Nowadays, the world has changed, especially in this twentieth century era, that made international politics close to everybody. Why is it related to people? Because IR is so related to human behavior and interactions.
International Relations theory offers you the methodology, the instrument to understand why the states behave in a certain way, and why the states engage into conflicts under some conditions, it helps you to understand the world around. The basics that become the foundation of international relations are philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and Anthropology. Those sciences help forms a comprehensive mindset to be able to understand a certain international situations and make decisions or analyze it from the point of view of the International Relations perspective. Scientific method give us an understanding about it, scientific thinking help us to approach and resolves the grand concept to explain general patterns of social activities and theory.
“Every international situation represents a choice between conflict or cooperation. In other words, peace or war. Every practical decision of a politician is a choice between conflict and cooperation, indeed, between peace or war. This makes our discipline one of the most important among all the humanities.” — Timofey Bordachev.
Humanity associates with war, always happening — not only between countries, but simply between human being — because we have desires and different purpose or point of views about things. As we evolving, becoming a better human being with understanding of our environment and society, with the advance of technology, we can prevent war and instead make advantage of the conflict to our benefits. How? Through cooperation, negotiation and diplomacy.
IR theory is always among humanities. It deals with individuals, the organizations, and the state. IR as a science focuses on the social relationship or interactions between nations and states. In the science of international relations, there are paradigms that become the basis for thinking assumptions for someone to make decisions or when analyzing a problem. There are three major paradigms of IR : Realism, Liberalism, and Marxism. Realism is based on classical tradition on the concept of eternal and unchangeable nature of human beings. Liberalism and Marxism come to the point where there’s a hope in human nature that can be better and reach that ‘perfectness’ to achieve perpetual peace. Beside those three, there are a lot of other theories that is called critical theories, there are lots of them but the most known are : Postmodernism, Feminism, Structuralism.
Perception forms opinion, opinion influences perception. This basic paradigm helps to sort out and shape one’s analysis when looking at the international phenomenon. Sometimes even in the process, especially when diplomacy runs a country, the use of this point of view requires more than one assumption, and one that is selected according to the circumstances at the time, is utilized according to needs and benefits.
International relations is a form of interaction between social phenomena and complex human conditions that is happened internationally. Paradigms or basic assumptions of IR are the results of observations, the patterns of nature, and human behavior in interacting. The concept of the state cannot be separated from the ‘behavior’ of the leader of the country, and the involvement of a nation even individual in the decision-making process for the state that is also very influential. The application of this basic concept differs from every point of view in IR, here are three major paradigms of IR :
Realism assumes that power is the main point in politics. In his book “Politic among Nations”, Hans J. Morgenthau really emphasize the concept of interest and power. Morgenthau said that power is very important for a nation to reach the national interest, and even to build, maintain, form the national interest itself is through power, so that the goals as nation is one. A country’s leader should have a powerful impact as a person in domestic and international situation, therefore the national interest will be easily be reached.
“Politics is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.” — Hans Morgenthau.
Humans are selfish, and because the state is led and built by humans themselves, the state is also selfish. The main actor in realism is the state and realism puts the interests of the state (National Interest) above other interests. The anarchy system adopted in this realism illustrates that in life, including in the state in the international system, the desire to excel one another, to dominate one another is a basic trait, so the right international system is anarchy. Anarchy, the absence of a higher power above other powers provides freedom for the state to regulate its own country and its interests.
In contrast to Liberalism, this assumption puts forward cooperation in practice. The main actors in liberalism are non-state, the role of individuals and international organizations. Liberals assume that humans have the basic nature to work together, either as a form of problem solving or to achieve a goal. Liberalism adheres to individual freedom, this assumption assesses that individual welfare also means the welfare of the state, that is the reason the actors implementing liberalism are non-state. In addition to these two assumptions, of course, the other assumptions also have their own basic principles. The point is, because IR belongs to the social sciences family, the principles and application of theory are based on human behavior in its development.
Apart from discussing politics, economics, war and peace, strategy and the region, what is interesting about IR is that it also studies culture. Culture is one of the important assets for a country that characterizes its national identity with other nations. Culture is also a component of international politics, because culture can be a way of diplomacy between countries. In international relations, there are two types of power: hard power and soft power. Hard power is a term for the use of power that is coercive, coercive, or colonial. A clear example is war, or the invasion of territory. Meanwhile, soft power is a form of power such as cooperation, negotiation, or others without coercion, and either consciously or unconsciously, it slowly exerts its influence so that it can be accepted by the community voluntarily. Examples of this soft power are diplomacy between countries, cultural exchanges, visits by state leaders, and others.
What’s interesting about soft power is that the effect with this technique is able to reach what can’t be reached using hard power, in this case, the effectiveness of using soft power is also better and lasts longer, or even capable of being passed down from generation to generation, therefore, even in In today’s era, it is clear that the use of soft power is an efficient and good choice in international politics. War will cost a lot of money and harm the nation, not to mention the real impact both physically and emotionally on the nation, and the economic and political conditions of the country which are also destroyed or damaged by war. However, soft power provides an alternative, one of which is to make culture a tool of diplomacy.
Joseph Nye said “Power is also like love, easier to experience than to define or measure, but no less real for that…. Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants”. Soft power has the advantage of being able to influence indirectly by attracting interest in something. The combination of influence and love provides a more memorable and desirable experience so that it is easily accepted by the global community. In this Essay, the author will take examples of social phenomena, namely anime and manga. Anime and manga are certainly not foreign in this day and age, with the emergence of new fans, and spread in the social world. When viewed from the perspective of IR, anime and manga are theoretically included in Japanese cultural diplomacy. Even Japan itself has acknowledged that manga is included in the Japanese Contemporary Art category (MOFA 2014), and in this year’s Olympic activities Japan also uses the anime format to promote it.
Anime and manga attract the attention of the global community and instill a sense of love or interest in their fans. Through these interests, anime and manga have an influence on
global community to easily attract their interest in Japan. Through anime and manga, Japanese culture and local wisdom are shown. It certainly attracts fans to experience firsthand how Japan is, the desire to visit, study there or live. This of course continues in the formation of tourism diplomacy and student exchange relations between Japan and related countries.
The conclusion of this essay is that human behavior greatly influences the development and decision making in the science of international relations. IR is an applied science, so it provides flexibility and freedom in analyzing a phenomenon, not being fixated on just one factor. To understand the international system is not only based on theory, because developments will continue to occur with the times. This understanding can be seen from the form of a country’s decision-making and its interaction with the global community.
Thank you for reading, you take time to read this, hope this is worth it!
