The study of International Relations regroups a large range of theorists who have different opinions about the way international politics are organised. Among these theorists, you can generally distinguish three main schools of thoughts, the liberals, the Marxists and the realists. They all help to seize different features of the interactions on the international level but what is noteworthy is that Realism tends to be in the dominant position in the study of international relations.
Realism is based on some key assumptions such as the fact that the nation state remains the key actor in the international system and that international politics is essentially conflictual. The international system according to realists is anarchical, which means that there are no supra-bodies above the nation states because the latter are sovereign. The concept of sovereignty refers to the ultimate source of authority in a society; the sovereign is the highest and final decision maker within a community (Hague, Harrop, 2007, 16). Consequently, here the nation state is the highest and final decision maker and according to realists, there are no international institutions questioning its sovereignty. Unlike liberals, realists are pessimistic concerning the establishment of moral principles that justify that the nation state surrenders a part of its sovereignty to a superior body.
[...] To conclude, Realism is a school of thought that helps to understand many of the major issues happening on the international level. Its key concepts such as the importance of the state sovereignty or the states leaders' quest for more power and influence over the other states often explain the reasons behind the main conflicts that the world has encountered, such as the two world wars and the Cold War. It also explains partly the failures of institutions such as the League of Nations after World War explaining that we have to be careful with ideals like world cooperation. [...]
[...] Each state tries to arm itself against other states but the main problem is that when a state enhances its weapons to ensure its security, it can be perceived by other states as a threat to their own security and therefore leads to an arms race which makes the international environment even more hostile (Dougherty 59). When we look at the Realist way of seeing the world, we can notice that it is relevant to explain many of the issues encountered on the international level. [...]
[...] So, if we want to find out why international relations are always conflictual, according to the realist thought, it is because it has to do with human nature, always looking for more and more power. It's something that we also find in Morgenthau's thought which states ‘Politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature' (Baylis, Smith, Owens 95). Hobbes, like many Realists was really sceptical about alliances between states and the commitments on common laws to guarantee safety without power and the means to guarantee it, there be no power erected, or not great enough for our own security, man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men”. [...]
[...] To assert the relevance of Realism with a current example, we can also take the example of the current ‘subprime crisis'. It has been noticed that in these difficult contexts, states tend to be protectionists and adopt plans that serve their own interest, like the American stimulus package was denounced by many as a protectionist measure. This issue is becoming a growing concern of the World Trade Organization (Abdelal, Segal, 2008), but it is something expectable according to the Realists. [...]
[...] Consequently we can wonder to what extent the concepts lying in Realism help us to get a better overview of international relations and what its contribution to this discipline is. In the first part, we will analyze the roots of realism, some of the main theorists behind it and the core assumptions of this school of thought in International Relations and then in the second part, we will put it into perspective with other international relations, theories to assess its contributions. [...]
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