International Relations Theory Today

Rating:
Summary: interesting material
Review: I justfinished the bookand found it pretty interesting. It delevd into things I never even htought good influence the IR scene and hold so much bearing over the future of groups, countries, and regions. Very inciteful and written decently. I recommend this book be bought.

Rating:
Summary: International Relations Theory
Review: This volume edited by Ken Booth and Steve Smith takes as the starting premise that the World is going through major changes and International Relations, as a discipline, can no longer afford to pretend that it is a self-contained discipline. There are twelve chapters dealing with various aspects of IR theory that need modification and addition. The themes that are covered in this collection include Political Theory, International Political Economy, The Post-Positivist Debate, Neo-realism, International Society, and the Idea of World Community.

Particular emphasis is placed on the question on "identity", "security", "levels of analysis problem", for all of which the contributors acknowledge the need to make use of other disciplines such as sociology on the question of "identity". Fred Halliday's chapter on the end of the Cold War is also eye opening in that he readily accepts IR theory's failure to predict the demise of the Soviet Union. And some of his conclusions, both analytical and theoretical, show the clear need for IR scholars to study other concepts as well. For instance, the issue of ethnic conflict is too important for IR to trust it with historians.

The chapter on the Global Environment is also very successful in applying the recently considered normative concerns in IR theory. Building on Chris Brown's International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (1992), applications of criteria and classification of theories are presented on the issue.

I recommend this book to graduate students of Political Science, International Relations as the arguments presented in the book assume a developed understanding of the concepts and an extensive background.