Dialogue at IPS

This article discusses “core themes” and “principal assumptions” in the realist study on international relations. It identifies some fundamental claims that distinguish realism from other theoretical perspectives. Moreover, it believes that the debate on the core of realism helps to clarify its understanding of contemporary international affairs. Yet the evolution of realism reveals a number of ambiguities in the picture of its “principal assumptions”. It warns that the list of realism’s “core themes” must be cautious and avoid simplifications. The article outlines some theoretical challenges that realism faces in the post-Cold War international reality and their impact on realism’s essence. It argues that further debate on realism’s “core themes” is valuable yet it needs a more nuanced attitude – far from simplified conclusions. Finally, the article proposes a nuanced catalogue of realism’s “principal assumptions” which reflects the complex nature of contemporary international relations.

Common knowledge, also called intersubjectivity, is a core theme in the study of international cooperation and diplomacy. Yet International Relations (IR) lacks a method to systematically measure the degree of common knowledge. Drawing from research in computational linguistics, psychology, and communication, we introduce latent semantic analysis (LSA) to measure common knowledge in specific communicative exchanges between actors. We argue that the extent to which speaking partners use words in the same way and get in synch linguistically can be used to measure the degree of common knowledge, and this can be measured by the LSA method. We outline several ways LSA can be valuable to IR scholars and provide an empirical illustration of using this method in the case of Bretton Woods negotiations. The LSA method promises to help IR scholars seize the research opportunities offered by the digital age and build a bridge between qualitative and quantitative methods.

There is a plethora of studies on interest groups in the European Union. While these studies have generated a wealth of insights, it is not actually clear what they have accomplished. This Living Review seeks to identify those areas of interest group studies in which our knowledge is fairly consolidated and in which major research gaps or major controversies can be noted. I argue that these research gaps and controversies stem from both the empirical variance in the interest group landscape and the theoretical segmentation of EU interest group studies. These have been shaped by influences from Comparative Politics, International Relations, Policy Analysis, and Democratic Theory. I suggest that future research should engage to a greater extent in cross-cutting theoretical debates in order to overcome the pronounced demarcation of research areas and in more rigorous theory testing than has sometimes been the case. The article starts by discussing the problem of conceptualizing interest groups before moving on to the fissured theoretical landscape. Thereafter, major research themes are discussed. First, I review the relation between EU institutions and interest groups. Here, I look both into multilevel governance and Europeanization studies that focus on the vertical interaction and into analyses that stress the horizontal segmentation of the EU system in different institutions and sectors. Second, I analyze core themes of EU and comparative interest group studies, namely the issue of collective action, the access of interest groups to policy-makers and their influence on EU policymaking.

I’m sorry about this, but things now get a little less straightforward. The history books start to look at other parts of the world, such as Africa and South America, which they have hardly mentioned up till now. This chapter does not try to cover all these areas. It brings the story of International Relations more or less up to date. Don’t forget that International Relations may well be the core theme for your course.

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the core themes addressed in The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations. It begins with a discussion of the neglect of peaceful change and the overemphasis on war as the source of change in the discipline of international relations. Definitions of peaceful change in their different dimensions, in particular the maximalist and minimalist varieties, are offered. Systemic, regional, and domestic level changes are explored. This is followed by a discussion of the study and understanding of peaceful change during the interwar, Cold War, and post–Cold War eras. The chapter offers a brief summary of different theoretical perspectives in IR—realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical as well as eclectic approaches—and how they explore peaceful change, its key mechanisms, and its feasibility. The chapter considers the role of great powers and key regional states as agents of change. The economic, social, ideational, ecological, and technological sources of change are also briefly discussed.