One World Many Theories

International Relations, One World Many Theories was conceptualized by Stephen M. Waltz, he believes that theories make sense on the blizzards of information that bombards us daily and is that theories were used by everyone. You need to know a lot about real world in order to create theories. It was believed that no single approach could capture the complexity of Contemporary world politics, and it’s better to have many theories than a single theoretical orthodoxy.

Studying International Relations fallows to the study of different theories, Realism, Liberalism and Radical Traditions, there are protracted competitions between these three theories.

Realism highlights the continuing propensity for conflict between states, while liberalism believes that there are some ways to mitigate these conflicts, Radical Tradition explains the possibility of state relations to be transformed. There are three kinds of realist, one would be the “Classical Realist” who believes that states are like human being that has the desire to dominate others. The second one would be the “neo realist” who ignores human nature and focused on the effects of International System meaning seeking to survive. The third one would be the “defensive realist” who concentrates on the balancing alliances and defensive military postures.

Liberalism believes that economic interdependence would discourage war. Why? Because warfare could threatened each sides property. In this article Woodrow Wilson emphasize his belief on Democracy as the key to World Peace.

Radical Approaches like Marxism, The first thing that would come to your mind would be? What? “Class Struggle”. Yes Class Struggle. Marxist believes that there are different explanations for international conflict, Capitalism as this big possibility to result to war.

I am still unsure about the connection of realism to Relative and Absolute Gains. There are some interesting facts that I’ve learned in this session and that is the connection of these 3 main theories on International Relations to the End of Cold War. And as to why Realism and Liberalism failed to anticipate Cold War. More readings would answer my remaining questions about the theories and its relation to the history of International Relations. Because I believe that it’s hard to construct good policy without knowing the meaning of the “Real World”.

Philippine Foreign Policy (Expectations)

PHIFOCY? Philippine Foreign Policy. I was excited to take up this subject before, actually until now. Because I believe that knowing your countries Foreign Policy is an important knowledge to me as a student of International Relations. I believe that this would be my first step on really learning about my chosen field of work, so I expect to learn a lot from this subject.

To be more specific, I am hoping to learn or review some theories related to International Relations and its impact on the creation of Philippine Foreign Policy. To be aware on the structure of the Philippine administration, distribution of power among decision makers, and the way decision- making processes are taken. To assess some historical milestones that formed the Filipino Perspective on the International Arena and Filipino interests within it. To recognize and analyze contemporary challenges to Philippine Interests in the International arena and the way Republic of the Philippines copes with them. And to be able to write strategic position papers or blogs on special interest, specific issue and regions of the world that affects Philippine Foreign Policy. And be able to practice good note taking or making as a study habit. So basically the course objective of PHIFOCY fits my expectations on the said subject.

To my professor Ms. Christine Rodriguez dela Cruz, seeing her teaching procedure makes me more anxious about my paper works on her subject. It was a unique Method on teaching her students to study hard. (Note taking/ Note making) And make studying as a hobbit. I expect to learn more about the Philippine Foreign Policy Making, Applying Foreign Policy and more about the Republic of the Philippines Administration.