Globalism Versus Realism: International Relations' Third Debate

By: Bennett Ramberg and Ray Maghroori

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Synopsis: Since World War I, when the movement toward a comprehensive and systematic examination of international relations began, two intensive debates about the nature and methodology of the discipline have helped shape the field. The first was between the realist and the idealist schools; the second, between the traditionalists and the behavioralists. Now, a third debate has emerged, pitting state-centric conceptualizations against the globalist focus on interdependence. At issue is the nature of the international system. Is it still one in which the sovereign nation-state constitutes the dominant actor? Or has a process of global political, economic, and even social integration transformed the world into a "global village"? This text presents seminal works that define and illuminate the third debate, focused by the editors' comments prefacing each chapter and their synthesizing introductory and concluding chapters. It is designed to allow students and scholars to compare and contrast the contending approaches in order to better understand and develop the discipline of international relations. Given the consensus among both realists and globalists that our assumptions about world affairs affect how we construct theories to explain events and that the model we impose on the world directly affects the policies we prescribe, it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the subject.