International Relations

Post-Cold War International Relations: Assessing the state of the field 25 years after the end of the Cold War Autumn 2014 signifies the 25th anniversary of the Eastern Europe revolutions and the fall of the Berlin Wall, which led to the eventual end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War itself as an event had a tremendous impact on the field of International Relations, and transformed the discipline in many ways. First, the Cold War dominated the agenda of IR, while its end paved the way for a broader agenda of issues. Second, the dissolution of Soviet states meant simultaneously the victory of liberalism over socialism as the dominant political ideology, as well as the victory of market-oriented economies over state-controlled economies, which both had an impact on the relevant theoretical debates within IR. Furthermore, the dissolution of the former communist states led to the formation of a great number of new states that entered the international system, and it gave a new impetus to the discussion of state formation, state failure, and self-determination. Additionally, as these new states entered the international system and the various international organisations, these institutions became bigger, with a wider spectrum of activities. The enlargement of the European Union with the accession of the Eastern European states, as well as the more active role of the United Nations in crises worldwide that the withdrawal of the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council made possible, are two examples of the impact that the end of the Cold War had on international institutions. Finally, the field of IR itself evolved after the end of the Cold War, since marginal approaches, including critical security, gender, and post-modernism, new units of analysis other than the state, such as the individual, the global system as a whole, non-state actors, and minority identities, and the emergence of post-positivist and constructivist epistemologies, changed the Cold War IR state-centred, political-military focused agenda and transformed it into a broader and more diverse discipline. Thus this section aims to discuss and asses the development of the field of International Relations 25 years after the end of Cold War and pave the way for discussion about the prospects for the evolution of IR within the future. The section will address these issues through several panels covering most of the IR subfields, which will include, but not be limited to, a theoretical panel, a panel devoted to international institutions, a panel focusing on security and strategy, a panel discussing international political economy, a panel addressing international intervention and conflict resolution, and panels on Area Studies.