(GE-4) Unit 1: Making Sense of the World – Understanding International Relations Notes (DU)

Unit 1 of GE-4 (Understanding International Relations) asks you to do something unusual for a first unit: before studying states, wars or institutions, it asks how we come to see “the world” in the first place. Is IR only about countries dealing with each other? Where does “the international” begin and end? Is the planet just the stage on which politics happens, or part of the story? And whose ways of knowing and being count when we talk about peoples, histories and civilisations?

The University of Delhi divides this 7-hour unit into three parts: 1.1 What is International Relations?, 1.2 Understanding Space: How do we sense our planet and 1.3 Ways of knowing and being: Peoples, Histories and Civilisations. These notes follow that order. They keep the standard textbook explanations of IR (actors, levels of analysis, theories, themes, culture and identity) because students need them for answers, and they add the specific arguments of the readings DU prescribes: David Blaney, Simon Dalby, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Véronique Pin-Fat and the relational-IR scholars.

If you are studying the rest of the paper, the next units are States, Nations and Markets, Inequalities, Sites of Conflict and Forms of Violence and Knowing Our Virtual and Creative World.

GE-4 Unit 1 Syllabus (University of Delhi)

The table below follows the official DU syllabus for B.A. (Hons.) Political Science, GE-4: Understanding International Relations (DU syllabus PDF). Syllabuses are revised from time to time, so always check the latest version on the DU website.

According to the syllabus’s learning outcomes, you should be able to explain how our world is shaped in both territorial and non-territorial forms, how human and non-human relations fit into a planetary understanding, and how interactions between peoples, histories and civilisations can be mapped. Keep those three outcomes in mind while reading; most Unit 1 questions are variations on them.

What is International Relations?

Definition and Scope of International Relations (IR)

International Relations (IR) is the study of how countries interact with one another and with actors that are not countries, and of the political, economic, social and cultural forces that shape those interactions. It covers diplomacy, conflict resolution, economic cooperation, global rules and the effects of global forces on everyday life. Put differently, it is the attempt at making sense of the world beyond the borders of a single state.

Eight features describe the scope of the discipline. Most textbook definitions can be rebuilt from these.

1. State-centric focus. For a long time IR treated states as the main (sometimes the only) actors. This view asks why states act as they do, what they do, and how they deal with each other. It is strongest in realism, which you will meet in the next section, and it still shapes how many people understand news about “India’s position” or “China’s response”.

2. Transnational actors. Today IR also looks at actors that are not states: international organisations such as the United Nations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), multinational companies and other groups that influence global issues. Researchers have also studied advocacy networks, for example Keck and Sikkink’s study of transnational activist networks in Activists Beyond Borders (1998).

3. Levels of analysis. IR explains events at different levels. At the individual level we look at leaders and decision-makers; at the state level, at how countries behave and make decisions; at the systemic level, at the structure of the international system as a whole. Kenneth Waltz’s Man, the State and War (1959) organised explanations of war around three such “images”, and students still use this framework to ask a simple question: where is the cause of this event located?

4. Interdisciplinary nature. IR borrows from political science, economics, history, sociology and law. A trade dispute, for instance, needs economics to understand tariffs, history to understand grievances, and law to understand what rules apply.

5. Global issues. IR studies problems that do not stop at borders: climate change, terrorism, migration, public health and human rights abuses. The discipline asks how these problems affect the world and how the international community responds.

6. Theoretical perspectives. Different theories explain global events in different ways. The major ones are realism, liberalism, constructivism and critical theories (summarised later in this unit). Each theory tells you what to look at as well as how to explain it.

7. Power and security. Military strength, alliances, conflict and the maintenance of peace and stability remain central topics, whichever theory you prefer.

8. Globalisation. Technology, communication, trade and cultural exchange have made countries and societies more connected and more dependent on each other. Globalisation is not only a theme in IR; it is part of the reason the discipline had to widen its focus beyond states.

The field keeps changing as global conditions change, which is why IR cannot be learnt as a fixed list of facts.

