The terms are
often used interchangeably. Some modern students particularly behviouralists
hold that there ought to be a distinction in the usage. That the failure of
practitioners of international
relations and diplomacy differentiate them has led to a
semantic problem in the
study of international affairs
today. These students argue that international politics should deal with the
politics of international community in a rather narrow sense, focusing on diplomacy and the relations among states and other political units whereas international relations (as a matter of
semantics) should be transitional , that is, operating in or between
many different countries without being board in a
particular one.
International relations is
properly embracing the totality of
relations among people and groups in the world. Most scholars agree that the
term international politics is used primarily
to describe official politic relations
between governments acting on behalf of their states. But
international relations is broader and cannot be limited.
Stanley Hoffmann
has argued that international relations is concerned with the “actions and
activities which affect the external
policies and the power of the basic units into which the world is
divided”. They include transitional relationship,
political , non-political, official and unofficial, formal and informal.
Other scholars
also argue that international politics is
synonymous with international affairs and it embraces all kinds of
relations among states- economic,
political, legal, etc. whether private,
public or official /unofficial. Therefore,
international relations for
international politics has the tendency
to exclude the non-political aspects of
relationship among nations.