International Studies Journal (ISJ)

International Studies Journal (ISJ)

Culture Shift and the Question of Ethics in International Relations

Document Type : Extension Article

Author
Professor of Political Science, University of Tehran
Abstract
This study concentrates on the issue of culture shift and the question ethics in International Relations in the last two decades. While, as the title of the study suggests, it seems that the issue of culture does not relates the question of ethics in international relations, but this study claims that culture represents an umbrella in international relations and foreign policy, under which the issue of norms and ethics have significant roles. In other words, the question of ethics in international relations is a sub-issue of culture in this arena. However, contrary to the views of many students of international relations, the culture per se does not equal the ethics and ethical values of international politics. While culture includes the question of ethics, it does not necessarily play the role of ethical issues in international relations. On the contrary, the culture may have un-ethical dimensions in this area. Thus the type op culture and the way culture is applied to international politics determine the ethical or un-ethical perspectives of the culture. By discussing the issue of culture in International relations, as a discipline, the study focuses on the issue of soft power theory. The main argument of this study is that the soft power paradigm in international relations, as it is used by the American students of IR, has an instrumental approach toward the question power and uses it a justifying factor for the application of hard power in international politics.
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