Introduction: from international politics to world politics

In this introduction we explain how we propose to deal with the idea of globalization in the wider textbook, and offer some arguments both for and against seeing globalization as an important new development in world politics.We shall begin by discussing the various terms used to describe world politics and the academic field – International Relations (IR) – that has led the way in thinking about it. We then look at the main ways in which global politics has been explained. Our aim is not to put forward one view of how to think about world politics somehow agreed by the editors, let alone by all the contributors to this book. There is no such agreement. Rather, we want to provide a context within which to read the chapters that follow. This means offering a variety of views on world politics and globalization. For example, the main theoretical accounts of world politics all see globalization differently. Some treat it as nothing more than a temporary phase in human history; others see it as just the latest manifestation of the growth of global capitalism; yet others see it as representing a fundamental transformation of world politics requiring new ways of understanding. The different editors and contributors to this book hold no single agreed view; they represent all the views just mentioned. Thus they would each have a different take, for example, on the global financial crisis, why states can’t agree on how to tackle global climate change, the significance of the Arab Spring, or the causes and significance of economic, gendered, and racial inequality in world politics.