International relations

Key people

• Henry KissingerAmerican politician and diplomat and geopolitical advisor, served as U.S. Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 (1923–2023)
• Samuel P. HuntingtonAmerican political scientist (1927–2008)
• Zbigniew BrzezinskiPolish-American diplomat and political scientist (1928–2017)
• Alexander DuginRussian political activist and philosopher (born 1962)

Timeline

• 1648The establishment of modern sovereign states as fundamental political units traces back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 in Europe.
• 1795Kant's essay Perpetual Peace from 1795 is often cited as the intellectual basis of liberal theory.
• 1920By 1920, there were four universities that taught courses on international organization.
• 1945Consequently, the international system before 1945 can be described as multipolar, with power shared among great powers.
• 1990The end of the Cold War and the re-evaluation of traditional IR theory in the 1990s created space for the gendering of International Relations.

Read

• The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939Edward Hallet Carr · 1939Book
• International Relations TheoryCynthia Weber · 2001Book
• International Relations Between the Two World Wars, 1919-39Edward Hallet Carr · 1947Book
• International RelationsJoshua S. Goldstein · 1994Book

Watch

• The Role of Power in International Relations | International Relations | The Alalibo LecturesYouTube
• John Mearsheimer Explains NeorealismYouTube
• The Art of Diplomacy | Tayo Rockson | TEDxCooperUnionYouTube
• Classical Realism and Neo-Realism/Structural Realism in International Relations TheoryYouTube
• International Relations: An Introduction | LSEYouTube
• Aspects of International Relations: International Political Economy | LSEYouTube
• Programme presentation Political Science: International Relations and OrganisationsYouTube
• Study Political Science and International Relations at UWAYouTube
• International Relations 101 (#1): IntroductionYouTube
• World Politics and International Relations - Ian CarterYouTube

Listen

• Politics and International Relations PodcastsOxford UniversityPodcast
• Diplomacy and International RelationsBastian FriborgPodcast
• Annual Oxford Fulbright Distinguished Lectures in International RelationsOxford UniversityPodcast
• The Podcast for International Relations and Foreign Policy AnalysisLuke DohertyPodcast

Voices to follow

• Michèle Flournoy@micheleflournoy · XAmerican defense policy advisor
• Alexander Dugin@AGDugin · XRussian political activist and philosopher (born 1962)
• Kishore Mahbubani@mahbubani_k · XSingaporean diplomat
• Ronen Bergman@ronenbergman · XIsraeli investigative journalist (born 1972)

By the numbers

• 27.2Women in parliament (%) — global, 2025 (World Bank)

Debates

• Are international institutions effective in promoting peace and cooperation?One view: Yes, institutions like the UN provide forums for dialogue, establish norms, and facilitate collective action, thereby reducing conflict. · Another: No, institutions primarily reflect the interests of powerful states and often fail to prevent conflict when major powers disagree or act unilaterally.Open question
• Should states prioritize national interests or global challenges?One view: States must prioritize their national interests, including security and economic prosperity, as their primary duty is to their own citizens. · Another: States should prioritize global challenges like climate change and pandemics, as these issues transcend borders and require collective solutions for all.Open question
• Is military power still the most important factor in international relations?One view: Yes, military strength remains crucial for national defense, deterrence, and projecting influence in a world where security threats persist. · Another: No, economic power, diplomatic influence, cyber capabilities, and soft power are increasingly vital in shaping global outcomes and state interactions.Open question

Glossary

• SovereigntyThe supreme authority of a state over its territory and internal affairs, free from external control.
• DiplomacyThe practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of states to manage international relations.
• SanctionsPenalties applied by one or more states against another state to compel a change in policy.
• HegemonyThe dominance of one state or social group over others, often through a combination of power and consent.
• Non-state actorsEntities other than states that influence international relations, such as NGOs, multinational corporations, and terrorist groups.
• International LawA body of rules and principles that govern the relations between states and other international actors.

Careers

Roles this can lead toward

Student research

Published policy papers by One Young India delegates — every delegate leaves published under their own name.

• International Monetary Fund: Helping Nations Recover or RegressAvni Sethi

Threads 8

Where this connects to other fields — and why it's worth knowing.

• Translation Literature

  Right before Hiroshima, Japan's reply to a surrender demand used the word 'mokusatsu,' which can mean 'no comment' or 'we reject it.' Translators picked the harsh version, and the bomb followed. Between countries, one wrongly chosen word isn't a small slip, it can be the difference between peace and catastrophe.

• Biogeochemical Cycles Environment

  Every plant on Earth needs phosphorus, and there's no lab trick to make more of it. The catch: most of the world's supply sits under one country's desert. So a boring fertilizer ingredient could become the thing nations fight a war over.

• Networks & the Internet Technology

  Nobody is 'in charge' of the internet, yet billions of machines cooperate smoothly. Countries live the same way: there's no world government forcing them to get along. In both cases, order doesn't come from a boss, it comes from shared rules everyone chooses to follow because going along beats going it alone.

• Biosecurity & Engineered Threats Global Risks

  If someone unleashed an engineered plague, you couldn't easily tell it apart from a natural outbreak, just like you often can't trace who launched an anonymous cyberattack. And if you don't know who hit you, who do you strike back at? An unattributable disease erases the return address, and the usual logic of 'don't attack me or I'll retaliate' just collapses.

• Planetary Boundaries Environment

  There's only one atmosphere, and no world police to protect it. Any single country can pump out carbon or dump nitrogen and wreck the shared budget, but nobody can force the others to stop. That's the hardest problem in group cooperation: a thing everyone needs, that everyone can ruin, and no one can guard.

• Oceans & Marine Systems Environment

  The open ocean is the biggest place on Earth that no country actually rules. That makes it a real-world experiment: can rules exist when there's no boss to enforce them? The answer so far is discouraging, which is exactly why fish get scooped up far faster than nations can agree on treaties to protect them.

• Cybercrime Law Law

  To scare an enemy off, you need to know who hit you so you can hit back. Cyberattacks are hard to trace, so a country can strike and stay hidden. That breaks the fear-of-payback that kept enemies from attacking each other for decades.

• Autonomous Weapons Technology

  Going to war is scary partly because your own soldiers might die, and voters hate that. But if drones and robots fight instead, that fear shrinks. Cheaper, bloodless-for-you war makes leaders far quicker to start one.