international relations vs affairs

samonite16
Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:29:15 +0000

IR is technically a subdiscipline of political science, whereas IA includes lots of things like international development and regional studies that are more interdisciplinary. In practice however, they’re essentially interchangable. International studies is somewhat more vague and could imply a more ‘cultural’ focus, or it could just be a name. My guess: it doesn’t really matter that much.