A note on names. You will see “international relations”, “world politics” and “global politics” used for much the same field. The syllabus itself draws on Global Politics: A New Introduction, whose title signals a deliberate choice: rather than assuming that “international” means “between states”, it asks students to question what counts as “global” and what counts as “politics”. Keep this in mind when you reach the Blaney reading below.

Where, When and What is IR? Blaney’s Challenge

The first prescribed reading, David Blaney’s chapter in International Relations from the Global South, asks three deceptively simple questions: where is IR, when did it begin, and what is it?

A useful way to organise your answer is as follows. (This framing is a study aid; consult the chapter, pp. 38–55, for Blaney’s own wording.)

• Where? Standard accounts imagine IR as the story of Europe and later North America. Blaney’s chapter, as reviewed in E-International Relations, reads the discipline through the Amerindian homelands of North America, using what the review calls a “contrapuntal” reading. The term comes from Edward Said, who used it to describe reading the histories of colonisers and the colonised together, like two melodies played at once.
• When? According to that review, Blaney highlights the connectivity, trade and diplomacy among Amerindian peoples and argues that fixing a single point in time when international relations or diplomacy “begins” does not hold up.
• What? Past and present coexist in a society made up of many overlapping sovereignties, so the “international” is made of overlapping and complex relations rather than of neat boundaries between self-contained states.

The wider book, edited by Arlene Tickner and Karen Smith, uses “global South” not just as a geographical label but as a political position and an ethical stance. It is part of a larger critique of Western-centrism or Eurocentrism in IR; some authors, including Steve Smith, also speak of the American-centrism that has shaped the field.

Why does this matter for exams? Because the typical question “What is IR?” has two good answers. One is the textbook definition above. The other is the critical answer: IR itself is a historically and geographically situated way of seeing. Strong answers give both.

Evolution and Development of International Relations (IR)

IR has changed over time, and the history of the discipline can be read through both events and ideas. The table traces the traditional historical overview, with corrections noted.

Note that 1648 belongs to the early modern period, not the medieval one, which is why it has its own row.

Intellectual traditions. Four broad traditions are usually taught.

Detailed notes on these theories are part of other papers; for this unit you mainly need to know that each tradition answers the question “what is IR about?” differently.

Emergence of non-state actors. Do not call the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO “non-state actors”, as many notes do. These are intergovernmental organisations created by states. (The IMF and World Bank came out of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944; the WTO was established in 1995.) They matter because they are institutions of global governance. Genuine non-state actors include NGOs, multinational corporations (MNCs), advocacy networks, diaspora communities and, in some analyses, armed groups and transnational movements.

Contemporary challenges. Globalisation, technology and climate change create interconnected problems that no state can solve alone. They call for new strategies from both states and non-state actors, and they connect directly to the “planetary” arguments in section 1.2.

Is 1648 really the beginning? The Westphalia debate

Many IR textbooks tell students that the Peace of Westphalia created a system of sovereign, legally equal states. That story is now contested.

• The traditional view treats 1648 as the starting point of the “Westphalian system”. Historians of the idea trace much of its popularity to Leo Gross’s 1948 essay “The Peace of Westphalia, 1648–1948”.
• Andreas Osiander (in International Organization, 2001) argues that IR judges today’s trends against a past that is largely imaginary, shaped by a later fixation on sovereignty, and he re-examines the treaties and the Holy Roman Empire that followed.
• Benno Teschke (The Myth of 1648, 2003) argues that 1648 is a false turning point and that domestic property relations and dynastic politics shaped international relations well beyond that date.
• Global and decolonial critics, such as John Hobson (The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics, 2012) and Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan (The Making of Global International Relations, 2019), widen the critique: a story that starts in Europe in 1648 leaves out much of the world.

So an exam-ready position is: Westphalia is a convenient shorthand for the emergence of the territorial state system in Europe, but scholars disagree on whether 1648 was a real turning point.

