THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (I): THE CONTEMPORARY DEBATES
Stefano Guzzini
Spring Term 1995
Department of Political Science
CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY



Course description

This course follows the first term's introduction into the "Classical Debates" in International Relations (IR). The purpose of the course is very similar. It does, however, cover more specialised issues and theoretical debates. It addresses and responds to the needs in particular of those students who want to write their MA on a topic in International Relations.

After a succinct overview of the present stage of international theory (at least to the extent this is reflected within the academic discipline), The seminar presents three major theoretical projects. The first is the Neorealist-Neoinstitutionalist Debate which is still dominating in many US and German academic circles since the 1980s. Its methodological underpininngs, research design and questions will be discussed with particular reference to rational choice and game-theoretical applications in IR. This is followed by a section on International Political Economy (IPE). Although the variety of approaches cannot be covered, lectures will introduce into three main strands, namely Hegemonic Stability Theories, Gramscian and some ecclectic approaches. Finally, the recent epistemological turn and post-structuralism will be discussed, including the agent-structure debate and feminist critiques of international theory.

Requirements:
1. Seminar presentation and paper (40%). Students are expected to prepare a paper, a version of which they present during one seminar for more general discussion. Hence, the presentation is not a simple synthesis of readings, but an independent development of a chosen topic. In order to provide the discussant (see below) and the seminar participants with the opportunity of preparing the discussion, the presentation must be ready one session in advance. The final version of the paper is due for the last week of the term.
2. Readings (20%). Students are expected to read their group's compulsory readings for individual sessions (indicated with an asterisk) and to prepare a one-page position paper (summary). Furthermore, all students should read the (two) indicated books that provide the basic information for the individual sections of the course.
3. Course summaries (20%). Students are expected to hand in a one-page summary of the courses for which they had no reading.
4. Discussant (20%). Students are expected to introduce the discussion of a paper of their colleagues.

1. Mapping contemporary debates

Lecture 1 (Monday, 16 January): "The three classical debates"

Lecture 2 (Wednesday, 18 January): "The Inter-Paradigm Debate"
Readings (Group 1):
* Yosef Lapid, "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-Positivist Era", International Studies Quarterly, vol. 33 (1989), pp. 235-254.
Michael Banks, "The evolution of International Relations" In his edited Conflict in World Society. A new perspective on International Relations (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984), pp. 3-21.
Michael Banks, "The Inter-Paradigm Debate", in M. Light & A.J.R. Groom (eds), International Relations. A Handbook of current theory (London: Frances Pinter, 1985), pp. 7-26.
Stefano Guzzini, The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold. Realism in International Relations/International Political Economy (Florence: European University Institute. Working Paper SPS 92/20), chapters 9 and 10.
K.J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline. Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985).

Lecture 3 (Monday, 23 January): "After the Inter-Paradigm Debate"
Readings (Group 2):
* Ole Wæver, "The Rise and Fall of the Inter-Paradigm Debate" (Manuscript from Sept. 1994, 30 pp., forthcoming in Steve Smith, Ken Booth abd Marysia Zalewski, eds, Theorising International Relations: Positivism and After, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Stefano Guzzini, The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold. Realism in International Relations/International Political Economy, chapter 16.

2. "Neorealism" versus "Neoinstitutionalism"

Lecture 4 (Wednesday, 25 January): "Neorealism: Kenneth Waltz"

Seminar 1 (Monday, 30 January): "Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory?"
Readings (Group 1 and 2):
* Kenneth Waltz, A Theory of International Politics (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979), chaps 1, 4-6, reprinted as chapters 2-5 in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia UP, 1986).
Kenneth Waltz, "Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory", Journal of International Affairs, vol. 44, no. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 21-38.

Lecture 5 (Wednesday, 1 February): "Neoinstitutionalism"
Readings (Group 1):
* Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Neorealism and Neoliberalism", World Politics, vol. 40, no. 2 (1988), pp. 235-251.
Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony. Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984), chapters
Robert O. Keohane, " ", in Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power. Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, Co. et al.: Westview Press, 1989), pp..

Seminar 2 (Monday, 6 February): "Explaining cooperation"
Readings (Group 2):
* Helen Milner, "International theories of cooperation among nations: strenghts and weaknesses", World Politics, vol. 44, no. 3 (April 1992), pp. 466-496.
David Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoinstitutionalism (New York: Columbia UP, 1993).

Seminar 3 (Wednesday, 8 February): "Regime Theory: US and German approaches"
Readings (Group 1):
* Stephen Haggard and Beth Simmons, "Theories of international regimes", International Organization, vol. 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 490-517.
Stephen Krasner, "Structural Causes and Regime consequences: Regimes as Intervening variables", and "Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables", International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982), pp. 185-205, 497-510 (also in his edited International Regimes).
Volker Rittberger & P. Mayer, eds, Regime Theory in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Beate Kohler-Koch, "Zur Empirie und Theorie internationaler Regime", in her edited Regime in den internationalen Beziehungen (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989), pp. 17-88.

Seminar 4 (Monday 13 February): "Aims and limits of Rational Choice/expected utility analysis"
Readings (Group 2):
* Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, "The contribution of expected utility theory to the study of international conflict", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 18, no. 4 (1988), pp. 629-652.
Michael Nicholson, "The conceptual bases of `The war trap'", Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 31, no. 2 (1987), pp. 346-369 (also in reader)

3. International Political Economy

Basic Reading (Group 1 and 2, to be finished now):
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (Boston: Beacon Paperback, 1957, first published 1944).
Possible further reading (in reader):
Fred Block & Margaret Somers, "Beyond the Economistic Fallacy: The Holistic Social Science of Karl Polanyi", in Theda Sko_pol (ed.) Vision and Method in Historical Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 47-84.

