One of the main features of globalization of world politics is that it takes a view of

theory that helps you understand the world, by treating theories as if they're
different coloured lenses.
So, to use a simple analogy, if you were to wear yellow sunglasses, the world would
look yellow if you had red tinted sunglasses, the world would look red and so on.
Well that's how we use theory, that is to say we see the different theories of world
politics as ways of understanding the same issue from different perspectives, so in
that sense theories are not something separate from the world that report on the
world ,as it really is ,rather theories are things that construct what we see, so if you
take one theoretical position you'll see a certain set of events, if you see it take
another theoretical position you'll see a different set of events.
So the book outlines the main theories and gives you a whole series of studies and
examples that you can then apply the theories to.
Let's just take one contemporary case study, the war, the civil war in Syria.
The main theory of international relations, realism, treats the Syrian war in a very
simple way.
It sees it as a struggle for power, it sees the role of the United Nations as limited it
sees the various great powers competing for how they will affect a change in Syria
the Russians and the Chinese vetoing anything in the United Nations because they
don't want the United Nations to intervene in the sovereign affairs of a state.
You see the British and the Europeans and the Americans are trying to support the
rebels but being restricted in their ability to do that, because they don't have the
sheer power military and political power, to intervene, it would be difficult.
So realists see the Syrian conflict in a quite specific way.
Liberals, the other major theory of world politics, tend to look at Syria as an attempt
to construct consensus to see how you can get norms and rules and laws and
cooperation to solve a problem.
So they would focus on all those leaders in the world who are trying to bring peace
to the region and they would see the role of the United Nations as central and they
would point out that over time, the UN and world bodies have a greater opportunity
to influence events than they did hundreds of years ago, so in that sense, liberals
look at the conflict in Syria in a different way.
If you then turn to a theory such as Marxism. Marxists have a very, very different set
of glasses to look at the Syrian conflict if you like, than the other two main theories.
Marxists look at this, look at Syria as a conflict really, ultimately determined by oil,
by centrality in the Middle East, by ruling classes, by economic, by power and they
look at it as a clash of economic interests and they see the Assad regime and the
opponents as representing different economic interests globally and their concern
really is not so much with the details of the conflict as with the great conflict
through history between various competing economic forms.
Those who look at ethics, obviously, look at the conflict in a very different way.
They're concerned with the ethical issues about when should you intervene is there
a, a duty to intervene? Is there a right to protect?
Is there a need to support people who are being killed in other countries?
Or should, ethics people would say, should governments stay out of other people's
conflicts?
Then you've got post structural theories and post-colonial theories as well I won't go
into them in detail, the point I want to make is all these different theories look at
the same conflict but look at it in a different way.
What it gives the reader the opportunity to do ,is to look 04:52 at the information
from different perspectives and therefore we ask the reader to reflect upon the way
,in which your view about how the world operates colours what you see ,so we're
trying to make a bigger theoretical point in globalization of world politics, which
there isn't a simple common sense view of the world that's right but instead what
we have are different theories that paint a different picture of reality and it's
therefore up to the reader to judge which theory is most suitable, which theory is
correct, which theory they prefer and to know what other theories would say about
that issue.
We think that's a unique selling point of the book and all the feedback over the
years has been that the ability to give different theoretical views is one of the great
strengths of the text.

Translation into Ukrainian:

Одна з головних особливостей глобалізації світової політики полягає в тому, що
грунтується на теорії , яка допомагає тобі розуміти світ розглядаючи теорії як
кольорові лінзи.
Для порівняння, якщо ви надягнете жовті сонячні окуляри, світ буде виглядати
жовтим, якщо у вас будуть червоні тоновані сонячні окуляри, світ буде
виглядати червоним і так далі.