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International Relations Lecture Notes 1-12
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Lecture notes from International Relations course in BA International Studies. Notes are from lectures 1 through 12.
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International RelationsLecture 1:
Changing Nature of global politics, Order (Power), actors, issues and ideas
IR Challenging mix of power shifts, normative competition (ideas), and a confusing variety of
new and old actors (states, IO’s, NGO’s, individuals), new and old issues, and the paradoxes of
globalization (the challenges of connectivity) in world politics.
1) Power Transition and Global Order
- Liberal order varied across time, space and domain, was never universally liberal,
‘ordered’ or global, so what is at stake: fate of neoliberalism, liberal internationalism,
the ‘global liberal order,’ a rules-based world, multilateralism, etc.
- Nexus between international ‘order’ is power relations is key but complex: from
bipolarity to unipolarity (US hegemony), to multipolarity – but order is always ‘multi-
layered’: ideological, material (power) and moral issues create ever more complex and
diverse ‘order’ and forms of co-existence and cooperation by states, international
organizations, businesses and societies (NGOs).
From the Cold War, to the ‘post-cold war to the ‘post-post-cold war’
2) Paradoxes of Globalization: Convergence and Divergence
Connectivity as a catalyst for division and conflict?
- Globalization ‘going wild’: Neoliberalism; financial crisis of 2007-2008; Eurozone Crisis
(from 2009), and its discontents (polarization).
- Difference between and within countries increase and emphasized, shaped by a large
variety of ideological, cultural, national developments: migration, the rise of
nationalism, ‘ethnic’ and ‘identity politics’, varieties of democracy, of authoritarianism,
of capitalism…
3) New/ Old Actors, Issues and Ideas
- Actors: About the state, non-state actors/ NGO’s, international organizations;
transnational corporations, sub-state, supra-state (regionalization) and global
governance.
- Power diffusion: From states to non-state actors (from the public to private sphere).
States share the global stage with evermore other actors
- From the ‘withdrawal’ or ‘crisis’ of the state (1990s) to its resurgence of the state
(Russia, China, USA: state capitalism, protectionism and the EU: Euroscepticism) and the
weakness of absence of the state (Ukraine, Middle East, Central and Horn of Africa).
- Future of global and regional institutions (multilateralism).
New/ Old issues in International Relations: Technology, Climate, Health
Emerging, interconnected and cascading transnational challenges: Health, climate change,
and technological change redefine traditional notions as power, sovereignty, security etc.
Health (pandemic)
, Climate and IR
Interconnected consequences within and between communities and countries:
- Magnifies socioeconomic inequalities and conflict, within and between communities,
regions and countries
- Impacts on international relations (Africa, Central Asia) and on multilateralism
Technology
Technological change and the complex and disrupting effect on domestic and international
stability
Domestic: Imbalance between private companies and governments
International: Cyberspace is a major factor in global power shifts
Proliferation, control and confidence-building in cyber arms race
(Dis)information and the future of sovereignty
Ideas (normative competition)
Global Politics ideas follow power
West losing its material dominance and its ideational primacy liberalism, universalism, human
rights etc.
Lecture 2: The Politics of IR Theory
What is the relation between IR theory and international history?
Why is it that IR theory uses international history?
What causes great powers to back out of an asymmetrical war?
War, death, sacrifice—tragedy as a way to reconcile with what has happened.
Thucydides: For the future generations.
Machiavelli: Use history to think about the future.
Nature is made by god, and is therefore unknowable.
History is made by men, and is therefore knowable.
What is the relation between IR and International History?
When something happens it doesn’t happen because of god’s will but by the actions of a
person.
Causality X causes Y, enable one to act differently in the future.
- One seeks to theorize because one wishes to go beyond fatalism
If one wishes to avoid the outbreak of war in the future, then the study of what causes war in
the last great war becomes crucial.
IR theorists draw on historical lessons from the Peloponnesian War, history of European
state-formation and diplomatic history.
Explanatory theory generalized causal propositions.
,Historians wouldn’t make a causal claim about historical events (Unlike IR theorists).
Why would IR theorists want to make a causal claim?
Has a lot to do with the science-envy, of wanting to theorize the social phenomena such as
war and peace in the way one studies natural phenomena.
Social Science Scientific hypothesis, test, replication, verification
IR theorists are often criticized for doing poor history
- Too much simplification Number of factors leading to war
- IR theorists are using the category in a sloppy way (ie. Democratic peace theory) Idea
that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict against each other.
- Much of IR theory was based on the historical experience of Euro-America and the male
perspective (postcolonial critique, feminist critique).
- ‘Cold War’ in Europe was a ‘hot war’ elsewhere
- Golden age for a particular region is a dark age for another
- Modernization theory and the Cold War.
American Social Science: IR theory’s proximity to power
If the hegemon acts upon the theory, it does impact reality.
US intervention, a regime change for a leader who is friendly to the West
- When is it cultural imperialism? Another civilizing mission?
The so called ‘great debates’
IR theory and International History
Standard narrative is that it arose after World War 1.
1)1930s and 1950s liberal internationalists vs Realists (is peaceful cooperation possible?).
2) 1960s, behavioralists vs traditionalists (can one develop an objective law of IR?).
Theory’s role in simplifying the world
Structural Realism
Disciplinary attempt at establishing its own domain
- Theory should be elegant and parsimonious
- Theory should be testable
- Theory born out of the Cold War
Classical Realism:
- Human Nature-nature rather than nurture
- Human ego, selfishness, survival instinct, egotistical
- Hobbes: ‘Life is nasty, brutish, and short.’
Liberal view:
‘Humans are governed by reason, can develop and reason’
Progressive view of history
Waltz: If war is caused by human nature and peace is also caused by human nature, human
nature cannot explain anything toss it out
, If not man, or the state, then?
It is the structure (thus structural realism) – derived from two conditions
1) The world is anarchical
- This is what differentiates the domain of international politics from domestic politics
2) One wants to survive
This is what characterizes the structure of international politics
State actor is shaped by this structure.
Adam Smith invisible hand everyone doing their own thing
Constructivism:
Theory that focuses on normative identity and perceptions of the world, ie. Green energy
policies are constructivist due to new norms of sustainability.
Rousseau’s stag hunt
- Group of villagers go on a stag hunt to avoid starvation
- Everyone is scattered apart in the forest, and there is no means of communication with
one another
- You come across a rabbit
- You are tempted to catch and eat the rabbit. You are also not sure if others are going to
stick to the plan.
- There is no enforcer of the rule (global police) that would punish the defector.
- Even if cooperation is the best outcome, if the actor is rational and seeks survival under
anarchy, then one’s personality doesn’t matter
- One is bound to look after her self-interest and survival, eat the rabbit, and fail to
cooperate with the rest
- Those who do not follow the logic of anarchy (ie. Not look after oneself) eliminates
oneself
- Structure of international politics result in state acting alike (self-seeking, cannot
cooperate).
- For structural realists, bipolar order is more stable than multipolarity.
Alexander Wendt Social Theory of International Politics
- Maybe it’s in our heads? Ideas Matter?
- Material structure alone cannot be everything
- A knife in the hands of your mother cutting an apple is different than a knife in hands of
a stranger you have never met.
Lecture 3: Cold War
1) Why the Cold War?
- Preceded and deeply influenced 21st century global politics and study of it
- Cold War is integrally related to other global historic development: decolonization,
expansion and fall of communism, European integration, technological advance etc.
- Cold War was a global conflict but meant different things to different peoples in
different parts of the world.
2) Cold War: Major historiographical interpretations
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