International Relations, Principal Theories

1 The study of international relations takes a wide range of theoretical approaches. The major schools of thought differ principally with respect to the factors and processes they emphasize as explanations for world politics—eg military power, material interests, or ideological beliefs. Some theories emerge from within the discipline itself, via a series of ‘great debates’ that have defined the intellectual history of the field. Others have been imported, in whole or in part, from disciplines such as economics and sociology. Indeed, few social scientific theories...