Major Themes and Issues in International Relations (IR)

IR covers many topics that show how countries, groups and global forces interact. These themes help you see the important parts of the international system.

Some of these themes return in later units: the state and markets in Unit 2, global inequalities and climate change in Unit 3, and conflict in Unit 4.

Understanding Space: How Do We Sense Our Planet

The word “space” in this part of the syllabus can be read in three connected ways. First, space as the planet we live on: the Earth, nature and the environment, not just a backdrop for politics but something that politics changes (the Dalby and Chakrabarty readings). Second, space as territory: how political authority is organised over land, sea and borders. Third, space beyond the planet: outer space as an area of cooperation and competition. The prescribed readings emphasise the first two meanings, but all three appear in exam questions, so each is covered below.

Concept and Significance of Space

Space as planet: what changes if we stop taking nature for granted?

Simon Dalby is a scholar of geopolitics, environment and security who has focused in recent years on climate change and the Anthropocene. His chapter title in Global Politics: A New Introduction is itself the question: what happens if we don’t take nature for granted? Most IR begins with a world of states and treats the natural environment as a given background, something that supplies resources or sets limits. Dalby’s wider work argues that this assumption no longer holds. In his book Anthropocene Geopolitics, for example, he argues that traditional notions of sovereignty do not fit a rapidly changing geophysical situation and that planning can no longer assume fixed environmental conditions as its starting point.

Reading note: the points above come from Dalby’s wider published work. For the exact structure and examples of the prescribed chapter (pp. 39–60), read the chapter itself when preparing long answers.

Globe versus planet: Chakrabarty

Dipesh Chakrabarty, a historian at the University of Chicago, makes the most important conceptual move in this part of the syllabus in The Climate of History in a Planetary Age (2021).

• Climate change, he argues, upends long-standing ideas of history, modernity and globalisation.
• He distinguishes the globe from the planet. The globe is a human-centred construction: the world of human connections, trade, empires and globalisation. The planet (the “Earth system”) decentres the human and treats humans as one force among many.
• Earth-system scientists argue that since roughly the 1950s a “Great Acceleration” in human numbers, consumption and technology has made humans a geological force, pushing the planet beyond the Holocene, the epoch that began about 11,700 years ago after the last Ice Age. They propose calling this new epoch the Anthropocene.
• Chakrabarty’s claim is that we now have to look at human history from both perspectives at once. Labels such as “modern” or “global” have to be thought together with the much longer time-scales of geological history.

A debate worth knowing. The word “Anthropocene” is itself contested. In March 2024 the International Union of Geological Sciences confirmed a vote by its stratigraphy subcommission (12 votes against, 4 in favour) rejecting a proposal to make the Anthropocene a formal epoch of the Geological Time Scale. The IUGS added that the term will continue to be used by earth and environmental scientists, social scientists, politicians, economists and the public as a descriptor of human impact on the Earth system. So: not a formal geological epoch, but a widely used concept. Scholars also criticise Chakrabarty directly. One published review argues that his notions of “the globe” and “the planetary” are themselves somewhat ahistorical, which is a useful line for the criticism section of an answer.

How this connects to the syllabus. The learning objectives of GE-4 speak of going beyond the Westphalian conception of territoriality. The planetary argument is the most direct case: carbon dioxide, warming oceans and species loss do not recognise borders. This reading prepares you for climate change and the global commons in Unit 3.

Space beyond the planet: outer space as a shared area

This is the most familiar meaning of “space”, and it is a good example of a non-territorial space.

Outer space as shared space. Outer space is seen as a shared area that no single country can claim, to be used for the benefit of all countries. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty (1967) says that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by use or occupation, or by any other means.

Space as a key strategic area. With satellites, outer space has become important for communication, navigation, weather tracking and military purposes.

