This document provides a complete summary lectures 8-12 of the core module International relations. It includes all readings and lecture content for the second IR quiz.
International Relations
Lectures 8-12
Lecture 8: Security between states 2
Posen 1993: The security dilemma and ethnic conflict 10
Fazal and Poast 2019: War is not over: What the Optimists Get Wrong About Conflict 16
Lecture 9: From old to new wars - Civil wars 18
Kalyvas and Balcells 2010: International System and Technologies of Rebellion 25
Kaldor 1999: New and old wars chapter 1 and 2 31
Lecture 10: Terrorism 36
De la Calle and Sánchez Cuenca 2011: What We Talk About When We Talk About Terrorism
45
Meier 2019: Identity, law and how political elites define terrorism 50
Lecture 11: Peacekeeping and Peace building 51
Autesserre 2012: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences 59
De coning 2020: Principled peacekeeping works 65
Lecture 12: (Guest lecture Robert Nagel) Gender and International Security (Talking to the
shameless? Sexual violence and mediation in civil wars) 67
Locher and Prügl 2001: Feminism and Constructivism: Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle
Ground? 73
Sjoberg and Peet 2011: Targeting women in wars (Eva) 76
,Lecture 8: Security between states
What we are talking about
● Why are conflicts between states still important?
● Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in 2020
○ The concern dates back 30 years or more
○ At the time the Soviet Union collapsed this conflict became more intense
○ The conflict was over a population of Armenians in an enclave in Azerbaijan
○ Back then Armenia had more power but last year Azerbaijan managed to take
back some of their territory
● Why should we care?
○ 5000 people died
○ But also international involvement
■ Turkey allied with Azerbaijan
■ Russia allied with Armenia (the reason why it managed to stop)
Security - A fuzzy concept
● Latin sine cura → “without worries”
● Security as “a low probability of damage to acquired values” (Baldwin 1997: 485)
● Defining security
○ Whose security?
■ Traditionally → security of states (leaders also)
■ Challenge to tradition → security of groups and people in general
○ From which threats?
■ Basic level → security from war (physically secure)
■ Other perspective → secure from hunger, economic well being etc.
■ Even broader → secure from diseases (Covid)
○ For which values? (would we pursue to achieve security)
■ Should it be about order?
■ Also about freedom, justice, wealth etc?
○ Objective or subjective security?
■ Crime statistics or subjectivist security (do i feel secure)
○ How much security?
○ By what means?
○ At what cost?
Defining war and conflict
2
, ● “War, to be abolished, must be understood. To be understood, it must be studied.”
(Deutsch, 1970: 473)
● What counts as a war?
○ Massacres? The Cold War? Cyber war?
● Conceptual definition → “War is organized violence carried on by political units against
each other.” (Bull, 1983: 184).
○ Key values:
■ Organised violence
■ Political actors
■ Reciprocity
○ But this is not specific enough for empirical trends
● Operational definition (UCDP data)
○ Intensity threshold (intensity of fighting):
■ War >1,000 fatalities per year
■ Armed conflict >25 fatalities per year
Empirical trends
● Organised violence in pre-modern era
○ So lets compare the current period to earlier times (is it more or less violent)
○ Some claim pre modern times were more violent
■ e.g. medieval times, the bible etc.
○ Historians and sociologists → pre modern societies didn’t have the infrastructure
to engage in mass violence
■ The argument of the state growing because of its war making capacity is
consistent with this view (Tilly)
● Wars since 1816 (incidence)
○ Very western bias data
○ What we see in the figure below:
■ Quite rare especially for interstate war
3
, ● Wars and conflict since 1945 (incidence)
○ Pay attention to the black bars → there is a decrease in the incidence of conflict
between countries
● Battle deaths in war since 1816 (incidence) → intensity of war
○ We see how much the world wars are outliers
○ But comparing before and after world wars → wars have become more lethal
after the world wars (but they do not consider increase in population)
4
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller bapolisci. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $10.73. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
