International relations Schools of Thought

International relations is an activity in which persons from more than one nation interact individually and in groups. Much of the scholarship of international relations arose between the world wars, as academics sought ways to prevent these tragedies. Several schools of thought emerged on how to prevent war. Three such schools that are still important today are functionalism, neo-functionalism and integration theory. This research analyzes these schools of thought and attempts to draw commonalities between them. Specifically, the relationship between functionalism and integration theory and neo-functionalism and integration theory will be explored, and the conditions likely to aid or hinder an integrated global community will be discussed.

In its most general form, the term "integration" refers to a process in which autonomous social units (e.g. tribes, organizations, nations) change in such a way to erode their autonomy and transform the units into an aggregate whole. In terms of international relations, the concept refers to the changing relations among sovereign nations resulting in some form of new central authority. Historically, international integration has been achieved through force in which one nation conquers another. Thus, in order to distinguish integration theory from the violent establishment of empires, international integration must be achieved by deliberate and voluntary decisions of the actors involved or even as unintended cons

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s pragmatism. Mitrany believed that models of social change were too grandiose and imposing to be useful. These models prescribed an ideal society and the exact role of social institutions in maintaining that ideal. As such, the models were fixed and rigid, and incapable of changing with the times. Society was changing so quickly in Mitrany's viewpoint that the institutionalization of an "ideal" model of governance could itself make the solution of immediate, pressing problems more difficult. In functionalism, Mitrany argued that he provided an alternative to the grand theories of society which was geared toward flexibility and social change. The starting point of functionalist theory--the first theory to develop the idea of "world politics" by linking together national and international concerns--is to focus upon the specific, pressing problems of the day (i.e. the present functions of society that need to be addressed), and set aside the possibly irrelevant assumptions of ideology and grand theories. Functionalism assumes that social phenomena can be understood as a type of "relations between actual things," which may well be different from the imagined or hypothetical relations constructed by ideological paradigms--hence, the

Category: Government - I