Laws governing space. The Outer Space Treaty (opened for signature on 27 January 1967; in force from 10 October 1967) is the main legal framework. A precise reading matters here, because the treaty is often summarised as banning nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in space. Article IV is narrower: states undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, not to install them on celestial bodies, and not to station them in outer space in any other manner. The Moon and other celestial bodies must be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, and military bases, weapons tests and manoeuvres there are forbidden. But the treaty does not ban all military activity in space: military personnel may be used for peaceful scientific work, and arms-control analysts point out that it does not prohibit conventional weapons in orbit. This gap is exactly why “weaponisation of space” remains a live debate.

Why space matters in IR.

New challenges and opportunities.

• Space debris. The growing amount of debris threatens safe space activity, and guidelines for managing it need international cooperation.
• Cybersecurity. Linking space technology with ground systems brings cyber risks; protecting space assets needs global collaboration.
• Commercial space. Private space companies are new players. States must cooperate to regulate them and to ensure fair access. Under Article VI of the treaty, states bear international responsibility for national activities in space, including those of private companies, and non-governmental activity requires authorisation and continuing supervision by the relevant state.
• Resource exploration. Extracting resources from the Moon or asteroids raises questions of property rights and competition. In 2015 the United States passed a law allowing US citizens to own resources extracted from asteroids; critics argue this tests the non-appropriation principle of Article II.

Using and exploring space therefore involves cooperation, strategy, economics and the environment together, and it shows how interconnected the world has become.

Spatial Dimensions of International Relations (IR)

The spatial dimensions of IR look at how geography and physical factors affect how states and other groups interact. Location and borders matter.

1. Geopolitics and geography. The location of a country affects its importance. Control of key waterways, such as the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of Hormuz, can strengthen a state’s position. Natural features such as mountains and rivers can separate or connect countries, and many borders follow them.

2. Globalisation and connectivity. Better transport and communication have made distance matter less. Air and sea routes move goods and people across borders and shape trade and cultural exchange. The internet and digital technology have created a virtual space that connects people and states in new ways, a theme developed in Unit 5.

3. Territorial sovereignty and boundaries. A state’s control over its territory is basic to the state system. Changes in borders, whether through conflict or agreement, can alter international relations deeply. Border disputes affect neighbours, migration and the sharing of resources. Borders are also political creations: the Radcliffe Line drawn at the time of India’s Partition in 1947 is a familiar South Asian example of a boundary whose consequences have lasted for decades.

4. Regionalism and supranational entities. Regional groups such as the European Union and the African Union promote cooperation among neighbouring states that share geography and interests. Bodies like the EU hold some powers over members, changing how states interact.

5. Environmental and resource dimensions. Environmental problems such as climate change need joint action because they affect many areas at once. The location of natural resources can shape economies and create competition.

6. Conflict zones and security. Regions with histories of conflict can become hotspots of geopolitical tension. Military bases and security alliances influence global safety and defence.

7. Human geography and demographics. Migration and refugee movements, driven by conflict or economic need, change the make-up of populations and international relations. The spread of languages, religions and cultures also influences how states cooperate.

Understanding these spatial aspects shows how states are connected and how geography shapes diplomatic, economic and security issues.

Territorial and Non-Territorial Spaces

Territorial and non-territorial spaces are important in political science, IR and law. The syllabus’s own wording is that our world is shaped in both forms.

Territorial spaces

Non-territorial spaces

How the law divides the sea

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982) shows how law turns a continuous ocean into zones with different degrees of state authority.

Interconnections and challenges

Transitional and mixed spaces. Notes often describe “international waters” as both territorial and non-territorial, which is confusing. A clearer way to put it is that the sea is layered: the territorial sea is territory, the EEZ and continental shelf are zones of limited, resource-focused state rights, and the high seas are a commons. That layering is what makes maritime disputes complicated.

Overlap and conflict. Some regions face disputed claims, such as the Arctic and the South China Sea, where overlapping claims test the legal framework.

Global governance. Managing non-territorial spaces needs effective international cooperation, which is hard to achieve when states have different interests and capacities. This is the point at which “space” in the sense of territory meets “space” in the sense of planet: the atmosphere, oceans and climate are commons that no border can contain.

