Fred Halliday

State and Society in International Relations: A Second Agenda

For the last two decades much of the theoretical debate within International Relations has focused on the question of the state. Some discussion has been around the analytic primacy of the state as the constitutive actor in international relations, while some has focussed on normative questions, of the degree to which the state can be regarded as the primary guarantor of what is good, within and between states. ‘State-centric’ realism has reasserted traditional positions on the state and has, through the emergence of Neorealism, asserted new ones, especially in the field of international economic relations. Other paradigms have challenged the primacy of the state, either by asserting the role of non-state actors, as in theories of interdependence and transnationalism, or by asserting the primacy of global systems and structures over specific actors, state or non-state. All three of these approaches have been influenced by broader trends within political science: Realism by orthodox political theory; Transnationalism by the Pluralist and Behavioural rejection of the state in favour of studying actions; Structuralism by theories of socioeconomic determination.

The Romance of Non-state Actors

The issue of non-state actors — NSAs — presents a multiple challenge, and hence opportunity, for the study of international relations. The end of the Cold War has occasioned, in the public domain, a global enthusiasm for transnational civil society - but also a questioning of the role of established NGOs within this new context. In theoretical terms the ‘non-state’ presents a two-sided challenge — on the one hand, to what is conventionally termed a ‘state-centric’ approach, on the other to an approach increasingly espoused which sees structures, be they traditional strategic or recently enhanced economic ones, as the prime locus of power and change. Sceptics of both state-centric and structuralist camps doubt the efficacy, and hence relevance, of the ‘non-state’ actors. This contemporary debate echoes earlier concerns. In the classic, and ill-tempered, debate between James Rosenau and Fred Northedge in the 1970s, Rosenau’s claims as to a new transnational world were mocked at by Northedge: the International Tiddlywinks Federation counted for little in a world of armed states (Northedge 1976). Equally Susan Strange, from a liberal structuralist perspective, and Marxist writers from that of economic structuralism, question how much is achieved by the NSA. ‘How many divisions have the NGOs?’ one might ask, echoing Stalin’s dismissive question about the Pope.

State and ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan

The author describes his familys flight from Lebanon and his childhood in the streets of Beirut, and relates his attempts to establish an identity for himself and his people, lost in the conflicts of Middle East politics.

Interview with Ken Waltz

1. Personal and academic background F.H. It would be very interesting if you could say something about your own personal and academic background. What were the experiences that led you to write Man, the State and War ?

Three concepts of internationalism

The subject-matter of the academic discipline of international relations is often thought of as being very much a question of facts: tracing the foreign policy of one country here, the relations between states in a particular region there. More loosely it can be described as the reflective analysis of current affairs. These elements are all, or should be, of interest to the academic study of international relations; but they do not constitute what one may term the core of the discipline as it has developed in universities since the first departments were established after the First World War. Rather, the core of international relations is constituted by two other, more general, concerns. One is the question how and with what concepts to analyse relations between states and across frontiers. What regularities can be observed, what causes can be divined, what analytical categories can best explain such phenomena as inter-state conflict, the impact of nationalism, the role of the economic in international contexts? The second is the question of value, of the normative. When is it legitimate to intervene or use force; what are our obligations to the states in which we happen to be born or find ourselves as opposed to other, international, entities; what forms of international economic relationship are preferable on grounds of justice; what forms of association and solidarity, and at what cost, is it appropriate to argue for?

Hidden from international relations: women and the international arena

Over the last two and a half decades questions of gender, and particularly those concerning the place and role of women, have acquired much greater importance within the social sciences as a whole. In response to the rise of a women’s movement in some Western societies, and to the production of a growing body of analytic literature pertaining to women’s position, there has been a marked development in the agenda and concepts studied in a range of academic disciplines. If this has been especially noticeable in history and sociology, it has also been evident in political science, economics and anthropology, and has acquired great importance in the most ideologically constitutive of the humanities, literature.1 Until the very end of the 1980s there was, however, one outstanding exception to this growing awareness of gender issues, namely International Relations.

Relativism and Universalism in Human Rights: the Case of the Islamic Middle East

‘Islam approaches life and its problems in their totality. Being a complete and perfect code of life. it holds no brief for partial reforms or compromise solutions. It starts by making man conscious of his unique position in the universe, not as a self-sufficient being but as a part, a very important part, of Allah‘s creation. I t is only by becoming conscious of their true relationship with Allah and His creation that men and women can function successfully in this world’. C‘ni,*rrsai islurnic Declaration of Human Rights, 1981, p. 9. ‘For a Muslim country. as for all complex state societies, the most pressing human rights issue is not local cultural preferences or religious-cultural authenticity; it is the protection of individuals from a state that violates human rights, regardless of its cultural-ideological facade’. Reza Afshari, Human Rights Qccurterij; 16 (1994) p. 249.

The Iranian Revolution: Uneven Development and Religious Populism

The Iranian Revolution has been one of the epic events of postwar history, involving remarkable levels of political mobilisation, international crisis, and political brutality. Contrary to the expectations of many, the apparently stable regime of the Shah was overthrown in 1978–9 and a new post-revolutionary system successfully established and maintained. Yet beyond its importance for the history of modern Iran and of the world as a whole, the revolution has posed analytic questions of considerable complexity, both for those who seek to relate it to the overall course of modern Iranian history, and for those who want to compare it to other modern revolutions. If the Iranian upheaval deserves the name ‘revolution’, defined in terms of levels of mass mobilisation, destruction of an existing political and social order, and the establishment of a distinctly new order, then it would seem to be an unusual variant of this type of social event, a development as atypical as it was unexpected.

THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

I T will be some time before a comprehensive account of the Iranian revolution becomes possible. Such an endeavour would require at least three conditions, none of which is yet satisfied: adequate empirical material on the major dimensions of this strange historical event; analytic synthesis of the religious, economic, social, and political components of the revolution; and, most important of all. the establishment in Iran itself of a relatively stable post-revolutionary order which would provide a vantage-point from which to evaluate the preceding turmoil. Yet if such a comprehensive analysis is still beyond reach, it is none the less possible to suggest what the most striking features of this revolution have been and to survey the considerable volume of recent literature in the light of these features. One can enquire how far recent publications assist understanding of the revolution or the re-evaluation of the history which preceded it. All revolutions are, to some extent, unexpected and all contain elements of originality, which challenge established theories, academic or political. The Iranian revolution is no exception. Its novelty consists in at least five striking features:

State and Society in International Relations

Since the early 1970s much of the theoretical debate within International Relations has focused on the question of the state. Some discussion has been around the analytic primacy of the state as the constitutive actor in international relations, while some has focused on normative questions, of the degree to which the state can be regarded as the primary guarantor of what is good, within and between states. ‘State-centric’ realism has reasserted traditional positions on the state and has, through the emergence of neo-realism, affirmed new ones, especially in the field of international economic relations. Other paradigms have challenged the primacy of the state, either by asserting the role of non-state actors, as in theories of interdependence and transnationalism, or by asserting the primacy of global systems and structures over specific actors, state or non-state. All three of these approaches have been influenced by broader trends within political science: realism by mainstream political theory; transnationalism by the pluralist and behavioural rejection of the state in favour of studying actions; structuralism by theories of socio-economic determination.