See my second blog post on E.H. Carr here:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/royworld/2018/10/15/an-account-of-the-origins-of-international-relations-blog-post-2/

I initially posted this before it was due as a comment to the post “JUST DO YOUR BEST AND DON’T WORRY,” but I haven’t heard back so here it is again in full:

When I took POLI 260 I found the section on international relations theory the most interesting because it addressed the why of international politics, not just the what. I like reading articles on The Economist and Foreign Affairs, but I got to the point where I wanted to think through more than just past events; I wanted to do theory and wrestle with why actors act and why events happen. I felt like before graduating from UBC, I needed to take a proper political theory class to justifiably be a graduate of international relations. This class is the class that I settled on.

My POLI 260 experience left me with the idea that theory was a toolkit or set of lenses that could be put on or taken off and applied to certain problems, but according to the one lecture we’ve had and the first chapter of our textbook this may or may not be the case. I’ve been challenged with respect to the concept of incommensurability of the competing theories because I prefer a world where I’m an objective actor. I prefer the idea that I apply different theories to different situations as needed, though I see how in some ways that’s a problematic idea. I’m not sure where I’ll land by the end of the course, but I think short term discomfort about not being able to put my views in a box will be beneficial to my long term understanding of international relations.

The material that I’ve found most interesting so far is the defensive realist section of the structural realism chapter. I’ve always been a big fan of Bismarck and German history and I naturally find myself drawn to a realist theory of international relations – knowing only the little bit of content from POLI 260. The textbook mentions that Bismarck’s genius was to grow the German Empire through the three German wars of unification while being mindful of the balance of power so as not to cause conflict by disrupting Britain’s dominant position. The Kaiser Wilhelm II-approach then arguably led to war because he advocated a Germany that was continually disruptive of the status quo and was expansionist. In my opinion, the distinction between domestic politics in these two eras of Germany is the reason for great power war at the beginning of the 20^thCentury. This defensive realist nuance allows for a more compelling assessment of conflict with its mutual recognition of domestic and international factors as opposed to accepting the solely state centric, zero-some, anarchic endless competition of offense realism.

Another idea I found compelling is the classical realist assessment of a ”tragic orientation” in politics according to Thucydides and Morgenthau’s writing. I find their comparison between domestic and international politics intriguing because it’s a difference only in degree and not in kind where people and therefore also states operate based on a tragic or broken conception of human nature. Justice and moral constraint in the form of intersubjective norms and institutions can create the basis for strong community, which in turn establishes order at either level of analysis, but that order is broken in periods of change. These periods of modernization are cyclical and inevitable because of the power-chasing nature of humans and states.