Lecture 6 (Wednesday, 15 February): "An introduction into IPE"
Readings (Group 1 and 2):
* Susan Strange, States and Markets: An Introduction into International Political Economy. 2nd ed. (London: Pinter, 1994), Part I.

Seminar 5 (Monday, 20 February): "Hegemonic Stability Theory and its application"
Readings (Group 1):
* Robert O. Keohane, "The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967-1977", in Ole R. Holsti, Randolph M. Siverson & Alexander L. George, eds, Change in the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 131-162.
Stefano Guzzini, The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold. Realism in International Relations/International Political Economy, chapter 12 (see in particular the references to the works of Gilpin, Kindleberger, Snidal and Strange).

Lecture 7 (Wednesday, 22 February): "The Gramscian critique of Mainstream IPE"
Readings (Group 2):
* Robert W. Cox, Production, Power and World Order. Social Forces in the Making of History (New York et al.: Columbia University Press, 1987), chapters .
Stephen Gill, ed., Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Seminar 6 (Monday, 27 February): "Rise and Decline of `Embedded Liberalism'"
Readings (Group 1):
* John Gerard Ruggie, "International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order", International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982), pp. 379-415.
* John Gerard Ruggie, "Embedded Liberalism Revisited: Institutions and Progress in International Economic Relations", in Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford (eds), Progress in Postwar International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 202-234.
Peter J. Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985).

Seminar 7 (Wednesday, 1 March): "Lessons from the NICs?"
Readings (Group 2):
* Robert Wade, "East-Asia's economic success: conflicting perspectives, partial insights, shaky evidence", World Politics, vol. 44, no. 2 (January 1992), pp. 270-320.
Alice Amsden, "Third World Industrialization, Global Fordism or a New Model", New Left Review, no. 182 (January 1991), pp. 5-31.
Alice Amsden, Asia's Next Giants: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford UP, 1989).
Kiren Aziz Chaudry, "The myths of markets and the common history of late developers", Politics & Society, vol. 21, no. 3 (September 1993), pp. 245-274.
Frederic C. Deyo, ed. The Political Economy of New Asian Industrialism (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1987).
Stephen Haggard & Robert Kaufman, "The state and in the intitiation and consolidation of market-oriented reform", in Lewis Putterman and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds, State and Market in Development: Synergy or Rivalry (Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 221-240.

Seminar 8 (Monday, 6 March): "The new political economy of international finance"
Readings (Group 1):
* Jeffry Frieden, "Invested interests: the politics of national economic policies in a world of global finance", International Organization, vol. 45, no. 4 (Autumn 1991).
Susan Strange, Casino Capitalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
Susan Strange, "Finance, Information, and Power", Review of International Studies, vol. 16 (1990), pp. 259-274.


4. The epistemological turn and post-structuralism

Lecture 8 (Wednesday, 8 March): "Explaining and Understanding"
Readings (Group 1 and 2):
* Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, eds, Explaining and Understanding in International Relations (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990).
Alexander Wendt, "Bridging the theory/metatheory gap in international relations", Review of International Studies vol. 17, no. 4 (October 1991), pp. 383-392.
Alexander Wendt, "Levels of Analysis vs. Agents and Structures: Part III", Review of International Studies vol. 18, no. 2 (April 1992), pp. 181-185.

Seminar 9 (Monday, 13 March): "The agent-structure debate"
Readings (Group 2):
* Alexander Wendt, "The agent-structure debate in International Relations", International Organization, vol. 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 337-370.
David Dessler, "What's at stake in the agent-structure debate?", International Organization, vol. 43, no. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 441-473.
Walter Carlsnaes, "The Agent-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis", International Studies Quarterly, vol. 36 (September 1992), pp. 245-270.

Lecture 9 (Wednesday, 15 March): "Post-structuralism in International Relations"
Readings (Group 1):
* Richard Ashley, "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Toward a Critical Social Theory of International Politics", Alternatives, vol. XII, no. 4 (October 1987), pp. 403-434.
James Der Derian & Michael Shapiro, eds, International/Intertextual Relations. Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1989).
R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Seminar 10 (Monday, 20 March): "Deconstructing Anarchy and Sovereignty"
Readings (Group 2):
R.B.J. Walker, "Security, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of World Politics. Alternatives, vol. XV, no. 1 (Winter 1990), pp. 3-27.
* R.B.J. Walker, "State Sovereignty and the Articulation of Political Space/Time. Millennium, vol. 20, no. 3 (Autumn 1991), pp. 445-461.
* Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is what states make out of it: the social construction of power politics", International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 391-425.

Seminar 11 (Wednesday, 22 March): "Feminist IR"
Readings (Group 1):
* Anne Sisson Runyan and V. Spike Peterson, "The Radical Future of Realism: Feminist Subversions of IR Theory", Alternatives, vol. 16, no. 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 67-106.
Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War.
V. Spike Peterson, ed., Gendered States: Feminists (Re) Vision of International Relations Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992).
V. Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan, Global Gender Issues (Boulder: Westview, 1993).
Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory in International Relations in a Postmodern Era (Cambridge UP, 1994).

Seminar 12 (Monday, 27 March): "The Postmodern Critique of International Theory"
Readings (Group 2):
* Richard K. Ashley, "Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War", in James Der Derian & Michael J. Shapiro, eds, International/Intertextual Relations. Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington, Mass. et al.: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 259-321.

Final session (Wednesday, 29 March): General critique of the course


CRC-Curriculum Resource Center
CEU Budapest, Hungary
Modified: May, 1996

Guz_ContIRTh2.S95PS.v3

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