As a student who is pursuing an undergraduate degree in political science, international relations has always been an area of interest for me. What sparked this interest was taking POLI 260 a few years back with Dr. Price. The course was very engaging and relevant in understanding the way international politics plays out in front of us. I did find that the theory bit of the course was quite surface level, which brings me to the reason why I took this course. I intend to expand my limited knowledge on theories of international relations and be able to apply them as a ‘framework’ of sorts to real-world politics. And in general, I feel that there is a lot more to learn in the fascinating discipline of IR. As someone who loves to keep up with international politics and conflict, I think it would be interesting to have the ability to theoretically conceptualize world politics after this course– or at least try. Having said all that, I believe that my unfamiliarity with IR theory will be a challenge, although it is one I am ready to take on by delving into the literature required by the course.
As for first impressions, I find the subject to be very engaging so far. I for one have never questioned whether not IR or political science constitute as a “science” however after the first couple of lectures, this provokes thought. When thinking of science, I think our brains tend to think of “hard” sciences almost automatically. I personally think that defining IR as a science with the assumption of naturalism that was discussed in class, could be limiting. While there are disagreements among scholars and laymen alike in the “hard” sciences, the foundations of the disciplines are deeply rooted and there is consensus. Since we can’t necessarily produce real empirical “evidence” in the field of IR, it is difficult for us to think of it as a science. However, as mentioned before, that is under the limited assumption of naturalism. In my opinion, IR is surely a social science in which the “scientific” aspect comes from the observation of patterns. Further drawing on the last lecture, whether or not this is a legitimate source of knowledge is another conversation. As an optimistic political science student, I certainly think it is.
Going forward, I think the question of whether or not IR is a science should be re-visited by every student at the end of this course.
