The Importance of the Behavioral Approach week 1 Substantive

“We believe that most American general theory courses do not do justice to the world-wide variety of substantively and politically significant approaches to international relations.”

Though I'm not arguing that a more worldly view would benefit American students, I’m not sure that its necessary. It has to be taken into account when taking courses at an American University that American viewpoints will be most predominant, especially when professors tend to use their own literature as study materials. Professors must take the effort to find material from reliable sources written in English, instead of using previous assignments. As most professors in the United States are American, it can be inferred that they also have only studied the behavioral viewpoint. With limited time and resources to teach, it is not surprising that they tend to lean towards the neo-realist behavioral study, which is to “develop and test general theories of war and conflict” (130).

Though the other studies are important for a student to learn, neo-realism is currently the most relevant to a student trying to prepare for a career in International Relations. The 21st century has thus far been focused on warfare, therefore studying war and conflict is more important than, for example, Classical Marxism. Since this article was published in 1984, it gives too much credit to learning dialectical approches, and implies that it should be given equal time with behavorial and traditional approaches. Traditional approaches are important from a historical viewpoint, as well as looking towards international cooperation, and American professors are correct in giving it 20% of their attention. Dialectical, however, has phased out significantly since this article was written. Marxism doesn't influence the world the way it did in 1984. Globalization has made behavorial approaches the most important of the three studies. The 21st century has shown more and more interdependence among countries, while warfare becomes more and more common, therefore American professors are correct in focusing most of their resources on teaching behavioral studies.

The Dialectics of World Order- Alker, Biersteker reading (Kelsey Hunter, Week 1 Post)

The reading for August 30- "The Dialectics of World Order: Notes for a Future Archaeologist of International Savoir Faire" by Hayward R. Alker, Jr. and Thomas J. Biersteker was an interesting piece that left me with several significant impressions. I felt that the article provided a good overview of the three major schools of thought in the study and understanding of IR. This discussion was rather cursory, but the triad diagram and Table 1 which described the nine combinations helped paint a clear picture of the differences between various approaches.
At first I was skeptical about the treatment of Waltz's work and the study of course reading lists, however Alker and Biersteker made a very important point- that it is necessary to study all three traditions in order to fully understand the arguments and counterarguments that are constantly adding to and changing the theories of IR. In a previous course I took on North-South relations, I witnessed the importance of reading those works by non-Americans (or even non-"First World" scholars) especially when it comes to theories that regard economic interactions and systems. The historical and cultural context in which the work is written plays an important role in the contributions the work makes toward the ongoing debates and arguments over how the international system is structured and how it ought to be structured. While this article was written in the 1980s, it seems that the idea of openness to theory development is important. We need to remember that theory is organic and ever changing, but learn from the past traditions as everything seems to build on each other whether as reactions or as clarifications.
This is my first blog post, I'm classifying it as my substantive post for this week, however it contains my reactions and impressions of the text. I'm not sure still of what should be in this post, so please give me feedback.