The First Chapter of the Book “The Dividing Discipline” by Kal Holsti shed a lot of light on the types of different theories scholars discuss when debating international relations and politics. Furthermore, the first chapter goes on to describe different types of scholars and their own theories on international state models. Holsti not only goes on to list many of the different theories by scholars, but also how they interconnect with older theories from the eighteenth and nineteenth century and correspond with international politics today. He does an excellent job at linking to the themes in lecture about the ever changing approaches to international politics.

He links with this particularly well when discussing the theories of people like Ralph Pettman. Pettman’s idea of international poltics and theory narrows down the discipline in to two main paradigms. The first paradigm is the Pluralist, this idea is state focused, which is quite traditional in thought. It focuses on the states desire for pursuing national interests, and when multiple states, regardless of different power and sizes, have the same interest they can and will engage in war. The Second Paradigm Pettman discusses is the structuralist. Where in this system states understand the hierarchies of powers between them. The class system is highly understood between states and is used to determine how overdeveloped and underdeveloped areas are determined. It even goes further to address the divisions of labour between the different people in different hierarchical states and how it related to the states at that time.

This example helps further shed light on the different concepts and ideologies of international politics changing when Holsti begins to also discuss Christopher Mitchell. Mitchell has a three paradigm theory, based on schools of thought. Those three would be: behaviouralism focusing on the North American theories and thoughts, traditionalism which focused on a more conservative British line of thought, and finally Marxism which was affluent in West German and Scandinavian countries.

Holsti’s chapter contains many different theories of international politics by a multitude of scholars. They continue to match with the theme of the course focusing on the ever changing nature of politics. In addition it highlights how the specific events during different periods of time can change the way we perceive how we should run political systems. Just as out perceptions from the 1950s from today have changed, the perceptions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed, and these theories and ideologies will always be further shaped as the world continues to evolve.

Joining an International Relation theory class I thought that after studying political science for the last 3 years I would have some sort of idea what international relations was. However, the more I’ve come to this class, the more I have learned that international relations is very strange subject (debatable at being a subject at all).

Having taken POLI 260, a class also based on learning international relations theory, I thought the discipline had a good chunk of history and theories, otherwise how could it be a discipline? Although, after taking Prof. Crawford’s class I have slowly began to understand the complexity of international relations, as a discipline, subject, and theory.

My ideas on international relations and what it exactly is have shifted.I used to think that international relations was the study of global affairs, trades and law-making. You learn about the different types of government systems, global policies, global policy makers (like the United Nations). Essentially any laws that make a difference to more than one country fall under some sort of sub-bubble of international relations, along with the types of ways these laws are made, and political ideologies around the word. However, my ability to put in to words the rough concepts don’t even begin to sum up all that is covered in international relations.

This inability to summarize this subject has two main reasons:

1. this subject is very new, forming just after the Second World War, and
2. this subject is constantly changing, IR today is VERY different compared to IR during the Cold War

International relations being a new subject is an understandable concept. Until the recent industrialization of the world, the whole idea of IR wouldn’t have even been remotely possible. Furthermore, the creations of strict borders and the ideas of states were still, and still continue to change, in the past 50-60 years we have seen whole countries be built, and then fall and form 3 different ones, this has a huge impact on our international relations.

Since international relations is always changing it is difficult to teach. How can you begin to tech a subject, which complete content could change within one event. After the Second World War international relations had almost it’s entire focus on the USA and the Soviet Union, with the beginnings of the Cold War. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, those ideas, concepts and theories that were created, all changed. An entire nation, considered a world super power completely fell apart, it was a sort of phenomenon.

In conclusion, the biggest thing I’ve learned so far being in POLI 367B is that all the things i have learned about international relations, has the possibility to not be applicable at anytime in the future, and that it will be a forever changing and developing field.