Some general characteristics of the present study of international politics
The assumptions and purposes outlined above have grown in part out of our conviction concerning the state of learning in international politics.
Ferment and discontent
There has been almost constant ferment in the field since the publication of the pioneering works of Schuman and Spykman. These works were themselves the symbols of an intellectual revolt. In the meantime, dissatisfaction with existing explanations and teaching methods has continued unabated. There might be several reasons for this. First, the factors relevant to adequate explanations of state behavior have multiplied because the social complexity and significance of the impact of relations between states have increased far more rapidly in the past twenty years than at any previous time. A greater range of factors affect, and in turn are affected by, the actions of national states.
Second, simultaneously the progress of social science techniques and the gradual accumulation of reliable knowledge have alerted observers to the existence and significance of factors hitherto ignored or taken for granted. Thus, in a sense, the phenomena of internation politics have become more sophisticated. Simple notions of causality are no longer acceptable. As tradition and precedent have been weakened as forms of international social control, attention has been turned to human factors, muchas in the case of industrial relations and public administration.
Third, recent events and developments such as totalitarianism and ideological warfare have prompted scholars to inquire into the so-called irrational or nonrational elements of politics and into communications among societies. The need for many varieties of valid social knowledge as a basis for sound policies has also stimulated a more thorough and and systematic analysis of political behavior at the international level. It is not a long jump from an awareness of the relevance of anthropological data for the efficient administration of occupied islands in the Pacific duringand after WW2 to the concept of culture to an understanding of international conflict.
The combination of social and intellectual developments has therefore opened up at once new problems as well as opportunities. As we have become more realistic in our grasp of the complexities of international politics, the list of relevant phenomena has grown longer, and the determinants of state action appear to be increasing proportionately. This is apparent especially if one probes a single case in great detail. Accordingly, there has been an almost random search for variables and some discouragement over the possibility of exhaustive categories which will facilitate the establishment of relationships among variables. Another result has been explanatory theories built around single-factor analysis. Still another is a series of seperate topics, studies, and fields of interest which are unrelatable, prmarily because they are on different levels of abstraction. In sum, there is no commonly accepted, comprehensive frame of reference for the study of international politics which systematically defines the field and establishes categories for its analysis.