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 internatial 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.