Studying international politics involves exploring the range of actors who make political decisions – at global, regional and national levels. These include governments and other state actors, international institutions like the World Bank, NGOs such as Amnesty International and multinational corporations. It can also encompass the actions of individuals – including activists, journalists and influential billionaires such as Elon Musk.
Until the twentieth century, studies of world politics were limited by the knowledge and techniques available to scholars of law and diplomacy. But as international politics became a field of study, new methods and theories appeared: the “realist” school of analysis, stressing the power drives of men and states; various kinds of “devil” theory (with munitions makers, capitalists and imperialists cast as the devils); geopolitics; game and bargaining theory; and psychological approaches to understanding the nature of decision-making in foreign policy.
The emergence of the modern nation-state in the fifteenth century meant that states could claim territorial sovereignty over a specific group of people. It also gave rise to the belief that those nations should be treated as superior to others, which, of course, has led to conflict.
The capacity of a state to wage war is often essential to its ability to assert its claims in international politics, although the more important method of exerting influence is diplomacy. The latter is the practice of sending diplomats to other countries in order to negotiate. These negotiations can be conducted by bilateral or multilateral means.
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