Lecture notes
PO219 (Theories of International Relations) - Notes (Term 2)
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- The University Of Warwick (UoW)
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PO219 (Theories of International Relations) - Notes (Term 2)Week 1: Theorising Warfare
(1) Warfare: any form of armed and organised physical conflict
× Wright (A Study of War 1964): “violent contact of distinct but similar entities”
× Van Clausewitz (On War 1982): “act of violence intended to compel our opponents to fulfil our own will”
- evolution: state-interested in territories/using taxation to fund the military/impacting soldiers ® private-interested in
ideologies/using external sources to fund decentralised terrorists/impacting civilians
- ex. American Revolution (1776-1783), French Revolution & Napoleon 1st (1789-1815) ® Syrian War (2011-Present)
(2) Strategic culture: analytical lens used to understand the motivations of a state’s actions underlying historical events
× Gray (Strategic Culture as Context 1999): “persisting but changing socially transmitted behaviour and preferred
methods of operation of a geographically based security community that has had a unique historical experience”
× Berger (The Limits of Social Cohesion 1998): “cultural beliefs influencing how external forces are perceived and
addressed by society”
× Chappell (Poland in Transition 2010): “interpreting historical events is key to understanding the development of
strategic culture”
(3) Role theory: social constructivism of international interactions as social positions amongst a group in which roles
constitute actors in a master-slave relationship
× Aggestam (A European Foreign Policy? 2004): “a role reflects norms and ideas about the purpose and orientation
of the state entity and as an actor in the international system”
- role expectations: roles international community expect a state to adopt
- role conceptions: own understanding of the role to be played
- role performance: conceptions + communication = defence policy
Bleiker (Can we move beyond conflict? 2009)
(1) Intractable conflicts: deeply historical antagonisms that lower prospects for peace
- ex. Ancient Roman Empire - Byzantine Empire war = Christian European West - Muslim Ottoman East
- ex. Korean War (1950-1953): capitalist South - communist North confrontation (entrenched in societal consciousness)
(2) Campbell (National Deconstruction 1998):
- roots of violence = recent political manipulations in unique political/social/historical settings
- ex. Balkan Wars (1991-1999): politics opposed multiculturalism and generated fear for power
- intractable conflicts = seemingly unresolvable but can give a way to peaceful situations
- ex. Cold War (1947-1991): capitalist West - communist East (confrontation led to ideologically unipolar world ®
conclusion: 189 countries signed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970)
(3) Confrontation: military threats/economic sanctions which do not exclude negotiations (diplomacy has a supporting role)
- Noland (Avoiding the Apocalypse 2000): “if the North Korean regime is redeemable (…) should not the rest of the world
act to hasten its demise”
- ex. Bush First State of the Union (2001): “rogue states” threat against North Korea, Venezuela, Syria Iran, Sudan, Iran
(4) Engagement: dialogue rather than diplomatic approach to determine common peaceful policies
- (1) Recognition - Ricoeur (Imagination, Testimony and Trust 1999): “acknowledging that the history of an event involves a
conflict of several interpretation opens up the future”
- (2) Forgiveness - Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil 1886): “breaking with the past in order to live”
- (3) Factual History - Hoang (Interviews with teachers 2002): “determining a common past in textbooks”
Kaldor (New and Old Wars 2012):
(1) Definitions:
- post-modern war: transformation of political wars into transnational organised crimes for private profits and emerging in the
1980s-1990s in Africa and East Europe from the end of the Cold War (ex. surplus arms, singular ideology)
- post-modern conflict: transformation of military affairs into social relations of warfare influenced by technology
(2) Characteristics:
- multiplicity of actors: international agencies (ex. NGOs), international organisations (ex. UNICEF)
- factors: ¯ (1) political autonomy (2) taxation revenues (3) civility and barbarity distinction (4) spread of paramilitaries
- identity politics: local identities (exclusive values) - cosmopolitan identities (inclusive, universal, multicultural values)
- guerrilla warfare: expansion through “soft controls” (political, economic, cultural measures) rather than military advance
- globalised war economy: decentralised economies need external resources to maintain growth
