Notes of the required readings (Textbook chapters, journal articles and so on) for the course International Relations (2nd year, 2nd semester International Studies)
Lecture 1 - Introduction: from International Relations to International Studies or How to
Study a Rapidly Changing World?
Reading: Heywood, Global Politics, Chapter 1 (Introducing Global Politics).
realist approach to history:
- similarities between historical eras more substantial than differences
- power politics, conflict and the likelihood of war (though, by no means, endless war) are
inescapable facts of history
→ history repeats itself endlessly, because:
1. human nature does not change: humans are egotistical and power-seeking
creatures, given to lusts and impulses that cannot be restrained by reason or moral
considerations
2. history is shaped by self-interested political units (empires, nation-states etc.) of one
kind or another → basic behaviour in terms of rivalry (potentially or actually) with
other political units never changes
3. anarchy is an enduring fact of history, an assumption sometimes referred to as
‘anarcho centrism’
liberal approach to history:
- history marches forwards as human society achieves higher and higher levels of
advancement
- progress involves a transition from power-seeking behaviour, in which aggression and
violence are routinely used as tools of state policy, to a condition characterised by
cooperation and peaceful co-existence, brought about by economic interdependence, the
emergence of an international rule of law and the advance of democracy
Critical approach to history:
- Marxist theory of history – ‘historical materialism – emphasizes that the primary driving
forces in history are material or economic factors
- history moves forwards from one ‘mode of production’ to the next, working its way through
primitive communism, slavery, feudalism and capitalism and eventually leading to the
establishment of a fully communist society, history’s determinant end point
→ historical stages would collapse under the weight of their internal contradictions,
manifest in the form of class conflict
- Poststructuralists employ style of historical thought called ‘genealogy’, attempting to
expose hidden meanings and representations in history that serve the interests of
domination and exclude marginalized groups and peoples
- Social constructivists criticise materialism in emphasising the power of ideas, norms and
values to shape world history
- Feminists have sometimes highlighted continuity, by portraying patriarchy as a historical
constant, found in all historical and contemporary societies
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,Reading: Duncombe, Constance and Tim Dunne (2018), After Liberal World Order, In
International Affairs 94: 1, pp.25–42.
- Three interrelated dimensions identifiable in pattern of liberal world order:
1. Internationalism
2. Integration
3. Imperialism
- term ‘order’ signals something purposive
- Term ‘world’ functions to fix level of analysis that is either state-centric or world-systemic
- orders have to be understood as coming together of ‘power and legitimate social purpose’
→ elements become fused to project political authority into international system
World order challenged in fundamental ways through:
1. Crisis of authority
- US as key international actor responsible for progressive development of
international order is not committed to liberal values, in rhetoric or in practice,
leadership of order is fundamentally questioned
- US ‘war on terror’, invasion Afghanistan → disengagement liberal values
→ global liberal ambitions of the US and other powerful western states are challenged by ‘persistent
development failure, potent identity-based mobilisations, “illiberal democracies”, as well as the rise
of transnational Islamic insurgency’, which compounds the hypocrisy of illiberal practices by western
powers
2. ‘The rise of the rest’
- ‘rise of the rest’: non-western powers such as China, India and Russia, and
interrelations between emerging economies
- Openness and rule-based relations as hallmarks liberal institutionalism could give
way to more contested and fragmented system of blocs, spheres of influence,
mercantilist networks, and regional rivalries
- Material shifts in economic and military power from West to East provide the
preconditions for intense security competition that risk bringing an end to the era of
peace among major powers
- economic power of China and India emphasises the growing role of non-
western states in global governance, particularly in relation to the
international financial institutions and monetary system
- Instability arises when the power of the hegemon erodes and new powers balance
or bandwagon against it, creating ‘power-political tensions’
- Realists argue that rising powers will seek regional domination first before
potentially seeking global military hegemony
Modernization theory
- Liberal modernization theory: common pathway to modernity
Critical modernization theory:
- continued polarization of wealth in the global economy throughout the twentieth century as
evidence that markets do not distribute wealth and resources equally
- expansion of global capitalism as preventing some states from taking a guaranteed ‘place
