International_Relations_Theory

International Relations Theory This week in international relations discusses the enterprise of international relations theory and the realist model of international relations. When reading the book International Relations Theory, the area that I took particular interest in was the excerpt by Robert Gilpin and his book War and Change in World Politics(Viotti and Koppi, pg145-153). Disputing that the essential nature of international relations has not altered over the millennia; in this excerpt, Gilpin uses history, sociology, and economic theory to recognize the forces generating transformation in the order of the world. The discussion focuses on the differential growth of power in the international system and the result of this unevenness. A shift in the balance of power - economic or military - weakens the foundations of the existing system, because those gaining power see the increasing benefits and the decreasing cost of changing the system The result, maintains Gilpin, is that actors seek to alter the system through territorial, political, or economic expansion until the marginal international, theory, system, relations, power, gilpin, war, economic, change, marginal, benefits, world, seek, result, page, increasing, history, hegemonic, expected, expansion, excerpt, costs, book, according, week, wealth, weakens, warit, utility, until, unevenness, transformation, took, throughout, through