ABSTRACT
This chapter refines the definition of international relations as being a discipline concerned with actors trying to achieve specific goals, using particular means dependent on their power or capability. Pluralism assumes that actors other than the state are important entities in international relations and cannot be ignored. International organizations and multinational corporations, with their own bureaucracies, have considerable influence in determining which issues are most important politically, particularly in an increasingly interdependent world economy. In addition to states, actors in the international system include intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), which are voluntary associations of sovereign states organized for the pursuit of a variety of purposes. IGOs range in importance from the United Nations and the European Economic Community to the Permanent International Committee on Canned Food. Globalism assumes that the starting point of analysis for international relations is the global context within which states and other entities interact. Foreign policy is intended to protect and promote national independence, security, honor, and well-being.
