Reporte De Lectura

Dulce Ximena Dueñas Guerrero A01015877
The second state debate in International Relations: theory turned upside-down
Main thesis: The conventional understanding of how IR theory conceptualizes thestate is in need of revision. Arguments to support the thesis: We emerge with a more accurate and nuanced understanding of IR theories of the state as well as of IR theory more generally. RelocatingIR theories of the state within the agent-structure problematic. Five parts: first state debate; second state debate; understanding neorealism and neoliberalism institutionalism; five generic forms ofstate theory from second state debate; sociological resolutions of second state debate.
State theory in the first state debate, two generic frameworks: normative and explanatory. Social autonomyversus state autonomy. The new state debate rejects the polarities of the first debate. Whether autonomous states constitute the central actors in world politics. Reconfiguring state theory within IR’ssecond state debate: omission of the international agential power. Two faces of agential state power: domestic (moderate and high) and international. Traditional IR theory reconfigured within thesecond state debate: continuity assumption of Kenneth Waltz. Functions of government, own survival in a hostile anarchic world of competing states. Main adaptive strategies of states: emulation andbalancing.
Five generic theories of the state within the second state debate: the passive-adaptive state with no international agency; the socially-adaptive state with moderate international power; thesocially-adaptive state with high international agential power; the proactive state with high domestic and high international agential powers; the constitutive state with varying domestic and varyinginternational-agential power. IR theories of the state can be better understood through the framework of the second state debate rather than through conventional or traditional frame works.
Opposing...