Ways of Knowing and Being: Peoples, Histories and Civilisations

The third part of the unit shifts from what we study to how we know it, and from who exists in IR to how they exist. Two technical words help. Ways of knowing (epistemology) are the methods, sources and assumptions by which we claim to know something. Ways of being (ontology) are our assumptions about what exists and how things relate: whether the world is made of separate units, such as states, that then interact, or of relations that come first and make the units possible.

The prescribed readings (Pin-Fat, Trownsell and colleagues, Shani) deal with this second, deeper layer. This article first keeps the broader, textbook discussion of knowledge, power, culture and identity in IR, and then turns to the relational arguments.

Concept and Significance of Knowledge

Knowledge is central to IR. It helps us understand global issues and guides decisions in diplomacy and cooperation.

What knowledge means in IR.

Why knowledge matters in IR.

Sources and Types of Knowledge

Knowledge about IR comes from many places and in many forms.

Sources of knowledge.

Types of knowledge.

A point worth adding to your answers: the list of sources above is itself a choice. Notice that it is made up almost entirely of institutions in the global North (journals, think tanks, international organisations). The relational and global-South readings later in this section ask what is left out when only such sources count as “knowledge”.

Knowledge and Power in International Relations (IR)

The link between knowledge and power shows that those who have and control information often have great influence in world affairs.

1. Types of power in IR.

2. The role of knowledge in IR.

• Information as a resource: states gather and use information to make choices and gain advantage.
• Diplomacy and negotiation: knowing the history and interests of others helps diplomats negotiate.
• Global governance: states share information to tackle climate change and health crises.
• International law and norms: understanding law allows states to use it to support their goals or challenge others.
• Public opinion and influence: media-shared knowledge shapes what people think, and states that control stories influence global views.
• Technology and innovation: states leading in areas such as cybersecurity and military technology are stronger.

3. Knowledge as a form of power.

Susan Strange, whose work is on the syllabus for Unit 2, made a related point by treating knowledge as one of four “structures” of power in the world economy alongside security, production and finance (see States, Nations and Markets).

4. Challenges and ethical considerations. Disinformation and propaganda: false information can be used to gain an edge. Knowledge inequality: gaps in access to education and technology create power imbalances. Responsibility and accountability: powerful states must use knowledge responsibly because their decisions have serious effects.

5. Emerging trends. Cyber power: cybersecurity and information warfare are becoming key sources of power. Global knowledge networks: the internet creates networks that make information more accessible and can challenge old power structures. (These ideas return in Unit 5.)

Concept and Significance of Culture

Culture affects how states and people see and connect with one another.

What is culture in IR?

Why culture matters in IR.

1. Communication and understanding. Culture shapes how states talk to each other; different styles can cause misunderstanding.
2. Cultural identity and nationalism. Cultural identity is tied to national identity; strong feelings can lead to conflict, and understanding them is key to resolving issues.
3. Soft power and public diplomacy. Films, music and other cultural goods boost a state’s influence; states promote their culture to build relationships.
4. Global governance and norms. Cultural values help shape global rules, and discussions on human rights or environmental care involve varied cultural views.
5. International cooperation. Cultural exchange programmes build trust and goodwill.
6. Identity politics. Cultural and religious identities, and national pride, influence how states act.
7. Globalisation challenges. Dominant cultures can overshadow local ones, and some societies resist by protecting their identities.

Sources and Types of Culture

Sources of culture in IR.

Types of culture in IR.

Culture and Identity in International Relations (IR)

Culture and identity affect how people interact at home and abroad.

Culture in IR.

Identity in IR.

Challenges and considerations.

• Cultural diversity: respecting differences is important for fairness, and global decision-making should include a range of cultural perspectives (pluralism in global governance).
• Identity politics: states juggle multiple identities, which can complicate cooperation; shared identities can produce alliances that affect regional and global dynamics.
• Ethical considerations: states should promote their culture without misusing or exploiting it, and promoting human rights while respecting cultural practice requires careful judgment.

