Studying international relationships

Studying all the exchanges, transactions, contacts, flows of information and meaning, and the attending and resulting behavioural responses between and among separated organized societies, including their components. Such study usually deals with actors (states, governments, leaders, diplomats, peoples) striving to attain certain ends, using means (such as war, diplomacy, coercion, persuasion) which are related to their power or capability. International relations is also a branch of political science concerned with relations between political units of national rank and dealing primarily with foreign policies, the organization and function of governmental agencies concerned with foreign policy, and the economic, geographic and other factors underlying such policies.