes, rather than supplants, existing IR theories and methods.
4. …integrates the study of regions, regionalisms, and area studies.
5. …eschews exceptionalism.
6. …sees multiple forms of agency beyond material power (e.g. resistance, normative action,
local constructions of global order).
Four skills to answer questions about global politics
1. Argument-mapping
2. Connection-seeing
3. Empirical testing
4. Being courageously curious
Lecture 2
Debate 1: What is the role of power in IR? (Realism vs. Idealism)
IR Theory and the perennial debates
Why these debates?
- They informed IR thinking for decades
- They are focused on one key dimension or question about IR
- They are salient and unresolved
Two views on the role of power
Idealism Realism
Role of power and Not usually main or only cause Most important cause shaping
power-seeking in IR shaping motivations and outcomes. motivations and outcomes. Power
politics Power co-determined by material mainly deter mined by material
and non material conditions (e.g. conditions (e.g. geography, guns,
also ideas, diplomacy, institutions, technology)
practices)
Goals of IR analysis Often(but not only) normative: To More narrowly ‘positive’ empirical:
visualize, and identify path towards To reveal what actually occurs/exists,
peace, democracy, etc. and why.
‘Makeability’/ Emphasis on makeability/agency Emphasis on political constraint
agency
(Maakbaarheid)
Unit of analysis Individuals, groups, nations, Sovereign nation-states and the