How Do We Begin to Think About the World? Pin-Fat

Véronique Pin-Fat’s chapter is the prescribed reading on thinking itself. According to the book’s contents, the chapter moves through thinking and language, works with the “ticking bomb” torture scenario as an illustrative example, compares two responses to the ethics of such cases, and ends with a reflection on “thinking about thinking”.

What you can carry into an exam answer is the underlying point: the way we begin to frame a question already shapes what answers seem possible. If we begin by asking what a state should do, we have already assumed that states are the right units. For the exact argument and examples, work from pp. 20–38 of the chapter.

Relational IR: Starting from Relations Rather than Units

The most distinctive reading in this part of the syllabus is the group of relational-IR pieces.

What “relational” means. In “Recrafting International Relations through Relationality” (E-International Relations, January 2019), Tamara Trownsell, Amaya Querejazu, Giorgio Shani, Navnita Chadha Behera, Jarrad Reddekop and Arlene Tickner write that relationality ontologically begins by assuming interconnection as prior to the existence of entities. In plain words, relations come first; “units” such as states, individuals and “nature” are made by relations rather than existing separately beforehand.

Their critique of IR. The authors argue that the “critical turn” has made IR a more plural discipline by opening space to examine different types of relations, but that these critical approaches are still founded on modern, Western ontological assumptions. This undercuts their ability to learn from other, more thoroughly relational ways of existing. The discipline, they say, has yet to take relational ways of knowing and being seriously. When we study cosmologies that start from interconnection through lenses that assume separate units, we use what they call “ontologically incommensurate filters”. The essay therefore asks IR to develop skills of “ontological translation”.

Difference. The follow-up forum, “Differing about Difference: Relational IR from around the World” (International Studies Perspectives, 22:1, 2021, pp. 25–64), argues that difference, a central concern of IR, has not had its ontological foundations adequately disrupted. Its six contributions draw on cosmological commitments from the Andes, South Asia, East Asia and the Middle East to explore how existential assumptions affect the way we deal with difference as theorists, researchers and teachers.

Cosmologies and the pluriverse. Giorgio Shani’s article “IR as inter-cosmological relations?” (International Politics Review, 2021) introduces the concept of cosmologies. As summarised in his own seminar abstracts, cosmologies challenge dominant ways of treating geo-cultural difference by questioning the relationship between territory, culture and difference, between the “religious” and the “secular”, and between humans and the environment. He suggests that a “post-western IR” should focus on inter-cosmological relations in a pluriverse: a world of many worlds, each with its own understanding of universality and particularity. He also criticises attempts to accommodate difference through “Global IR” (the project associated with Acharya and Buzan) because it keeps a single idea of universality in place.

An Indian connection. Navnita Chadha Behera, a co-author of the 2019 and 2021 pieces, is a scholar at the University of Delhi. With Shani she has also published “Provincialising International Relations through a Reading of Dharma” in the Review of International Studies, which is useful if you want an example of relational thinking drawn from South Asian traditions.

Additional readings. The syllabus also lists Milja Kurki’s International Relations in a Relational Universe (Oxford University Press, 2020), Arturo Escobar’s Pluriversal Politics (Duke University Press, 2020) and Kothari and colleagues’ Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (Tulika Books, 2019). “Pluriverse” is the idea that there is not one “universe” with one set of rules but many worlds that deserve recognition; it is often summed up in the phrase “a world where many worlds fit”.

Peoples, Histories and Civilisations: Putting It Together

The title of 1.3 names three things that conventional IR tends to flatten. A useful way to use the readings together:

• Peoples. IR often speaks of “states” or “nations”. Blaney’s Amerindian homelands and the relational authors’ cosmologies bring in peoples whose political life does not fit the sovereign-state template.
• Histories. The Westphalia debate, Blaney’s argument about “when”, and Chakrabarty’s geological time-scales all show that how we tell history decides what counts as “international”.
• Civilisations. One influential way of talking about civilisations is Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, which treats civilisations as fairly separate blocs. The relational approach does the opposite: it stresses that peoples and traditions are connected, so “inter-civilisational” relations are about entanglement as much as difference. (This comparison is a common exam angle but is our framing, not one stated in a single prescribed reading.) Scholars of Indian thought often point to Kautilya’s Arthashastra and its mandala theory of neighbouring states as an example of a non-Western way of thinking about interstate relations; how best to read it in IR is itself debated.

