International
relations is an art and a field of intellectual endeavour. As an art,
international relations refers to the totality of relations that exists among
states or nation states in the international system. It is an
all-embracing concept which covers all
spheres of relations ranging from
commercial transactions, tourism,
cultural exchanges, religious
affiliations and other relations among nation states.
As an art, international relations
concerns itself with the activities of governments or states in relation to one another. It is
an instrument for the realization of governmental objectives and aspirations.6
International relations as a field of intellectual
endeavour is the systematic study of the relations that exist among nation states in the international
system.
As an art it
could be said to have started when nations began to organize themselves into
political entities, claiming sovereignty
over recognizable portions of land on which
they exercised their authority.
International relations as a field of
intellectual pursuit did not begin
until 1914. Before this period,
international relations was the
exclusive preserve of professional
diplomats and statesmen.
The first World
War with its attendant horror and destruction altered international
relations. World War 1 was blamed partly on secret diplomacy conducted
by professional diplomats and statesmen. At the end of the war in 1918, efforts
aimed at preventing future re-occurrence were pursued. The conduct of relations among nations began to gain
popular and academic recognition.
Henceforth, international
relations enjoyed the attention of scholarly-minded individuals from
various fields ranging form history,
law, economics, sociology, geography, etc. each of these disciplines has its won way of
seeing the world. In like manner, at the
1919 Versailles treaty which
ended World War 1, the veteran French Prime Minister, George Clemenceau persuaded the world to
believe that war is too
serious a business to be left to
soldiers alone.
Before 1914, there was no autonomous discipline called
international relations.7 On the contrary, the various segments of
international relations were studied under different but traditional disciplines like political science, diplomatic history among others. It was
in 1914
that these aspects of
international relations were
synthesized into a single discipline known as international relations. it is important to state that the traditional disciplines were not
totally divorced from international relations. Up till the present period, international
relations is still studied under law, history, economics, diplomacy among
others. 1914, therefore, marked a watershed in the history of international
relations. Henceforth, historians and lawyers began to make deliberate efforts
to study the modalities for the conduct of international relations.
The study of international relations assumed both
historical and legalistic approaches. In the
historical approach, the conduct
of relations between states was
studied with a view to knowing whether or not the outbreak of World War1
could be blamed on the acts of omission
or commission on the art of diplomats or statesmen. Scholarship also
aimed at surveying the possibility of guarding against the recurrence of a
conflict of the magnitude of World War 1.
In the legalistic approach. The framework for the conduct of relations
among states was studied. Jurists sought to see if international or
quasi-international institutions that existed before 1914 were responsible for
the outbreak of World War 1.
The development of international relations is
associated with approaches which captured thinking about the discipline. Idealism was the dominant theme in the early
years of the discipline.8
The reason is due largely to the circumstances that led
to the establishment of the subject
(World War 1). There are two key points which illuminate our thinking in
this direction. First, there was a wide spread view that the overwhelming
lesson of the war was that military force could no longer achieve its
objectives. Public perception of the war in Europe was that of a senseless war
which claimed millions of lives as a result of insignificant portion of territory.
The war achieved marginal results for the combatants. Secondly, the lack of
real reward for either side after the heavy losses was compounded by the fact
that it was seen as a war that no one had actually wanted. The war had resulted from the separate acts
of various leaders none of whom wanted war as the outcome. But these acts
reinforced mutual fears and suspicion that war became totally unavoidable.
The implication after all was that the massive deaths
had all been in vain. The casualties recorded and lack of
any real reward even to the victorious countries was worsened by the
realization that Europe had fought war
which no one had really wanted. The lessons of the war was useful both for
politicians and academics studying the phenomena of international
relations. Four major lessons were
drawn. First, the war was simply a senseless act. Second, the First World War was as a result
of leaders who were caught up in a peculiar process they could not control.
Third, the causes of the war were the
misunderstanding between leaders and failure to practice democratic
accountability in the countries involved, and fourth, the tension which had
made the war inevitable could have been removed by the spread of democratic
ideas and granting independence to colonized people.
The discipline of international relations grew out of
this intellectual and political setting and ever since, it bore the birth marks
of its origins.
International relations originated in two countries
which were victorious power in the war. These powers, USA /Britain were more or
less essentially satisfied with the results of the war. They wanted to maintain
the status quo and disallow a change in the new international order.
International relations encountered some problems especially
in the inter-war years. It was generally regarded as discipline that does not
subscribe to changes no matter how little. Second, due to the wholesale
destruction and loss of life, those who survived cannot forget it in a hurry. They wished the war and
had been a war to end all wars. Therefore, international relations had to be
concerned with how to prevent such a war from occurring again.
Third, the basic assumptions of international
relations were utterly shattered by the very outbreak of the Second World
War. The outbreak of the war left a
heavy burden on International Relations. The practitioners had to reflect the
concerns of the previous generations. It was generally believed the war erupted
largely due to misunderstanding amongst leaders. So international relations
devised ways of reducing such
misunderstanding in future.
Approach is some kind of simplifying devise that
allows one to decide which facts matter and which do not. According to Baylis and Mith9(1997), a good
analogy is sunglasses with different coloured lenses; put on the red pair and the world
looks red; put on the yellow pair
and it looks yellow. It is a way of
deciding which of the numerous possible facts matter most.