International relations (IR) or international affairs, depending on academic institution, is either a field of political science or an interdisciplinary academic field similar to global studies, in which students take a variety of internationally focused courses in social science and humanities disciplines. In both cases, the field studies relationships among countries, the roles of sovereign states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), international non-governmental organizations (INs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). International relations is an academic and a public policy field, and so can be positive and normative, because it analyzes and formulates the foreign policy of a given State.