The Dictionary of Human Geography

(seeaid). This has generated criticisms from a
range of popular organizations, governments
and economists, making the IMF somewhat of
a lightening rod for criticisms of neo-liberal-
ism, especially in the wake of the 1997 Asian
economic crisis, when many critics perceived
IMF policies to have been inappropriate
and to have exacerbated the crisis (seeanti-
globalization). In addition, because voting
rights at the IMF are allocated on the basis of
contributions, and because the US govern-
ment is the leading contributor, the IMF has
been seen by many critics as a USA-dominated
institution, pushing an agenda favoured by the
US Treasury Department (Stiglitz, 2002).jgl

Suggested reading
Holborn (1948); Kolko (1988); Payer (1974);
Stiglitz (2002).

international relations The term has two
meanings: (1) the relations between states;
and (2) the study of international politics
(where it is often abbreviated as IR).

(1) International relations are conventionally
understood as the political issues (espe-
cially foreign, defence and security pol-
icy) that take place between states and
beyond the borders of states. These ‘high
politics’ are sometimes said to be in con-
trast to the ‘low politics’ of domestic
issues. In this conception, states are
understood to be bounded and sover-
eign, unitary and rational, and the pri-
mary actors on the international stage.
World politics is thus understood as the
sum of diplomatic, economic, military
and political interactions between states
as they prioritize their national interests
and seek security by maximizing power.
This view is said to be historically valid,
traceable to thinkers such as Thucydides
and Machiavelli, and formalized in
agreements such as the 1648 Treaty of
Westphalia.
This conception of world politics as
international relations – which shares
much with classical approaches to geo-
politics – can be questioned empirically.
International trade, the global circulation
of capital and the movement of labour
involve ‘non-state’ actors (e.g. corpor-
ations, markets and migrants) and tra-
verse both ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’
spaces, demonstrating that the varied
scales of local, national and global are
intertwined. Environmental issues, the

transmission of disease, mobile cultural

forms and fundamentalist religions are

social forces that call sovereign spaces

into question. They are developments

that can require transnational governance

that involves co-operation rather than

conflict, collective interests rather than

national priorities, and international or-

ganizations rather than military alliances.

(2) International Relations – especially when

capitalized as IR – represents the aca-

demic study of relations between states

and international politics. Although pre-

viously approached via the study of law,

history and politics, as a formal discipline

IR was established in the aftermath of the

First World War, with positions at the

University of Wales, Aberystwyth and

the London School of Economics. As a

predominantly Anglo-American enter-

prise ever since, IR has been subject to

a series of paradigmatic debates that

have pitched realists against idealists, sci-

entists against historians, and globalists

against statists. Only in the past 20 years

or so, however, have the metatheoretical

assumptions – the questions of episte-

mology and ontology – of all these con-

tending positions been subject to debate.

Drawing on developments in critical

social theory associated with theories of

discourse – which have also been behind

developments in critical geopolitics – this

intellectual ferment has seen questions of

borders, identities and the construction

of international order receive much

greater attention. Approaches derived

from constructivism (seesocial cons-

truction),feminism,marxism,polit-

ical ecologyandpost-structuralism

have taken on, but not displaced, the

realist and neo-realist mainstream in the

study of international politics. dca

Suggested reading

Baylis and Smith (2004); Burchill, Devetak,

Linklater, Paterson, Reus-Smit and True

(2001); Dalby and O ́Tuathail (1998).

Internet A vast network of interconnected

computers used to make the information,

services, data and programs stored on one

computer accessible to remote users, permit-

ting them to purchase goods, download music,

query databases, communicate messages and

so forth.

Whilst partly developed from US defence

research during the Cold War, the Internet’s

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