Kvantitativne metode i međunarodni politički odnosi
Quantitative Methods and International Political Relations

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the possibilities of applying quantitative methods to the investigation of international political relations. It is suggested that the relatively recent origins of that scientific discipline, the abundance of relevant phenomena and the lack of a universally accepted method provide scope for a continua! search for effective methods to gain control over this profusion of material. Reference is made to the discussion conducted between the so-called traditionalist and behaviourist schools in the theory of international relations. Outlining the significance and extent of this controversy, the author considers the positions of the individual schools, stressing in particular that the champions of quantitative methods have a specific vision of the place and role of the science of international relations. An integral survey of international relations, the insight in the dynamic processes occurring every day in the international environment, and the identification of their true background, all of this is made possible only by the method of dialectic materialism, which must be the point of departure of all Marxist examination and study of international relations. It is a research method suitable for the formulation of the theory of international political relations. Despite certain simplifications, and .even distortion, of data, quantitative methods are nevertheless applicable in some cases. The quantification of phenomena in international relations is not feasible to such an extent as in some other social sciences. This, however, does not preclude the use of this method in the investigation of particular aspects or individual phenomena in international political relations. Marxist science •of international relations, which has its own method and a well- -defined subject of research, recognizes the suitability of quantitative methods in the examination of particular topics, as a supplementary tool in the establishment and comparison of certain facts.

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