ABSTRACT
It is hoped that this account has served to introduce the keen student to the complexity and variety of issues that are fundamental to the discipline of international relations. The first-year university student encounters three particular obstacles to engaging with and progressing in international relations. First, the subject is not generally taught at secondary or high-school level, although elements may appear in the A-level and S-level modern studies. Second, neither is the parent discipline of politics widely encountered in the school curriculum; and many students already trained in history, geography, economics or philosophy are sometimes inclined to view IR as a branch of one of these disciplines. Third, as a branch of politics, international relations is characterized by deep divisions of approaches, broadly similar to those that characterize all political debates: the conservative view which favours arguments that support an enduring status quo, the liberal position which favours reform within some framework of rules, and the revolutionary approach which seeks to overthrow and change the basis of any given political system. Students often find that after overcoming the first two obstacles to working out what the IR question actually is, there are usually at least three answers to that question.
