Theory of International Politics

As a dynamic and expanding discipline, International politics is the study and critical analysis of global issues from a political perspective. In the study of international politics diverse issues, debates and discourse are often analyzed using different conceptual frameworks broadly termed as theories of international politics. In other words, theories of international politics are the lenses through which the entire gamut of trans-national affairs can be defined and discussed. In reality, global politics is the interplay of several key factors like power, national interest, ideology, culture, capital etc that interact with each other both at the national and international level. Theories of international politics critically analyze the role of these key factors in sharing and shaping the power relations at regional and global level. Traditional theories of international politics were mainly divided between realism and idealism that highlights the hegemony of power and normative dimensions respectively. Marxian and liberal theories also played a vital role in defining the nature of academic discourse in international politics during the cold war era. However, with the fall of communism as a dominant ideology, many new theories including Post-Marxism, Neo-liberalism, Neo-realism, Constructivism, Cosmopolitanism, World System theory, development theory dependency, etc emerged in the discipline of international politics as these new theories were able to reflect upon the changing international landscape more realistically.

This book presents some of the core debates and theories on international politics, considering the expanding horizon of the discipline. The book focuses mainly on the applied aspect of the theories highlighting the latest discourse on the subject. Instead of approaching the subject from the traditional pattern of realist vs. idealist framework, attempt is made here to present the key theories that reflect the contemporary global political reality in a concrete manner.