THE NEW AGENDA OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

It is a really exciting time to be studying International Relations. For one thing, there have been enormous changes in the global order over the past fifteen years or so. First we saw the end of the Cold War, that state of hostility between the two-superpowers (the USA and the old Soviet Union) in 1989-90. The old bi-polar dynamics of the state system has been replaced by one dominant superpower, and ever since, scholars have been putting forward theories to make sense of this new world order. Then, more recently, the events of 9/11 and the response of the US leadership have been in the intellectual spotlight. Has the clash of Cold War ideologies been replaced by a ‘clash of civilisations’ or cultures, as Samuel Huntington and other have argued? Finally, the Iraq War has raised a whole range of questions and issues including: the nature of the just war; the role of the UN; the capacity of the EU to act as a cohesive force; occupation and national reconstruction; the role of ethnic/religious tensions in a nation state; and the nature of human rights in a theatre of conflict. The list could go on and on.

But the changes in the discipline of IR go a lot deeper than charting the shifts in the balance of power between nation states, commenting upon the evolution of the global order, or simply examining latest events. The very way in which international relations are defined are now subject to a lot of intellectual debate. Should we still see the modern state as standing centre stage? ‘Globalisation’ is now a word on everyone’s lips. But what does it mean? Is it anything really new? Certainly, writers in IR today stress activities that are not centred on the state and which involve international actors in their own right. There are literally thousands of them, concerned with issues such as: environmental degradation; human rights; peace keeping; aid and development; and religious activities: to say nothing of international corporations, financial institutions and even those involved in global racketeering. Moreover, today it no longer makes sense, for example, to talk about the classic distinction between ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ policy. We only need examine the complex policy-making of the European Union to see how much more complex the situation is today.

Maybe we should replace the term ‘International Relations’ with the broader ranging ‘International Studies’. Intellectual openness is now the order of the day and IR scholars are drawing in economists, historians, lawyers, anthropologists, and cultural theories – in fact just about the whole range of social science and humanities disciplines – in their search for new insights and approaches

We can draw insights from the study of culture and feminism in their approaches to the subject. Take the issue of ‘security’. Some - called ‘constructivists’ - now argue that terms like ‘anarchy’ and ‘security’ are defined so as to reflect the social conditions and aspirations which are dominant at any one time. They are not neutral, value-free terms but reflect the thinking, attitudes and goals of those who use them. My colleague at the University of East Anglia, Dr Nicola Pratt, for example in her course-unit on the Politics of the Middle East., examines how western terms are often inappropriately applied to the politics of that region. Similarly, feminists complain that orthodox approaches to ‘security’, define it in terms in terms of state security, traditionally seen in (male), militaristic terms. Instead feminists stress the extent to which such factors as poverty, violence, ill-health, poor working conditions and general cultural attitudes afflict the lives of women around the world.

Finally, there has been a renewed interest in the moral dimension of international studies. Are human rights culturally defined so that ‘Asian Values’ mean that human rights should be defined differently in Asia than they are in Europe or America? Or, on the contrary, should human rights remain universally constant everywhere? What form of justice should be pursued in the international arena? How should we meet the challenges posed by such problems as climate change, the spread of AIDS, international crime and growing inequalities of wealth?

By choosing to study International Studies, you will be in for an exciting time! And where better to choose to do so than in the UK with its historical links and intellectual connections with Europe, America, Asia and Africa?

Professor Stephanie Lawson.

Stephanie Lawson is Professor of International Relations of the Asia Pacific Region at the University of East Anglia. Her present research covers issues to do with democracy and democratisation, nationalism and ethnicity, and the politics of culture, especially in relation to the Asia-Pacific region and its relations with ‘the West’ . She is author of a recent authoritative textbook International Relations (Polity 2003) and has edited The New Agenda for International Relations: From Polarization to Globalization in World Politics? (Polity Press, 2002).