Non-state actors in world politics and international relations research

An introduction

Abstract

In this edition of Political Perspectives, the four articles examine a broad range of perspectives concerning the role of policy institutions, networks and researchers in world politics and foreign policy. The overarching theme of this edition is purposefully broad – as an endeavour to capture the diversity in topics, theoretical perspectives, ontological underpinnings as well as geographical variation, in ongoing research projects amongst International Relations (IR) academics of tomorrow. The IR discipline, however, has conventionally been preoccupied with the state-system as the focal level of analysis – predominantly through the realist ontological ‘school of thought’ where the ‘state’ performs as the key ‘ontological tool’ (see Waltz, 1979). Consequently, we deliberately chose the expansive phrase of ‘world politics’ as the term of ‘international relations’ implies a focus on nation-states (Baylis, Smith and Owens, 2010:2). This edition of Political Perspectives, thus, accommodates for analysing world politics and foreign policy, rather, from the non-state level, where many a scholar is stressing the interplay between Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) and, indeed, states.