ABSTRACT
There are a variety of different theoretical perspectives within the academic study of IR. It is useful to think of these different theories as painting quite different ‘pictures’ of world politics. They are all looking at the same thing, but each theorist decides to emphasize different things in their particular picture of world politics. Let us consider some of the major theories of IR that we have already covered in this book so far: realism, idealism and the English school. Although all three of these theories are concerned with understanding the nature of world politics, they all come up with quite different explanations (see Box 6.1).
