Using the state as a heuristic is a necessary aspect of international relations scholarship – the history of state-centrism is an argument in favor of our theorizing.

Scholars love to debate the definition of their discipline. This is hardly surprising, as there is always a great deal riding on where one draws the line between what is in or out. In this book, ‘international relations’ is defined simply as the international level of world politics. By ‘international level’ I mean the interactions largely (but not exclusively) of sovereign states; by ‘world politics’ I mean ‘who gets what, when and how across the world’, to stretch Harold Lasswell’s classical definition of ‘politics’. The reason for accentuating the international level of world politics is twofold. First, as already mentioned, the international is a level with enormous ‘causal weight’. Second, to engage with ‘who gets what, when and how across the world’ without a coherent focus such as ‘the international level’ is to invite bewilderment in the face of information overload. This problem is evident in many of the doorstep-sized textbooks about ‘world’ or ‘global’ politics: what in the world is not a matter of ‘world politics’? The formulation proposed offers a distinct focus (‘the international’), while being empirically open (‘the world’). I owe this way of thinking largely to C.A.W. Manning, an early doyen of IR, who described academic international relations as having ‘a focus but not a periphery’. By focusing on the international, critics will say that I have succumbed to a ‘state-centric’ view of the world. This is the idea that states are the fundamental reality of world politics. Such a view is sometimes also described as being ‘statist’, meaning endorsing the idea that the state is and should be the highest level of both political decision-making and loyalty. My position is more complicated: I want to recognize the empirical significance of states and their relations without being statist politically or ethically. This is like an atheist arguing about ‘religion’. An atheist cannot for long discuss religion without talking about God, but this does not make the atheist ‘God-centric’; it only means that the atheist is aware of the significance of God when talking about religion. The book will argue that the international level of world politics is state-dominated in an empirical sense (some states are the most powerful ‘actors’ in the world) without succumbing to state-centrism in a normative sense (believing that the contemporary states-system represents the best of all possible worlds). Later chapters will underline that states are not the only actors at the international level: some multinational corporations have more clout than some states. Nonetheless, it would be foolish to play down the continuing significance of especially the most powerful states in determining ‘who gets what’ across the world, or the continuing ‘causal weight’ of state interactions in shaping the ‘when and how’ of things happening. Recognizing these empirical realities is perfectly consistent with accepting that one of the aims of studying IR is to challenge what is done, and why, and consider whether different worlds are possible and desirable. Matters of continuity and change are always present in international relations. According to the ‘realist’ tradition (explained later), the international level or system has had, again in Waltz’s term, a distinct ‘texture’ (a persisting set of characteristics) over the centuries. This continuity allows us to have a time-transcending understanding of the situations, dilemmas and crises faced by leaders and peoples in other places in other eras. Critics of this view - those dazzled by what’s new - tend to argue that talk of ‘texture’ exaggerates continuity. This is mistaken. There can be no doubt that we live in a new era when it comes to technology and its potential, for example, but have relations between political units fundamentally changed? We cannot, and should not, assume that everything will always be the same, but it would be foolish to underestimate the stubborn continuities of state interactions.