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 International Association of Political Science prof. Jacques Freymond spoke on March 5. 1967 at the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Prague about basic issues of international relations research studies.

He showed himself to be a follower of the traditional approach, characterized by a particularly historical one connections and long-term perspectives of development. As for the theory of international relationship, evaluated the vast majority of attempts to manage this issue so far as not very successful, very positively he only appreciated Raymond Aron's work Peace and War between Nations. He was also wary of new methodological approaches, typical of the United States. He acknowledged that they bring a lot new knowledge that we can, however, increase new and simpler to deduce with traditional approaches. Attempts to generalize and absolutize them often lead to distortions, coz documented for example on the theory of decision-making, group pressure, public mean and generally on the use of quantitative methods.