International Relations Theory- Haluk Karadağ

  • Eğitmen: Haluk Karadağ
  • Dersin Verildiği Okul: Başkent Üniversitesi
  • Başkent Üniversitesi Ders Kodu: POLT 204

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Definition

This course introduces undergraduate students to important theoretical perspectives and debates in the study of international relations. We will cover works that address different levels of analysis from the international system to domestic politics to individual leaders—and that span major theoretical paradigms, including Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism. International Relations is an attempt to understand how and why events unfold in the way that they do. Accordingly, we attempt to use this understanding to predict how similar events will unfold in the future, and take action to impact these events in the international environment. As a result, any course dealing with politics necessarily must account for historical forces driving current action. World politics directly impacts the quality of your environment, the size of your pocketbook, the extent of your personal freedoms, and the length and quality of your life. Accordingly, this course will explore the broad forces at play in the world: international economics, national interests, military power, nationalism, theories of IR, the environment, and human rights.

Objectives & Learning Outcomes

  • Knowledge of the major theories and approaches in the discipline of International Relations.
  • Knowledge of major substantive themes in International Relations.
  • Ability to think critically about the relevance of mainstream theories of International Relations and their relevance to experience and interests of actors in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
  • Basic understanding of the major international and regional institutions in world politics as well as significant developments in world politics.
  • Ability to analyze world politics from a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Teaching Philosophy

Do not fear to dissent from the taken-for-granted or assumed “best” path. Question yourself; defend your point of view, without being dismissive of alternative positions or disrespectful of others. Use alternative ways of seeing to map the limitations of your own gaze, and to sharpen its focus. Recognize that learning is a process of cooperative conflict: ultimately, we argue with texts, distant authors, and each other in order to advance a dialogue, not to defend a dogma. If the instructor asks for clarification or pushes you to expand on a comment or position, he does so with this in mind, not to “make you feel dumb”.

Short Paper Presentations

I expect you to attend all class sessions, do all the assigned reading before each class, and come to class prepared to discuss the readings in depth. Your active participation in class discussions is very important; it will account for 30 percent of your grade. To summarize your readings, you will write a short paper for each class and bring it to the classroom for discussion. (at least 2 pages). As mentioned, the style of teaching/learning process will be discussion each week. You will need to submit both an electronic and hard copy of your paper to the instructor. And you will get 15 points in total from these documents you handed over.

Evaluation of Midterm & Final Examination

You can demonstrate your knowledge on a midterm & final examination. The exams will likely consist of 4 parts. First, you will identify on a world map a number of countries identified by their names or by their place in this semester’s major news stories. Second, you will answer a series of multiple choice questions based on the lectures and readings. Third, you will have a section of short answer/identification of importance in which you discuss the relevance or application of a given concept. Fourth, you will answer two essay questions. I will choose some of these questions to place on your final exam, of which you will choose to answer two. The exams will, of course, be closed book/closed note.

Midterm Exam
10%
Attendance
10%
In-Class Discussion and Presentation (paper)
40%
Final Exam
40%

Selected Readings

  • E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919-1939. Read chaps. 5,6.
  • Norman Angell, The Great Illusion (New York: Putnam, 1933 [1910]), pp. 59–62.
  • Brian Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations.Read Introduction and chaps. 4–7. [133 pp.]
  • Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (originally published in 1948; numerous editions appeared since then—use any of them), chap. 1. [15 pp.]
  • Nicolas Guilhot, ―The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory International Political Sociology, 2 (December 2008), 281–304.
  • Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy: the Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (Routledge, 1998), chaps. 2,3.
  • Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. Read chaps. 1–2, 4, 6, 8. [128 pp.]
  • Morton Kaplan, ―The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs. Science in International Relations, World Politics, 19/1 (Oct. 1966), 1–20.
  • Ernst Haas, ―International Integration: The European and the Universal Process,ǁ International Organization 15/3 (Summer 1961), 366–392.

  • Immanuel Wallerstein, ―The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System,ǁ Comparative Studies in Society and History 16/4 (June 1974), 387–415.

  • Benno Teschke, ―Marxism,ǁ pp. 163–87 in the Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. by Christian Reus-Smith and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 1976). Read chapter 1 (pp. 13–31) and part of chapter 3 (pp. 58–96).

  • Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (Columbia University Press, 1977), chaps. 1–2 [50 pp.]

  • Tim Dunne, ―The English School,ǁ pp. 267–285 in the Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. by Christian Reus-Smith and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), chaps. 1, 4– 6, 8 [118 pp.]

  • Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 1–33.

  • Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1981), chap. 1 [40 pp.]

  • Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton University Press, 1983), chaps. 1–6. [105 pp.]

  • Stephen Krasner, ―Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,  International Organization 36/2 (Spring 1982), 185–205.

  • Kenneth Oye, ―Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies,ǁ World Politics 38/1 (October 1985), 1–24.

  • Duncan Snidal, ―The Game Theory of International Relations,ǁ World Politics 38/1 (October 1985), 25–57.

  • Joseph Grieco, ―Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Internationalism, International Organization 42/3 (Summer 1988), 485–507.

  • Arthur Stein, ―Neoliberal Institutionalism,ǁ pp. 201–221 in the Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. by Christian Reus-Smith and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Friedrich Kratochwil and John G. Ruggie, ―International Organization: a State of the Art on an Art of the State,ǁ International Organization 40/4 (Autumn 1986), 753–775.

  • Yosef Lapid, ―The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post Positivist Era, International Studies Quarterly 33/3 (Sept. 1989), 235–254.

  • John Lewis Gaddis, ―International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,ǁ International Security 17/3 (Winter 1992/93), 5–58.

  • Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton University Press, 1993), chaps. 1, 2 [40 pp.]

  • Ido Oren, ―The Subjectivity of the Democratic Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptions of Imperial Germany, International Security 20/2 (Fall 1995), 147–84.

  • Nicholas Onuf, ―Constructivism: A User‘s Manual pp. 58–78 in International Relations in a Constructed World, ed. by Vendulka Kubalkova, Nicholas Onuf, and Paul Kowert (M.E. Sharpe, 1989).

  • Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1999), chaps.1, 6

  • Anthony Burke, ―Postmodernism,ǁ pp. 359–77 in the Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. by Christian Reus-Smith and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Sandra Whitworth, ―Feminism, pp. 391-407 in the Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. by Christian Reus-Smith and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Roxanne Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations (University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 1–49.

  • Robert W.Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond IR Theory, Journal of International Studies, Vol.10, No.2, pp.1-30.

  • Charlotte Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse (MIT Press, 2008), chap. 1 [23 pp.]

  • Laura Sjoberg, ―Introduction to Security Studies: Feminist Contributions,ǁ Security Studies 18/2 (April 2009), 183–213.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introduction to theories

Week 2: International Relations before World War II

Week 3: International Relations in the 1940s and 1950s

Week 4: Neorealism in IR

Week 5: Liberalism in IR

Week 6: Realism Challenged: The “Second Debate”. Theories of Integration and Interdependence

Week 7: Further Challenges to Realism: Psychology and Decision Making, Marxism, the English School

Week 8: A (Structural) Realist comeback

Week 9: The Neo (realism) – Neo (liberal institutionalism) debate of 1980s

Week 10: IR at the end of the Cold War: A declaration of a “Third Debate”, the emergence of the Democratic Peace Process

Week 11: Constructivism in IR

Week 12: Postmodernist and Feminist approaches

Week 13: Realism(s) and Critical Theory after the end of the Cold War

Dr. Haluk Karadağ, Başkent Üniversitesi Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler bölümünde öğretim üyesi olarak görev yapan Dr. Karadağ Ortadoğu Teknik Üniversitesi ve Atılım Üniversitelerinde Yüksek Lisans, Gazi Üniversitesinde doktora eğitimini tamamlamıştır. 2016 yılında yayımlanan “Uluslararası İlişkilerde Yeni Bir Boyut Kamu Diplomasisi” isimli kitabı, çeşitli kitap bölümleri ve farklı ulusal ve uluslararası hakemli dergilerde yayımlanmış makaleleri bulunmaktadır. Çalışma alanları arasında uluslararası güvenlik, kamu diplomasisi ve karar verme teorileri yer almaktadır.