INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS THEORY
GOBI
,BUILDING BLOCKS
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
Levels of analysis in international politics are those spheres in social reality – from the individual to the entire
world history – where causes for international political phenomena are located.
- Levels of analysis have explanatory value
Kenneth Waltz: 1959 book on Three images. His central question was: at what level can we situate the causes for
inter-state war?
- First Image: Nature of humankind & individuals
- Second Image: The State
- Third Image: The International System
o Reality is more complicated (not advisable to reduce LoA to this three-tiered representation of
LoA.)
HUMAN NATURE
Classical Realism: “many humans/statespersons are bad by nature”
Liberalism: “Humans are good by nature; or at least, they can improve/learn, thanks to Reason”
- But: explanatory value limited: how to explain periods of peace & cooperation?
o We need more sophisticated explanations
- Does the difference between men and women matter for explaining foreign policy/IR?
o No robust statistical correlation has been found
THE INDIVIDUAL
Variety of personalities
- Institutional constraints of leaders (in many countries, a head of state/govt has little personal power
based on the constitution)
o Adolf Hitler, Mikhail Gorbaechev, Donald Trump, …
o Insights from psychological studies, biographies
THE STATE
“All states want to survive, seek security and economic welfare, are power-greedy.” (rooted in the characters of
humans/statespersons, see Classical Realism)
Several strands also look at the variety among states
- democratic states/authoritarian states (Cf. Democratic Peace Theory)
o democratic peace theory: democratic states almost never fight wars among eachother
- capitalist/communist states (historical)
Identity, role, strategic culture, collective emotions (Cf. Constructivism)
1
, Domestic institutions: does the government/president have powers to make foreign policy decisions and even go
to war without the consent of parliament? …
Foreign policy change within states
- Party politics & power alterations / exogenous events, filtered through domestic actors and institutions
o Modest or fundamental shifts in foreign policy
THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
STRUCTURAL REALISM
IR explanations to be sought at the level of the international system. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
- The system shapes/constitutes the states; sends signals (threats & opportunities)
o Structure of the system
o Interaction between states = external environment of states
- Waltz conceived the international system as anarchical, which means that it lacks a supranational
government
o For that purpose, a state needs to design and conduct a sensible defense and alliance policy,
otherwise it might perish
GEOPOLITICS
Geopolitics as a specific sub-discipline in international relations considers the impact of the geophysical
situation of countries on foreign policy making and international politics.
WORLD-SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
Wallerstein in the Marxist tradition analyzes the political and economic fates of countries, and the rise and fall of
hegemonic powers, in the context of the capitalist world-system and its division between core and peripheral
production, with semi-periphery consisting of countries that host both kinds of productions in more or less equal
ways.
THE SECOND IMAGE REVERSED
Peter Gourevitch combined the system and state level in his ‘second image reversed’ theory. This theory
accounts for the way developments in the international system shape the nature of states, and as such,
predominantly remains a system theory. Here the focus is not that much on invasions and conquests that
eliminate states, but rather on how the society, political economy and polity of states adapt to external pressures
in order to survive.
- An example is the Meiji Restauration in Japan.
o Progressive samurai and landowners carried through a revolution and got rid of the former
regime, in order to rapidly modernize the country and develop an effective central state, strong
industry and powerful army, to fend off imperialist pressures from the European powers, the
US and Russia.
TWO LEVEL GAMES
2
RELATIONS THEORY
GOBI
,BUILDING BLOCKS
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
Levels of analysis in international politics are those spheres in social reality – from the individual to the entire
world history – where causes for international political phenomena are located.
- Levels of analysis have explanatory value
Kenneth Waltz: 1959 book on Three images. His central question was: at what level can we situate the causes for
inter-state war?
- First Image: Nature of humankind & individuals
- Second Image: The State
- Third Image: The International System
o Reality is more complicated (not advisable to reduce LoA to this three-tiered representation of
LoA.)
HUMAN NATURE
Classical Realism: “many humans/statespersons are bad by nature”
Liberalism: “Humans are good by nature; or at least, they can improve/learn, thanks to Reason”
- But: explanatory value limited: how to explain periods of peace & cooperation?
o We need more sophisticated explanations
- Does the difference between men and women matter for explaining foreign policy/IR?
o No robust statistical correlation has been found
THE INDIVIDUAL
Variety of personalities
- Institutional constraints of leaders (in many countries, a head of state/govt has little personal power
based on the constitution)
o Adolf Hitler, Mikhail Gorbaechev, Donald Trump, …
o Insights from psychological studies, biographies
THE STATE
“All states want to survive, seek security and economic welfare, are power-greedy.” (rooted in the characters of
humans/statespersons, see Classical Realism)
Several strands also look at the variety among states
- democratic states/authoritarian states (Cf. Democratic Peace Theory)
o democratic peace theory: democratic states almost never fight wars among eachother
- capitalist/communist states (historical)
Identity, role, strategic culture, collective emotions (Cf. Constructivism)
1
, Domestic institutions: does the government/president have powers to make foreign policy decisions and even go
to war without the consent of parliament? …
Foreign policy change within states
- Party politics & power alterations / exogenous events, filtered through domestic actors and institutions
o Modest or fundamental shifts in foreign policy
THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
STRUCTURAL REALISM
IR explanations to be sought at the level of the international system. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
- The system shapes/constitutes the states; sends signals (threats & opportunities)
o Structure of the system
o Interaction between states = external environment of states
- Waltz conceived the international system as anarchical, which means that it lacks a supranational
government
o For that purpose, a state needs to design and conduct a sensible defense and alliance policy,
otherwise it might perish
GEOPOLITICS
Geopolitics as a specific sub-discipline in international relations considers the impact of the geophysical
situation of countries on foreign policy making and international politics.
WORLD-SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
Wallerstein in the Marxist tradition analyzes the political and economic fates of countries, and the rise and fall of
hegemonic powers, in the context of the capitalist world-system and its division between core and peripheral
production, with semi-periphery consisting of countries that host both kinds of productions in more or less equal
ways.
THE SECOND IMAGE REVERSED
Peter Gourevitch combined the system and state level in his ‘second image reversed’ theory. This theory
accounts for the way developments in the international system shape the nature of states, and as such,
predominantly remains a system theory. Here the focus is not that much on invasions and conquests that
eliminate states, but rather on how the society, political economy and polity of states adapt to external pressures
in order to survive.
- An example is the Meiji Restauration in Japan.
o Progressive samurai and landowners carried through a revolution and got rid of the former
regime, in order to rapidly modernize the country and develop an effective central state, strong
industry and powerful army, to fend off imperialist pressures from the European powers, the
US and Russia.
TWO LEVEL GAMES
2
