Political science // critical thinking 12 - Essay Example

This work intends to analyze the works of five scholars in order to understand their connection with various theoretical perspectives of international relations. “The Case Against the West” by Mahbubani depicts how the West is responsible for the present world disorder, thus supporting the realist paradigm of world order. According to the scholar, West is trying to cling to power, thus inhibiting the development of a new world order where Asia has power. In its effort to protect its supreme position, the West fails to handle many of the world problems in a reasonable way.

Instead, it only contributes to more problems. For example, it invaded Iraq violating the rules of UN Security Council, thus undermining the efforts to bring a new world order. In another instance, the US walked away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, thus encouraging others to ignore UN. Yet another example is the infamous claim by the US that India and China are the main culprits behind world carbon dioxide emissions. When this statement was made, the nation was mocking at the reality that while the US alone is responsible for nearly one-third of the total carbon dioxide emission, Western Europe produces slightly more than a quarter of the total emission.

The scholar alleges through these examples that after enjoying “years of global domination”, the West is not ready to share power and responsibility. Admittedly, the scholar is hinting that the theory of classical realism is still valid because the various instances show that the West, instead of bringing world harmony through proper sharing of power and responsibility, is trying to retain its own supreme position. The article by Kagan named “History’s Back: Ambitious Autocracies, Hesitant Democracies” shows that liberalism is not a tenable theory in the real world.

To illustrate, the proponents of liberal