Jacques Freymond on the Study and Research of International Relations

Abstract

Leading representative of political science in Switzerland, director of the Geneva Institute of International Relations and at the same time president of the International Association of Political Science prof. Jacques Freymond on March 5, 1967, spoke at the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Prague about the basic issues of the study of international relations research.

It manifested itself as an increased tradition of approach, emphasizing particularly historical connections and long-term perspectives of development. As far as the theory of international relations is concerned, he assessed the vast majority of attempts to deal with this issue so far as not very successful, he only very positively appreciated the work of Raymond Aron Mir and the war between nations. He was also cautious about various new methodological approaches, typical of the United States. He acknowledged that I bring a lot of new knowledge, which we can, however, mostly and simply derive using traditional approaches. Attempts to generalize and absolutize them often lead to distortions, which he documented, for example, in the theory of decision-making, group pressure, public authority, and in general the use of quantitative methods.