International Relations- A Framework for Analysis

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About the Book The state of present day International Relations is more complex than the state of discipline in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Theory and practice of International Relations in the new millennium could well be seen as a confluence of different streams of thought and action that have evolved in this context since the creation of modem state system in the 17' century, and particularly during last fifty years. Beginning with the Westphalia system established in 1648, and continuing in the twentieth century with the honest of Cold War, emergency of the Third World, spread of Globalization and the rise if Civil Society, this multi-level structure of International Relations is too complex to be understood by shutting over selves up in any one or the other school of thought. Polarization in thought between the "economic" and "political", between the "domestic" and the "international", or even between "Realism" and "Liberalism", seems artificial and divorced from reality.

This book explores International Relations with a broader concept of globalised states as they have developed over the last half-century. The traditional pattern, which automatically took the sovereign state and state-systems as the starting point of investigation, is no longer sufficient for a realistic understanding of International Relations.

The old models of sovereignty and democracy are not capable of providing good governance in a globalizing world. The campaigns of global society and the bottom-up pressure of citizen activism have become essential to both the theory and practice of International Relations. The present book attempts to analyze International Relation in the lights of the five major trends mentioned above provide a comprehensive coverage of all the important political, economic and social strictures and processes that are essential for an in-depth understanding of the field.

About the Author Sunil Sondheim is Reader in Political Science in the University of Delhi. After completing his doctoral research from the University of Delhi. Sunil Sondhi did post-doctoral research at the George Washington University, USA, and University of Toronto, Canada. During his distinguished academic career spanning more than two decades Sunil Sondhi has bagged many international research awards. These include: Harry S. Truman Institute Research Award (1987); John F. Kennedy Foundation Research Award (1989); Olive I. Reddick Award (1990); J. William Fulbright Fellowship (1992); Gerald R. Ford Foundation Research Award (1993); Rockefeller University Research Award (1994); and Salzburg Program Fellowship. (1995). He was awarded the Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellowship twice, in 1995 and 1999. In the year 2000, Sunil Sondhi was awarded the prestigious Canada Asia-Pacific Award by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Government of Canada, for research on Governance and Development in South Asia. He is the first Indian scholar to be honored with this award. In the same year, he was also awarded the Leadership Excellence Award by the American Biographical Institute. In 2003, Dr. Sondhi was awarded the Shastri Applied Research Project Award by the Canadian International Development Agency, for research on Environment Management.

Sunil Sondhi has published extensively in scholarly journals on international relations and organization, and has more than one hundred research papers and articles to his credit. He has presented several research papers at international conference held in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden and New Zealand. His has published six books: Science Technology and India's Foreign Policy (1994); United Nations in a Changing World (1998); Global Terror (2001); Corruption: The Asian Experience (2002); Global States (2002); and Canada: Today and Tomorrow (Co-Editor) (2003). Dr. Sondhi has been a Trustee of Indian Association of American Studies, and is now the Secretary-General of Fulbright Alumni Association.

Preface Theory and practice of international relations in the new millennium could be seen as a confluence of different streams of thou gilt and action that have emerged 0 in this context since the creation of modem state system in the 17· century. Beginning with the Westphalia system established in 1648, and continuing in the 'twentieth century with the onset of Cold War, emergence of the Third World, spread of Globalization, and the rise of Civil Society, the multi-level structure of international relations to-day is too complex to be understood by shutting ourselves up in any one or the other school of thought.

Polarization in thought between the "economic" and "political", between the "domestic" and the "international", or even between "Realism" and "Liberalism", seems artificial, and divorced from reality. The traditional pattern, which automatically took the sovereign state and state-systems as the starting point of investigation, is no longer meaningful. The old models of sovereignty and democracy are not capable of providing good governance in a globalizing world. The campaigns of global society and the bottom-up pressure of citizen activism have become increasingly significant in international relations.

This book is primarily intended for the students. It is hoped that it will serve as a basic text for an in-depth and realistic understanding of international relations. The inspiration for writing this book also came from my students. Their quest for knowledge moved me to bring together existing information on the subject in simple readable format. I am particularly indebted to someone whose childlike innocence and unbounded curiosity made me see the whole world in a leaf of grass and eternity i an hour. Consciousness of the immediate and ultimate reality the same time brings peace and harmony. This is as much truth in international relations as in personal life.

In the course of writing this book I have become obliged to an embarrassingly large group of individuals and institutions only: a few of whom can be mentioned here. I owe the most to m: teachers and colleagues in the Department of Political Science University of Delhi. Sh. R.C. Thapar, Professor Mahendra Kumar Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, and Professor M.P. Singh haft contributed to my understanding of International Relations. I haft also benefited from my discussions with Professor Abrahan Rotstein at the University of Toronto, Professor Jonathan Rose a the Queens University, and Professor John Logsdon at the George Washington University.

I also gratefully acknowledge the help received from various institutions regarding materials used for the present book. 1 received research support from the Department of Foreign Aft. fairs and International Trade, Government of Canada; University of Toronto; Queens University, Kingston; North South Institute, Ottawa; Department of State, Washington OC; and CIVICUS, Washimrton DC.

Introduction 1. Theoretical Framework

The basic problem facing anyone trying to understand contemporary international relations is that there is so much material to look at that it is difficult to know which things matter and which do not. Where on earth would you start if you wanted to explain the most important political processes? Whenever individuals are faced with such a problem they have to resort to theories, whether they are aware of them or not. A theory is not simply Some grand formal model with hypotheses and assumptions; rather a theory is some kind of simplifying device that allows you to decide' which facts matter and which do not. A good analogy is looking with sunglasses with different colored lenses; put on the red pair and the world looks red, put on the yellow pair and it-looks yellow. The world is not any different, it just looks different. So it is with theories.

Three main theoretical views have dominated the study of intemational relations, and through them we get an idea of which 'colors’ they paint international relations. But theory is not an option. It is not as if we can say that we do not want to bother with a theory, all we want to do is to look at the 'facts'. This is simply impossible, since the only way in which we can decide which of the millions of possible facts to look at is by adhering to some simplifying device which tells us which ones matter the most.

Theory is such a simplifying device. We may well not be aware of our theory, it may just be the view of the world that we have inherited from family, peer group, or the media. It may just seem common sense to us and not at all anything complicated like a theory. But all that is happening in such a case is that our theoretical assumptions are implicit rather than explicit, and we should try and be as explicit as possible when it comes to thinking about international relations; otherwise we may be looking at the world through the equivalent of red sunglasses without even being aware that we are wearing them (Bails and Smith, 2001).

People have tried to make sense of international relations for centuries, and especially so since the separate academic discipline of International Politics was formed in 1919 when the Department of International Politics was set up at Adhered.

Interestingly, the man who set up that Department, a Welsh industrialist called David Davies, saw its purpose as being to help prevent war. By studying international politics scientifically, academics could find the causes of the world's main political problems and put forward solutions to help politicians solve them.

For the next twenty years, the discipline was marked by such a commitment to change the world. This is known as a normative position, with the task of academic study being one of making the world a better place. Its opponents characterized it as Idealism, in that it had a view of how the world ought to be and tried to assist events to turn out that way.

In its place its opponents preferred an approach they called Realism, which, rather unsurprisingly stressed seeing the world as it really is rather than how we would like it to be. And, the world as it really is not seen by realists as a very pleasant place; human 'beings are at best selfish and probably much worse.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages