International relations (IR) are the interactions among sovereign states. The scientific study of those interactions is also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, liberalism and constructivism.
International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain behaviors and outcomes in international politics. The four most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism, constructivism, and rational choice. Whereas realism and liberalism make broad and specific predictions about international relations, constructivism and rational choice are methodological approaches that focus on certain types of social explanation for phenomena.
Environmental security examines threats posed by environmental events and trends to individuals, communities or nations. It may focus on the impact of human conflict and international relations on the environment, or on how environmental problems cross state borders.
Barry Gordon Buzan, FBA, FAcSS is a British political scientist. He is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and a honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen and Jilin University. Until 2012 he was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the LSE. Buzan sketched the Regional Security Complex Theory and is therefore together with Ole Wæver a central figure of the Copenhagen School.
Harold Kelley was an American social psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His major contributions have been the development of interdependence theory, the early work of attribution theory, and a lifelong interest in understanding close relationships processes. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Kelley as the 43rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Robert Gilpin was an American political scientist. He was Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he held the Eisenhower professorship.
Ole Wæver is a professor of international relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. He has published extensively in the field of international relations, and is one of the main architects of the Copenhagen School in International Relations.
Securitization in international relations and national politics is the process of state actors transforming subjects from regular political issues into matters of "security": thus enabling extraordinary means to be used in the name of security. Issues that become securitized do not necessarily represent issues that are essential to the objective survival of a state, but rather represent issues where someone was successful in constructing an issue into an existential problem.
Giles Scott-Smith is a Dutch-British academic. He is a professor of transnational relations and new diplomatic history at Leiden University and serves as the dean of Leiden University College The Hague.
Alberta Arnolda "Betteke" van Ruler is emeritus Professor of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam.
Andrew Maitland Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, and founding director of both the European Union Program and the International Relations Faculty Colloquium at Princeton University.
The Copenhagen School of security studies is a school of academic thought with its origins in international relations theorist Barry Buzan's book People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, first published in 1983. The School places particular emphasis on the non-military aspects of security, representing a shift away from traditional security studies. Theorists associated with the school include Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde. Many of the school's members worked at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, from which its name originates.
Paul W. Schroeder was an American historian who was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois. He specialized in European international politics from the late 16th to the 20th centuries, Central Europe, and the theory of history. He is known for his contributions to diplomatic history and international relations.
Louis André (Loet) Leydesdorff was a Dutch sociologist, cyberneticist, communication scientist and Professor in the Dynamics of Scientific Communication and Technological Innovation at the University of Amsterdam. He is known for his work in the sociology of communication and innovation, especially for his Triple helix model of innovation developed with Henry Etzkowitz in the 1990s.
Hans T. Bakker is a cultural historian and Indologist, who has served as the Professor of the History of Hinduism and Jan Gonda Chair at the University of Groningen. He worked in the British Museum as a researcher in the project "Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State".
Jacobus Ruurd "Jaap" Bruijn, was a Dutch maritime historian. He was professor of maritime history at the University of Leiden from 1979 until his retirement in 2003. During his 41-year teaching career as The Netherlands' only university professor of maritime history, he guided the doctoral theses of at least 49 graduate students.
James D. Morrow is the A.F.K. Organski Collegiate Professor of World Politics at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, best known for his pioneering work in noncooperative game theory and selectorate theory.
Edwin Bakker is head of the knowledge and research department of the Netherlands Police Academy and professor of Terrorism Studies at Leiden University.
Jacobus (Jaap) Wessels was a Dutch mathematician and Professor of Stochastic Operations Research at the Eindhoven University of Technology, known for his contributions in the field of Markov decision processes.
Louis Mensse Schoonhoven is a Dutch entomologist. He was a professor of general and comparative animal physiology and later entomology at Wageningen University and Research between 1972 and 1991. He is a specialist in insect-plant relationships.
