Perspectives on International Relations
SAGE Journal Articles
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SAGE Journal Articles
Questions to Consider:
1. Summarize the author’s theoretical argument regarding independence and interdependence, and explain how that is related to realist versus liberal understandings of state relationships as described in the textbook.
2. Explain how interdependence is related to the case of World War I as described by the article’s author, and contrast that to the example of World War II.
Article 2: Lebow, R. N. (September 2010). The Past and Future of War. International Relations 24(3). 243-270.
Questions to Consider:
1. Summarize the reasons the author gives for when and why states engage in interstate war and how those reasons differ from other theoretical explanations he mentions.
2. How does the author characterize “great powers, ” and why does he make the distinction between objective, perceived, and relative power? What is the role of “standing” with respect to conflict?
3. What are the author’s main conclusions? Explain them with respect to the constructivist perspective generally.
Questions to Consider:
1. Sylvester opens with this statement: “What if International Relations (IR) were to turn its usual view of war around and start not with states, fundamentalist organisations, strategies, conventional security issues and a weapons system, and not with the aim of establishing the causes of war, as has so often been the case? What if we think of war as experience, as something ordinary people observe and suffer physically and emotionally depending on their locations?” Why do you think research focuses solely on the main leaders or organizations, and not the everyday people that are affected on a daily basis?
2. Sylvester asks for more feminist studies of war. Do you agree that it is needed? Why or why not?