International Relations (IR) is the study of interactions across national boundaries — among states, and between states and non-state actors (international organizations, multinational corporations, NGOs, media, even individuals) — in the arenas of politics, security, economics, law and culture. The discipline was born as a self-conscious field after the First World War (the first chair of International Politics was established at Aberystwyth in 1919), tasked with understanding war and how to prevent it.
Definitions:
• In the classical, state-centric view, IR is "the relations among sovereign states" — Palmer and Perkins described it as the study of the world community in transition (from the loose Westphalian society of states toward an organized world community).
• In the modern, pluralist view, IR embraces all transnational interactions: Stanley Hoffmann's formulation that IR is the study of "the factors and activities which affect the external policies and the power of the basic units into which the world is divided."
The distinction to state early:international relations (the actual interactions — lowercase) vs. International Relations (the academic discipline that studies them). The discipline asks three master questions: What explains war and peace? What is (international) power and how is it used? And can/should there be order and justice beyond the state?
Scope of IR (the checklist for the "scope" question):
1. State behaviour — foreign policy, diplomacy, war, alliance, neutrality;
2. International security — balance of power, deterrence, arms control, terrorism, peacekeeping;
3. International political economy — trade, finance, investment, development, globalization;
4. International law and organization — the UN family, regional bodies (SAARC, BIMSTEC, EU, ASEAN), treaties and their politics;
5. Transnational issues — climate change, migration, pandemics, human rights, cyberspace;
6. Actors beyond the state — MNCs, NGOs, terrorist networks, diasporas, media;
7. Theories of IR (Unit 2) and methods of study.
Why IR matters for a Nepali law student: Nepal's life as a state — treaties (1950 India, 1960 China), UN membership, trade-and-transit negotiations, federal foreign relations, even the law of the landlocked — is lived inside this system. International law (LAW5205, this semester) is the legal superstructure; IR is the political reality it regulates. A lawyer who knows only the law and not the relations misreads both.