Important Comparisons

Mainstream (state-centric) IR versus relational IR.

Territorial versus non-territorial space.

Hard power, economic power, soft power and informational power are compared in the “Knowledge and Power” section above.

Criticism and Limitations

• Of the traditional IR story. Critics (Blaney, Hobson, Acharya and Buzan, Tickner and Smith) say IR’s usual starting points, such as 1648 and the sovereign state, reflect Western and American experience.
• Of the global-South framing. The editors of International Relations from the Global South themselves note that no single book can represent the full range of Southern experiences, and they use “global South” as a position as much as a place.
• Of Chakrabarty. One review argues that the categories “globe” and “planet” are ahistorical, and that a highly abstract argument leaves open how a climate-changed planet will affect human affairs in practice. The Anthropocene is also not an accepted formal epoch (IUGS, 2024).
• Of relational IR and “Global IR”. Shani argues that Global IR keeps a single idea of universality; defenders of Global IR would reply that some shared framework is needed for a common discipline. Students should present this as an open debate, not a settled result.
• Of the older space discussion. The Outer Space Treaty leaves gaps (conventional weapons in orbit, resource rights), as noted above.

Contemporary Relevance

• Climate and the planet. Global warming, sea-level rise and biodiversity loss are the everyday evidence for the planetary perspective, and prepare you for the “global commons” debate in Unit 3.
• Space governance. Commercial space activity, satellite constellations, debris and resource extraction are testing a 1967 treaty written for a handful of state actors.
• Information and narratives. Knowledge-as-power is visible in disinformation, cyber operations and competition over technology, which connects to Unit 5.
• Plural worldviews. Debates on decolonising the curriculum and on “Global IR” show that the question “whose IR?” is live inside universities, including in India.

Quick Revision: Key Terms for GE-4 Unit 1

Conclusion

Unit 1 invites you to treat “the world” as something we make sense of, not something we simply find. Part 1.1 shows that IR is both a field with standard definitions and a historically situated way of seeing, whose usual starting points (Westphalia, the sovereign state) are open to challenge. Part 1.2 widens space from borders on a map to the planet itself and to the shared areas beyond national control. Part 1.3 asks whose knowledge counts, and offers relational approaches that begin from connection rather than separation. Learn the standard concepts for the short answers, and use the critical arguments to lift your long answers.

Continue Reading

• (GE-4) Unit 2: States, Nations and Markets: the next unit; picks up the state, sovereignty and the state-market relationship.
• (GE-4) Unit 3: Inequalities: politico-military and economic inequalities, and climate change and the global commons.
• (GE-4) Unit 4: Sites of Conflict and Forms of Violence: changing landscape of conflict and forms of violence.
• (GE-4) Unit 5: Knowing Our Virtual and Creative World: the internet, museums and cinema, extending the “virtual space” discussed above.

University of Delhi Previous Year Questions (DU-Pattern and Probable Questions)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

References and Further Reading

• University of Delhi, B.A. (Hons.) Political Science, GE-4 syllabus (PDF)
• Trownsell et al., Recrafting International Relations through Relationality, E-International Relations (2019)
• Differing about Difference: Relational IR from around the World (publication record)
• Giorgio Shani, IR as inter-cosmological relations? (DOI)
• Review of International Relations from the Global South, E-International Relations
• Andreas Osiander, “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth” (abstract record)
• Outer Space Treaty, UN Treaty Series, vol. 610
• UNCLOS at 30 (UN pamphlet)
• IUGS/ICS statement on the Anthropocene vote, 20 March 2024