Week 2: Theorizing the post-Cold War era
, (1) Post-Cold War era:
Dates: Fall of the Berlin Wall (November 1989) - Belavezha Accords (December 1991): URSS Dissolution (Russian,
Ukraine, Belarusian Independence)
- Challenges: (1) Unipolar to Multipolar world (2) Inter-State (Post-French Revolution) to Ideological (Cold War) to Ethnical
conflicts
- Goodman (Tobacco in History 1990): “culture is reduced in this theory to a mere ideology manipulated by elites to mystify
their workers and maintain allegiances and loyalty in order to boost profits”
- Street (Culture is a verb 1993): “Culture is a verb”
(2) Huntington (The clash of civilizations? 1993):
(1) Economic modernization separate from long-standing local identities and weaken the nation-state as identity
(2) Economic regionalism promotes internal civilization-consciousness (ex: 1980-1990: 50% to 59% EU internal trade)
(3) Intensified interaction increase civilization consciousness and awareness
(4) Western weakening and return to the roots are incentive to non-west reshaping of the world
(5) Cultural differences stagnation are less easily mutable and hence resolved than political/economic ones
(6) Compromise from fundamental differences of nature produced during centuries (ex. religious fundamentalism)
(3) Criticism:
- Cloud (To veil the threat of terror 2004): white man’s burden: theoretical division between civilised western civilisation and
savage other civilisations to ultimately justify costly interventionism
- Noam Chomsky (Failed States 2006): failed state: disintegration of a state political body such that sovereign government no
longer function properly and standard of living declines
- Jackson (Quasi-States 1993): quasi state: “states that possess juridical statehood but lack of empirical statehood” (post-
colonial states lack of national ethnical cohesion and ability to protect economic and social rights)
(4) Implications:
US National Security Strategy Report (2002): “We are now more threatened by failing states than conquering ones” ®
Helman & Ratner (Saving Failed States 1993): call for interventionism (United Nations)
Doyle (Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs 1983): Democratic Peace Theory: "theory of peace" outlining that
democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies
Huntington (The clash of civilizations? 1993):
(1) Definitions:
- clash of civilizations: inevitable global inter-civilizational conflict that will emerge in the space left vacant by political
ideologies from the fall of the Soviet Union (December 1991) and from each six civilization’s fight for its cultural and
religious pre-eminence constructed through “common objective elements and the subjective self-identification of people”
- civilization: cultural entity which distinguishes humans from other species from common objective elements and their
subjective self-identification
- thesis: "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or
economic (…) but cultural”
(2) Fault lines: border separating civilisations from the fault line wars emerging from cultural and religious differences
- ex. “Cold War began with an Iron Curtain that divided politically and ideologically (…) and ended with the Iron Curtain”
(3) Kin-country syndrome: tendency for each civilizational area member to become involved in wars affecting its neighbours
regardless of traditional balance of power considerations as the principal basis for coalitions
- ex. Gulf War (1990-1991) and Invasion of Iraq (2003-2011) rallying of Arab elites to Saddam Hussein
- ex. Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) intervention of fascist, communist and democratic countries ® Yugoslav Wars (1991-
2001): intervention of Muslim, Orthodox and Western Christian countries
(4) West versus the rest:
- peak of power: Military (ex. UN Security Council), Economic (ex. IMF, WB), Ideological (ex. “world community”
euphemism of "free world")
- torn countries: countries including different civilizations being candidates for dismemberment
- ex. Russian elites divided on adoption of Western/Eurasian values
Said (The Clash of Ignorance 2001):
(1) historical determinism: Henri Pirenne (Mohammed and Charlemagne 1939): European civilisation (Germany and
Carolingian France) historic mission of defence against cultural enemies (Islam)
(2) ideology: Bernard Lewis (The Roots of Muslim Rage 1990): West/Islam manichaean personification assuming hidden
loyalties and denying positive exchanges/cross-fertilization
(3) sealed-off identity and civilisation: definition is impossible since internal dynamics and plurality
(4) generalisations: September 11 2001 pathologically motivated attack assimilated to Islamic civilisation
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