As a fifth year political science student (will graduate soon I promise) i’ve dealt with a variety of subfields in the web of international relations (IR) including courses dealing in IPE, environmental degradation, international violence, development & growth, etc.  However, since taking Poli 260, I haven’t had courses that I felt truly encapsulated a holistic view of IR that brings these areas together. Accordingly, I believe that studying IR theory in my final semester provides an opportunity to “bring home” the wide variety of courses I’ve taken so far in my undergraduate studies in a cohesive (despite the fractured nature of the material) final course.

Furthermore, I decided to take IR theory in order to better understand the language and debates found in modern IR. In this way, I would liken taking IR theory to studying music (my original major). While it’s definitely possible to be a successful musician with little to no knowledge of musical theory, an understanding of music theory entails both a deeper understanding of the functionality of harmony melody and rhythm while also providing a language that allows musicians to communicate their ideas (ie, everyone will understand what “play a C on beat 3” means). I hope that a deeper understanding of IR theory will have a similar impact on my approach to global politics. While it is possible to make compelling points in global politics/write IR papers without a firm understanding of theory, I believe strengthening one knowledge of this background can engage with IR on a deeper level and have a clearer understanding of both the academic debates and how they relate to real world global politics on a more intricate level while also communicating these findings through a shared language.

As of this point in the course I have found the dialogue between theories (or lack thereof) to be useful in cementing my understanding of their exact arguments. I particularly found today’s visual distinction between rational and reflectivist approaches helpful in somewhat neatly sorting a variety of viewpoints and lenses that i’ve dealt with over the past few years (although I think there’s a solid case to be made that green theory could be moved to the reflectivist camp based on my own experiences but i’ll save that for later). While lenses/theories such as neoliberalism, post-colonialism, marxism, feminism and constructivism have been imperative to my writing so far at the undergraduate level, I have yet to have the opportunity to truly formally analyze these tools that have been at my disposal in a meta-analytical setting and I think this next semester will provide me with the opportunity to take a hard step back and examine how I examine IR.

Cheers,

Sawyer