Power Relations and War

Abstract

This article introduces the concepts of power relations of Michel Foucault, taking into account power and international relations. The framework of relationships between States is analysed, as well as relations themselves, both generated by the exercise of power. This article looks at the different paradigms in international relations and their evolution, linking them with Foucault’s point of view on power, war, repression or races. In this sense, the concept of race war is identified as the most extreme version of realist paradigm in international relations. Such war does not include necessary a biological concept, but refers to the process of identity imposition by the main dominant groups. However, neither realism nor its extreme version are the only existing paradigms. Reflectivism has crystallized as the result of the evolution of alternative visions to realism.