ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I

According to the realist paradigm, nature of human has important results for the international politics. For realist scholars, human is naturally sinful, egoist, interest oriented, aggressive and all the time power seeking in character. In particular, classical realism depends on the opinions of Carr and Morgenthau, and explains the international politics through human nature. Objective laws which dominate human nature must be understood to conceive international politics. In other words, as long as these laws are neglected, IR cannot be figured out. Naturally, humans are created with negative evil character and has passion and vanity (Shimko, 1992: 286; Buzan, 1996: 50). Morgenthau and Niebuhr among leading post war realists explain IR with human nature. According to them, just like individuals, states also have negative characters such as interest seeking and aggressive. States seek persistently to increase their power and capabilities to the extent that they can take other states under their control. Therefore, in such a structure, war and conflict are normal processes.

According to realism, states are the major actors of international politics. Their interests and the rivalry for getting more powerful, shapes politics. Multinational companies (MNCs) and international organizations are not assumed as actors of international politics.

One of the important premises of realism (particularly neo-realism) is the anarchical structure of the international system. There is no central authority to govern the relations among states. In such an international environment, naturally providing security becomes the main concern of states. States have to deal with their own security problem that is called as the rule of “self help”.

According to realism, states are the major actors of international politics. Their interests and the rivalry for getting more powerful, shapes politics. Multinational companies (MNCs) and international organizations are not assumed as actors of international politics

Consequently, realism, philosophical roots of which depends on Machiavelli and Hobbes, depicted the international politics as a struggle for power and interest, and states as unitary actors capable of rational decision making

In contrast to realism or conservatism, Wilsonian idealism depends on Kantian liberalism, and it emphasizes the enlargement of the rights of individuals as a main point of concern.

Besides, for Kantian universalism representing the cosmopolitan outlook, the root of international relations is transnational relations and linkages rather than the struggle for interest. In fact, according to cosmopolitan mode of thought the will of all human beings are the same and is to reach the best and universal society. Moral and ethical factors are not disregarded and international relations looks like nonzero sum game models of the game theories in which cooperation is the main feature instead of struggle for conflicting interests. This approach is also called as liberal/ idealist view. This Kantian approach sees international relations (IR) as a cooperation process, and there are certain rules restricting the states to use power rather than to see the international relations as a war among gladiators or struggle of interest between states as in the Hobbesian thought. According to this approach, there is no anarchy and no state of war in IR. However, neither complete struggle of interest like Hobbesian view nor complete harmony of interest like in Kantian thought is the real/exact situation in international relations. Therefore, international society reflects either of the both cases to some respect. There are international institutions and international rules binding on states.

According to the Marxist theories focusing to explain war and peace through economic reasons, war and conflicts emanate from contradictions of capitalism.

Globalist approaches criticize the reasons behind the underdevelopment of Third World countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa while other countries get richer.

Positivism is distinguished by four important assumptions. First of these is the belief about the uniqueness of science. According to this assumption which is called as naturalism in philosophical language, there is no important difference between natural world and social world and through the methodology of natural science, social world can be analyzed. Second assumption is that there should be a distinction between facts and values. In terms of philosophy, this point of view which is known as objective position assumes that objective knowledge can be attained by scientific methods despite the existence of subjective factors influencing the research. Third assumption is based on the belief that as in the universe or natural world, there are also regularities in the social world. In this way, as research is carried out, either deductive or inductive methods are employed. According to the final assumption, research must be based on the methods of empirical verification or falsification.

Another epistemology is rationalism which is represented by certain philosophers belonging to Cartesian School such as Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. This thought was developed by the scientific revolutions of Newton, Kepler and Galileo. It should be noted that Grotius and Kant also contributed significantly to this philosophical approach as well as they did in the field of IR. Rationalism reached to the top with Hegel. Rationalism has adopted deduction as a scientific method that depends on the reason and intuition as well as a source of knowledge rather than observation and experiment and it is called as a priori knowledge. According to this approach, the nature is commanded by certain rules and laws results of which could only be observed rather than themselves

Indeed, realism, liberalism and Marxism are the fundamental divisions which are very common in different studies.

For realist scholars, human is naturally sinful, egoist, interest oriented, aggressive and all the time power seeking in character.

According to neorealism, instabilities in international structure threaten the security of states.

In contrast to realism or conservatism, Wilsonian idealism depends on Kantian liberalism, and it emphasizes the enlargement of the rights of individuals as a main point of concern.

Kantian universalism sees international relations (IR) as a cooperation process.

Burton prefers the concept of world society, instead of international relations which can be counted as a traditional approach. Because, according to Burton, concept of world society comprises not only the concept of international relations, but also relations among other non-state actors and processes at the same time.

There are three theories of knowledge or three epistemologies for scientific knowledge: empricism, rationalism and pragmatism.

Positivism is distinguished by four important assumptions. First of these is the belief about the uniqueness of science. According to this assumption which is called as naturalism in philosophical language, there is no important difference between natural world and social world and through the methodology of natural science, social world can be analyzed. Second assumption is that there should be a distinction between facts and values. In terms of philosophy, this point of view which is known as objective position assumes that objective knowledge can be attained by scientific methods despite the existence of subjective factors influencing the research. Third assumption is based on the belief that as in the universe or natural world, there are also regularities in the social world. In this way, as research is carried out, either deductive or inductive methods are employed. According to the final assumption, research must be based on the methods of empirical verification or falsification. According to pragmatism, our beliefs influence our actions directly and orientate them to a certain way.

Thomas Kuhn and Richard Rorty, contemporary representatives of pragmatism, also point out that a paradigm can only be valid as long as it can solve the problem.

In general context, Jean-François Lyotard, Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Luce Irigaray, Paul Feyerabend, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty are among the writers that made valuable contributions to post-modernism.