1. International Relations

A Brief Introduction to Theories on International Relations and Foreign Policy POLI 468 Bill Newmann The selections we will be reading have one main focus. They seek to answer the big question in international relations and foreign policy: Why do states behave the way they do in the international system? Some people argue that this is a question of international relations theory and others say it is a question of foreign policy theory. For our purposes, we can consider them the same issue. Why do states behave the way they do is the question that theories of international relations and theories of foreign policy are trying to answer.

International Relations

The fact that these are treated as separate bodies of theory says more about political scientists than it does about the nature of state behavior. Since political science is concerned with theory building, each of these books focuses on theories. As stated in the syllabus, the search for theory is a search for rules to explain social science phenomenon (in this case foreign policy behavior). Each author is developing a theory to explain the behavior of all states, not just one state. That is the trick here. Can you find universal patterns of activity, universal rules that can used to explain how any state behaves?