An Introduction to International Relations:
The Origins and Changing Agendas of a Discipline.
This Introduction begins by first outlining what is meant by international relations. Second,
it tells the story of how and why the study of international relations emerged when it did
in the early twentieth century. Knowing something about the discipline’s origins does not
tell us everything we need to know about international relations today, but it will help us
to understand the legacy left by the discipline’s original purpose and by older traditions of
thought. Third, it sketches the contours of the changing agenda of international relations, a
shift that some scholars describe as a transition from international relations to world politics or
from the ‘traditional’ to the ‘new’ agenda. Although there can be little doubt that as political
reality has changed, new theoretical and conceptual tools have become necessary, we should
not assume that a complete break with the past has rendered the ‘traditional’ agenda and
its theories obsolete. Far from it; the ‘new’ agenda, as we shall see, supplements but does
not supplant the ‘traditional’ agenda. It is now more important than ever to think about the
relationship between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ theories and issues.
What is International Relations?
Every day the global news media carry stories of events involving foreign governments and
their populations. Usually featured under the heading of ‘international affairs’ or ‘world news’,
these stories all too frequently tell of political violence, lives and livelihoods lost, human
rights violated, infrastructure damaged, and hopes for the restoration of peace and prosperity
dashed. War rather than peace makes the news headlines, and understandably so, because the
violent conflict of war so visibly ravages human societies. ‘If it bleeds, it leads’, as the cynical
media adage goes.
For over 2000 years of recorded history humans have been fascinated and frustrated
by war and its consequences, so we should not be surprised by its continuing preeminence.
But human societies are ravaged by so much more than war. Chronic underdevelopment,
poverty, human rights violations and environmental degradation are equally devastating, if
less visibly so. Occasionally, however, the plight of the world’s impoverished populations
becomes headline news when famine or natural disasters, such as droughts, earthquakes,
floods, tsunamis or avalanches, strike, compounding already fragile or impoverished political...................................
continue............................
