Core Module: International Relations readings summary
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”
Week 2
O’Brien, R. and Williams, M. (2016). Global Political Economy. Evolution and Dynamics
Download Global Political Economy. Evolution and Dynamics (5th edition; New York: Palgrave.
Chapter 1; 6-21.
Asian financial crisis
- What was the cause of the Asian financial crisis in 1997?
• Different explanations in liberal, state power and critical view
→ Events can be analysed in different ways, through different frameworks
The Economic Nationalist Perspective (also realist, mercantilist, statist,…)
- Focus on importance of power
- Origins in 15th century mercantilism
• Limited amount of wealth in the world and each state must secure their own interests (zero-
sum game)
- States are key actors, market-based actors less important
- Markets are shaped by political power
• Global economy is subordinate to international political system
• Nature of global economy reflects interests of most powerful states
- Globalization
• Defensive position: globalization favours those in power → threat
• Sceptical position: power of state remains undiminished → myth
- International economic relations are zero-sum game → conflict
• Potentially negative → state control of key economic activities or state assistance to central
economic sectors.
• Production of goods within borders to prevent dependency on import
- Economic nationalism today
• Protectionism, tariffs, strict conditions on foreign investments
The Liberal Perspective
- Most relevant today: free trade, liberalized economies, international money flows
- Focus on individual or wide range of actors (states, corporations, interest groups)
- Coercion and force less big role than in economic nationalist theories
- Origins in 18th and 19th century Britain (Industrial Revolution)
• Protectionism and restriction of economic activity are impoverishing states
- Little government interference is best → markets at centre of economic life
• Economic failure caused by government intervention
- Globalization
• Hyper-liberals: globalization is a reality and positive force
• Keynesian- and reformist liberals: support it, but emphasize need of market reform
- Cooperation instead of conflict → mutual benefit (positive-sum game)
• Comparative advantage theory
• Economic nationalist policies lead to conflict (Great depression → WW2)
• Capitalism leads to peace (international organizations and interdependence)
• Even possible when hegemonic states declined (realists disagree)
- Liberalism today
• Neoclassical liberalism dominates field of economics
• WTO, IMF, World Bank
, • TNCs (transnational corporations)
• But also challenges: financial crisis (e.g. 2008)
The Critical Perspective (also Marxist, radical,…)
- Origins in 19th century reaction to liberalism
- Focus on class and interests of workers (not states)
- Different critical perspectives, Marxism most important
• Marxism: focus on relations between workers and capitalists
• Feminism: focus on relations between women and men
• Environmentalism: focus on relations between people and environment
• Neo-Gramscian theories: focus on transnational classes and ideology
- These theories stress nature of oppression
- Key actors: class
- Dominance and exploitation among and within societies
- International economic relations inherently unstable and conflictual because of capitalism:
• Competition drives down wages
• Capitalism leads to uneven development
• Overproduction or underconsumption undermine social stability
- Dependency theory
• Developing countries are exploited by developed countries and because of this they have
trouble developing
- Globalization
• Against (“imperialism in modern clothes”) → leads to exploitative relations
- International economic relations is conflictual within and between countries → zero-sum game
• Capitalism leads to war and imperialism
- Critical theory today
• No Marxist states
• But interests in critical theories because of challenges of liberalism
• Social movements
Gilpin, R. (1987). The political economy of international relations. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. Chapter 2; 25-64.
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”
Week 2
O’Brien, R. and Williams, M. (2016). Global Political Economy. Evolution and Dynamics
Download Global Political Economy. Evolution and Dynamics (5th edition; New York: Palgrave.
Chapter 1; 6-21.
Asian financial crisis
- What was the cause of the Asian financial crisis in 1997?
• Different explanations in liberal, state power and critical view
→ Events can be analysed in different ways, through different frameworks
The Economic Nationalist Perspective (also realist, mercantilist, statist,…)
- Focus on importance of power
- Origins in 15th century mercantilism
• Limited amount of wealth in the world and each state must secure their own interests (zero-
sum game)
- States are key actors, market-based actors less important
- Markets are shaped by political power
• Global economy is subordinate to international political system
• Nature of global economy reflects interests of most powerful states
- Globalization
• Defensive position: globalization favours those in power → threat
• Sceptical position: power of state remains undiminished → myth
- International economic relations are zero-sum game → conflict
• Potentially negative → state control of key economic activities or state assistance to central
economic sectors.
• Production of goods within borders to prevent dependency on import
- Economic nationalism today
• Protectionism, tariffs, strict conditions on foreign investments
The Liberal Perspective
- Most relevant today: free trade, liberalized economies, international money flows
- Focus on individual or wide range of actors (states, corporations, interest groups)
- Coercion and force less big role than in economic nationalist theories
- Origins in 18th and 19th century Britain (Industrial Revolution)
• Protectionism and restriction of economic activity are impoverishing states
- Little government interference is best → markets at centre of economic life
• Economic failure caused by government intervention
- Globalization
• Hyper-liberals: globalization is a reality and positive force
• Keynesian- and reformist liberals: support it, but emphasize need of market reform
- Cooperation instead of conflict → mutual benefit (positive-sum game)
• Comparative advantage theory
• Economic nationalist policies lead to conflict (Great depression → WW2)
• Capitalism leads to peace (international organizations and interdependence)
• Even possible when hegemonic states declined (realists disagree)
- Liberalism today
• Neoclassical liberalism dominates field of economics
• WTO, IMF, World Bank
, • TNCs (transnational corporations)
• But also challenges: financial crisis (e.g. 2008)
The Critical Perspective (also Marxist, radical,…)
- Origins in 19th century reaction to liberalism
- Focus on class and interests of workers (not states)
- Different critical perspectives, Marxism most important
• Marxism: focus on relations between workers and capitalists
• Feminism: focus on relations between women and men
• Environmentalism: focus on relations between people and environment
• Neo-Gramscian theories: focus on transnational classes and ideology
- These theories stress nature of oppression
- Key actors: class
- Dominance and exploitation among and within societies
- International economic relations inherently unstable and conflictual because of capitalism:
• Competition drives down wages
• Capitalism leads to uneven development
• Overproduction or underconsumption undermine social stability
- Dependency theory
• Developing countries are exploited by developed countries and because of this they have
trouble developing
- Globalization
• Against (“imperialism in modern clothes”) → leads to exploitative relations
- International economic relations is conflictual within and between countries → zero-sum game
• Capitalism leads to war and imperialism
- Critical theory today
• No Marxist states
• But interests in critical theories because of challenges of liberalism
• Social movements
Gilpin, R. (1987). The political economy of international relations. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. Chapter 2; 25-64.
