Weeeeee!
Well, I decided to give you all a look at something that has been buzzing around my head for the past 4 weeks.
Fortunately, I have filtered out 95% of my mind's content, which, as they say, is a little odd.
So you only get the juicy thinking stuff!
This is the introduction to my next essay. It should be able to be understood by someone not familiar with the field of International Relations or European Integration Theory. Which also means it has to be coherent! I hope it is! Also, its actually important to me that it is also interesting enough to be worth reading, or to inspire the reader to go on, drawing the reader further and further into the essay....but that last hope is something that most difficult to achieve....
Anywhoo, without further crapping on:
The Challenges the European Union Presents to the Dominant Theories of International Relations
A typical image of the contemporary world sees the USA as being the greatest single force that acts on world affairs. With such a hegemonic character on the international scene, those with the desire to discuss and understand International Relations have been more or less bound to begin with the USA as their starting and reference point. This shadow that the USA casts over International Relation Theory (IRT) lends much to the dominance of Neorealism and Neoliberalism, with both tending to emphasise a USA-centric status-quo within the field. Behind this shadow however, there is an emerging new force on the international scene, in the form of the European Union. (EU) Particularly within the past 15 years, where the formal polity of the EU has been formulated, the EU has rapidly developed into a more coherent and influential actor across the globe. This improved coherence and influence has not only lead the beginning of a challenge to the USA's hegemonic role but also to unsettle the dominant IR theories that are intrinsically linked to the image of an American hegemon
The EU is a historically unprecedented form of social, political and economical community. It continues to evolve and change year to year and new developments are occurring constantly. In an attempt to capture and understand this rapid transition, academics from a variety of fields have begun taking an increasing interest in the way the EU is changing and the effects this change is having on Europe, the rest of the globe and academic discourse in general. Aside from other fields such as Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Legal Studies, International Relations (IR) and Political Economy, there has emerged a new field of study, referred to as European Integration Theory, which seeks to understand what the European community is going through.
Of all the fields of enquiry that have started to deal with the EU, it seems that the one that is particularly struggling with the concept of the EU is the field of International Relations. At a casual glance, the most prominent IR theories seem to clash with the concepts that fuel European integration. Within the IR discourse, this clash occurs openly with some issues such as realist predictions of the break up of the EU but is characterised better in some instances as a subtle no-mans land, where 'traditional' IRT does not tread. This more subtle clash tends to highlight some of the assumptions and notions that IRT is based on and more importantly, goes on to challenge and question them.
The EU then, is presenting a challenge to the dominant IR theories. Due to its current nature and development, it causes problems for both the core arguments of the dominant IR Theories, Neorealism and Neoliberalism but also the assumptions that those theories are built on. Setting out to understand this challenge, the first part of the essay will discuss the ways that the dominant IR theories perceive the EU and the critiques that these point of views have encountered. Focusing on the critiques, the essay will then seek to address some of the other types of research being produced on the EU. This will be framed into two sections. The first will discuss how the manner in which the EU has developed has changed some of the core arguments of the dominant theories of IR and the second will discuss what the EU currently represents as a social, political and economical community and the ways in which this challenges some of the basic notions involved in IRT. The final section of the essay will draw discussion on the EU into the boarder context of IR theorising and critique and the essay will conclude with a look at relevant issues in the future of the EU.
Thats the end of the intro. I hope some of you made it here.
I'm off to Perth now. I'll keep you all updated as to goings on over there.
See yah, Bye!
-Tom
PS: the formatting is teh crap
[ Last edited 18/04/2005 08:34am ]
