Karen_A._Mingst,_Ivan_M._Arregu_n-Toft]_Essentia

(Amelia) #1
In Sum: Making Sense of International Relations 17

constantly shifting, depending on the exigencies of the moment and the values of dif­
fer ent communities. The multiple meanings of sovereignty are conditioned by time,
place, and historical circumstances.^18 More specifically, Karen  T. Litfin shows how
norms of sovereignty are shifting to address ecological destruction, although the pro­
cess remains a contested one.^19 These analyses have profound implications for the
theory and practice of international relations, which are rooted in state sovereignty
and accepted practices that reinforce sovereignty. They challenge conventional under­
standings.
Postmodernists also seek to find the voices of “the others,” those individuals who
have been disenfranchised and marginalized in international relations. Christine Syl­
vester illustrates her approach with a discussion of the Greenham Common Peace
Camp, a group of mostly women who in the early 1980s walked more than 100 miles
to a British air force base to protest plans to deploy missiles at the base. Although the
marchers were ignored by the media— and thus were “voiceless”— they maintained a
politics of re sis tance, recruiting other po liti cal action groups near the camp and engaging
members of the military stationed at the base. In 1988, when the Intermediate Range
Nuclear Force Treaty was signed, dismantling the missiles, the women moved to
another protest site, drawing public attention to Britain’s role in the nuclear era.^20
Scholars in this tradition also probe how the voiceless dalit (or untouchables) have
fought for rights in South Asia, how the disabled have found a voice in international
forums, and how some, like children born of rape, have not found a voice.^21
No impor tant question of international relations today can be answered with exclu­
sive reliance on any one method. History, whether in the form of an extended case
study (Peloponnesian War) or a study of multiple wars (Correlates of War or milita­
rized interstate disputes), provides useful answers. Philosophical traditions offer both
cogent reasoning and the framework for the major discussions of the day. But behav­
ioral methods dominate because they are increasingly using mixed methods, combin­
ing the best of social­ science methods and other approaches. And the newer methods of
discourse analy sis, thick description, and postmodernism provide an even richer base
from which the international relations scholar can draw.


In Sum: Making Sense of


International Relations


How can we, as students, begin to make sense of international po liti cal events in our
daily lives? How have scholars of international relations helped us make sense of the
world around us? This chapter has introduced the major theories of international rela­
tions, including the realist, liberal, radical, and constructivist approaches.

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