INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORIES IN CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL POLITICS: IN SEARCH OF AN ACCEPTABLE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

In many International Relations Textbooks in contemporary times, there are chapters dedicated to some theoretical traditions of International Relations, these theories have their roots not from international politics intrinsically but from ancient international historical writings, medieval international lawyers and some classical political scientists. And consciously or not, we always look at events in global politics through a specific set of lenses. These lenses can be considered as theory. However, in contemporary global politics, there are many theories competing to explain the same phenomena. This has posed enormous challenge to the study of international relations. This paper is therefore an attempt to examine the reasons why, unlike political theories that guides the study of political science, international relations theories have always depended on other sub disciplines in order to satisfactorily explained phenomena in the international system since the academic discipline of international relations started. Employing therefore the content methodology and the descriptive research framework of analysis, this work was able to find out that a generalized international relation theory based on historical, philosophical, or behavioural methods is impossible to achieve. Based on the foregoing, the work recommends that thinking theoretically about events and trends in international relations does not required a single reality but multiple realities based on individual experiences and perspectives. Since the interest of states are malleable and ever changing, different theoretical approaches help us see international relations from different viewpoints.