Ideas of men come and go throughout history. When men come together and relate to one another, these ideas combine and form a universal cohesion that helps further international societies. The study of International Politics and/or International Relations helps us study these trends, and hopefully, predict the behavior and the ideas in an international scope. International Relations is a complex science, and its history gives us background in the field in context. The explanation of political leaders from all over the world is what we are looking for: why did they do this, why did they do that? International Relations help us answer these fundamental questions.
Everyone has a different view point. Everyone looks at foreign policy differently; everyone looks at society in a different light. We study different philosophies that make up International Relations; we call them paradigms, or fundamental assumptions that refer to the core of the discipline we are studying, in this case world relations. .
Idealism or Utopianism, which isn't one of the paradigms, is important to understand and sets a basis of everything that international relations entails. The inherent idea, that international law and international organizations can help manage or prevent international conflict. It further shares the idea that international politics can operate like domestic politics. One of our Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, agreed with this philosophy. He believed in it so profoundly he helped found the League of Nations. This failed, ironically enough, because the United States didn't join the group. .
Realism, which is the first paradigm of international politics, is the complete opposite of Idealism. In Realism, the states are the most important actors on the international stage. It focuses primarily on the behavior of states. It concedes that there .
are other players; however, they are not as important as the states.