A very extensive summary of the lectures 1-7 of the Core Module - International Relations course. This contains everything that was discussed in the lectures and at the same time incorporates the literature. I completed the course with a 8.6 average and everything you need to know is in the summary...
Samenvatting 1 tm 7 IR core
Lecture 1 IR core
Introduction
IR as multilevel
Traditional IR theory such as realism and liberalism focus either entirely on the international
level, or they focus at interaction on the national level and international level.
• International politics
• National politics
Now it is:
➢ Transnational actors: transnational human rights organizations, transnational terrorist
organizations
➢ The emphasis is also on how these collectivities influence each other
➢ They don’t always all matter, that depends on the question
➢ For example: Zwarte Piet
➢ An example where international
advocacy groups (transnational
politics) influence subnational politics
➢ UN urges the Netherlands to stop
portrayals of ‘Zwarte Piet’
Changes in IR (post-Cold War):
• The rise of new actors and shifts in
power balances
o US hegemony declining
o The rise of China → reading Weiss:
▪ Is China really a threat to the international liberal order?
▪ Does China give a new model of authoritarianism to the world?
• The rise of new institutions or expansion of existing institutions such as the EU
o International Criminal Court
• New (types) of conflicts
, o During the Cold War it was about conflicts between states → now there is much
more attention for civil wars
o There has been a decline in war between countries
• New global threats
o Climate change
• Global pandemics/health threats
o Reading Johnson: problems with our passport → main question:
▪ Why have the WHO and scientific experts not been able to generate a
successful global response to the pandemic?
So, IR as multilevel:
• Multilevel IR as truly global political interaction
o Decision-making at different levels of collectivity
o Actions at one level influence outcomes at other levels
o Incentives for strategic behavior
o Different levels and forms of publicness, formality, hierarchy, and means of
politics influence
▪ More types of interactions, more questions possible
Part of the answer to the Johnson question:
Basically, these transnational science communities, scientists who are really connected globally,
how their advice is perceived is subjected to a great extent to domestic political manipulation.
Domestic actors have various reasons to misrepresent, use selectively what they are saying,
because it fits their own domestic political purposes and goals. This can sometimes undermine or
reduce the authority of the scientists.
Part of the answer to the Weiss question:
Countries like China show that you can have growth without democracy, this could lead to
imitation/learning effect/diffusion of authoritarianism in ways that is much more subtle than
China convinces other countries to copy directly what it is doing. China has a very nationalist
orientation.
IR space
➢ First dimension is the dimension that range from
perspectives or views of IR that emphasize
international order (liberalism) to perspectives that
emphasize IR as a struggle for power with states
as the primary actors (realism).
➢ Second dimension ranges from materialist/rationalist/positivist to
ideational/reflectivist/post-positivist
,o Materialist/ideational = question about ontology → do you care about
materialistic things like wealth or ideational things like democracy, freedom and
peace
o Rationalist/reflectivist = states are rational actors or actors in IR are much more
reflective in their actions → so not just a cost/benefit analysis but they also think
about the appropriateness of their actions (common in constructivist)
o Positivist/post-positivist = epistemological question → how can we study the
world? → positivist would say that I can study the world the way it is: what I see
is what I get → there is an objective reality out there that I can study while a post-
positivist would say that how we can study the world is always subjected to our
own positionality/perceptions → the constructs that structure how we think about
the world → more a reflective position
, Lecture 2 IR core
Globalization and the State in Multilevel IR
What is globalization?
• On the one hand, intuitive – more global connections → different, new connection with a
different quality
• On the other hand, debate over:
o Which aspects of life are really affected by globalization?
▪ Economic dimension: flows of trade, finance → globalization of capital
▪ Political aspects: big expansion of NGO’s and IGO’s
▪ Social/cultural perspective: information flows, cultural connections
o Territorial levels of connections → at what territorial level does globalization
unfold?
▪ Traditionally it is described as internationalization → more interaction
between states
▪ De-territorialized: globalization isn’t necessarily bound to a physical
territory
o Potential vs. actual connections/interactions: is it about the potential interactions
or about the actual manifestation of those interactions?
▪ Trade flows have materialized → but it might also matter if countries are
open to trade flows in the first place → should openness to globalization
also count or do we need to focus only on what is actually already
materializing?
o What manifestations of globalization should we look at and emphasize? Is it
about: frequency, speed, intensity, nature of those interactions?
• Globalization as a contested concept (Scholte 2007)
Four different conceptual definitions of globalization (Scholte):
1. Globalization as internationalization → traditional
o Focus on increase in interactions between states
2. Globalization as liberalization → this view forms opposition against globalization
o Suggests that globalization is only about liberalization of trade, Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI), finance
o Neoliberal economic ideology is associated in advocating this particular type of
globalization
o Not just states as actors, but also multinational corporations → more IR as
multilevel
o Critique: why do we need a new world for something that is actually the same as
liberalization?
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