International Relations

The dominant theories of international relations give too much weight to the incorrect actors, which has affected their understanding of and ability to explain current events. People are travelling more easily across borders due to increased economic and infrastructure integration, and as a result, if trouble starts in one location, it can spread across continents and seas (Lebow 480). The already existent strength and influence of non-state actors have been amplified as a result of this vulnerability, turning them into a threat to global peace and security.  The domain of international relations has various perspectives and concepts that are applied. One of them is realism, where the conflictual and competitive part of international politics come to the fore. It is mainly distinguished with liberalism or idealism; whose central aspect is cooperation. Realists are of the view states as the main actors in international politics, whose primary concern is their own security, struggling for power, and acting in their own interest. Realism main stronghold is its regard for international law, with its primary view being ethics and law should be considered separately (Spegele 175). The law is binding only when applied by the firm and the authority. On an international platform, structures are in place that guarantees the sovereignty states, making them self-regulating, and treaties are only enforced when in their favor. And when this occurs the law can no longer be used against them. In relation to rules being instruments, there is evidence of states being left at a disadvantage after signing certain treaties. When analyzing realism from a standard view, variations in the international system are not as a result of legislation but of the threat of war or conflict. Notwithstanding, even engagements are placed under ethical scrutiny, on the basis of power distribution. Any country that wishes to uphold conflicts and war is viewed as immoral, while those with vested interests in regime change or military engagement will take the moral high-ground to justify violence.

Limitations of realism

Regardless of the value of realism, its limitations are evident as well. First, simplifying of assumptions so as to derive a scientific theory. For instance, realism does not comprehend the view as critical, global norms and institutions, it does not rate the shared values which can shape units more than structure. Such as the right to exist granted to sovereign states. In the normative sense, realism has the disadvantage of being unproductive. Its main policies are based on the harsh and tangible conditions, without considering other relevant conditions. Any possibilities for meaningful action are taken away by realism’s concept of relativity; if our mind is conditioned by our interests or status, then both the work and beliefs become non-authentic and pointless (Spegele 192). Realism has no recommendations for tackling or cultivating a state’s associations.

Strengths of Liberalism

Liberalism is a global political theory that is founded on reason and universal ethics, the hope of earnestness and that through their application there will be a more cooperative, ethical, and orderly world (Nassbaum 35). Liberals are advocates for the utilization of military force as an effort towards offering help to people. They are against the infringement of the rights of individuals as they believe in the sanctity of the rights of humans and also the end of the suffering for people. The last strength of the liberals is the collective security as a perspective on world politics. The collective security is a replacement of the self-help idea of realists.

Limitations of Liberalism

The first weakness of liberalism is that the western democracies usually try to apply it in countries that most of the times are not willing to adopt it. Liberalism is known to only take into account the western values such as equality, democracy, and free speech just to mention but a few. The liberal institutionalism like the liberalization of the world institutions such as the European Union is a weakness of the liberal perspective of the world. A lot of the countries understand the advantages being a part of the European Union like the privilege of having access to the European trade markets and the opportunity of growing their economies. Because of these reasons they are willing to risk and give up their national sovereignty so they can join the European Union (Nassbaum 43).       



The strengths of constructivism

For decades, the IR field was made up of the major dominant approaches that emerged in new theories of constructivism. It was considered one of the latest theory that emerged after the existence of the liberalism and realism theories. Constructivism takes the issue with liberal and realist concerning the anarchy and the international system. For instance; realists saw the disorder as a mode of directing the state's competition for power, resources, and security (Leander 40). Liberalists, on the other hand, viewed constructivism as a possible anarchical system that helps bring positive gains for the non-state and state actors. Constructivism is also not constrained by the negative anarchical international system.

One of the strengths of constructivism is that it focuses on the anarchy idea that has departed from the anarchical system position. Specifically, they do this by disagreeing with the position of the realists because they eventually lead to the competition of war. Alexander Wendit (147) a scholar on constructivism stated that the social construction of the of power politics does not follow the casual or logical part of the anarchy. He also argued that none of the anarchy has been part of the practices that instantiate and create the structure and identity of casual powers during the process of transition. By this, he elaborated that the authority and self-help politics are only institutions but not the essentials of the anarchy.

Limitations of Constructivism

As argued in the essay, constructivism also has limitations because of the role of the material embodied structures that are empirically unexplored. The restrictions have consequences that affect the world of politics. For instance, the constructivism interventions that dealt with the international law remains deficient because of the failure to conceive in the social structural terms due to the inability of exploring the relationship between the law and other social structures. Recognizing is incompleteness structure, their systems have inequality and hierarchy embodies that fail to be recognized.

Conclusion

With the many theories concerning international relations, it is wise when they are viewed as rivals. Each approach, in this case, has explicit assumptions and epistemologies constrained within particular fixed conditions that pursue its goal. All opinions cannot be right or wrong, but each of them has useful proof in the study of the international politics as well as the analysis of the multi-causal phenomena



Works Cited

Wendit , Alexander. “Constructivism and a Theory of Justice.” Political Constructivism, pp. 138–245., doi: 10.4324/9780203461921_chapter_2.

Leander, ‎Anna. “Constructivism and A Theory of Justice.” Political Constructivism, vol. 21, no. 1, 12 Dec. 2014, pp. 8–45., doi: 10.4324/9780203461921_chapter_2.

Lebow, Richard Ned. “Identity and International Relations.” International Relations, vol. 22, no. 4, 2012, pp. 473–492., doi: 10.1177/0047117808097312.

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 39, no. 1, 2011, pp. 3–45., doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01200.x.

Spegele, Roger D. “Evaluative political realism and historical realism.” Political realism in international theory, 2010, pp. 162–190., doi:10.1017/cbo9780511586392.008.