Reflection Week 5

The Thursday's activity was one of the most interesting activities that I did in the 5 weeks I have been in this class. Applying (or at least trying to) one of the IR theories to give an advice against a crisis was challenging, although the scenario was quite extreme and a little bit unrealistic.

One thing that I realized myself thinking all the while the discussion was going on was that preparing for the worst seemed always the best choice available when dealing with an unknown society/civilization/group of people. This arises from the idea that since you do not know their capabilities of and their intentions, you cannot assume that they come in peace. Of course, this would not be relevant to today's international system, since there is certain knowledge about others available to everyone; however, this idea would be relevant when we go back in history to see how international system came to be. When tribes came in contact with another tribe, or a nation with another nation, they were unaware of each other's intentions and capabilities, thus, they would have been cautious and adopted attitudes that were prepared for the worst possibilities. This would have then started off the cycle of realist international relations. It might be possible that this whole system of security-comes-first is breaking down right now, but it seems that this realist idea was the starting point for today's international society.

However, I also would like to agree to Wendt's argument of constructivism. People adopted realist approach when they encountered new people, yet these attitudes shaped the other nation's attitude and it kept going on in a cycle. It is irrefutable that the act of one side affects the attitude of the other party. Yet, it is naive to think that every reaction was shaped by the other party's action, because these actions were reactions in themselves. Following this train of thought, we fall into an endless cycle of reactions causing other reactions, and this just doesn't seem plausible, because there must have been a starting point for a reaction. Thus, I think that constructivism plays a huge part once the cycle of reactions started, but the starting point for this relationship between countries were the realist ideas.