within the dominant networks of the global economy OR inequality between states emerges
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, because of their integration into the global economic system, not as a result of their
exclusion from it
- Circuits of trade established throughout colonial rule entrenched deep inequalities in global
system → market forces eroded the power of the state and at the same time have increased
economic disparities worldwide
- Ability of state to protect citizen declined bc forces of neo-liberal globalisation
dissolved private/public divide → ideas/values market are enmeshed with practices
social life
- rising global inequalities are intimately connected to deregulation, privatization and the
increasing disciplinary power of multinational corporations, undermining the sovereign state
and replacing its authority with hyperliberal competitiveness in the global market
Ordering modalities: Internationalism
- What emerged from the chaos and misery of the Second World War was ‘a loose array of
multilateral institutions in which the United States provided public goods’ such as free trade,
access to credit, freedom of the seas and security guarantees
- Self-determination: global international society enables a multiplicity of diverse
cultures and beliefs to coexist, each conception of ‘the good life’ being protected by
the rights of all states to non-interference in their respective domestic jurisdictions
- Intensification of international integration since end Cold War
- Integration describes the characteristics of liberal ordering that are non-intentional:
ordering that happens because of convergent institutional procedures, individuals
playing roles, the spread of universal standards, forging of a common sense that is
somehow above politics
- Regulatory regimes and institutions established governance standards across
domains global politics (trade, military, human rights etc.) → binding mechanism →
shift away from interstate model to transgovernmentalism
Ordering modalities: Imperialism
- imperial rule has been a means by which liberal ideas of markets, individualism and scientific
rationality have been socialized beyond their European origins
- ‘imperial temptation’ continued to inform the hierarchy that characterized international
order in the post-1945 era
- When local laws do not support the goals of UN governance, they are subject to
pressures to reform in the best interest of the international community
Humanitarianism after liberalism
- Humanitarianism carries within it a duty of care to protect, and relieve the suffering of,
distant others
- key point is the understanding of what constitutes a basic right → the demand for the
fulfilment of that right that transcends any imposed boundaries of territory, nationality,
ethnicity, religion or gender
- globalization of markets has led to increased competition between humanitarian
organizations for the limited financial resources provided by the UN, donor states and their
general publics.
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, - Humanitarian governance is thus intertwined with the organization of global
markets, which have perpetuated massive economic inequalities contributing to the
poverty of the ‘bottom billion’
- humanitarianism acts to legitimize an unequal distribution of power through governance
practices that reinforce political conditionality → ideology and practice of humanitarian
action coexist in parallel and are sometimes functional to the logic of Empire
Conclusion
Tensions of emergence of internationalist ideas
- internationalists have believed it possible to conjoin nationalism with cosmopolitan
sensibilities → states were seldom able to act that way
- Tension between norms and power
- Values require uneven distribution of responsibilities with Great Powers required to
do ‘heavy lifting’ → they are reluctant to take on role unless doing so is in clear
alignment with their own national interests
- internationalism continues to be vulnerable to the argument that the mission to ‘govern the
world’ ends up reinscribing hierarchical forms of order ‘in which some states are more
sovereign than others, and [which] justify deep intrusions into the domestic affairs of others
on the grounds that they collectively stand for the principle of “legal order”’
2. Lecture - the politics of IR theory
Reading: Heywood, Global Politics, Chapters 3 & 21 (Theories of Global Politics & Why
Theory Matters).
Chapter 3: Theories of Global Politics
- theory in academic study = kind of abstract or generalized thinking that seeks to explain,
interpret or evaluate something
three types of theory:
1. explanatory theory
- helps to explain why, and under what circumstances, events happen or
developments unfold
- embody generalized causal propositions, which can be tested against ‘hard’
evidence
- mainstream perspectives on global politics tend to use theory in this sense
2. interpretive theory
- imposes meaning on events or issues, attempting to understand, rather than
explain, the world
- emphasizes that human reflection is a social process, and treats the ‘real world’ as a
series of competing truths or interpretations
- associated with critical perspectives of global politics
3. normative theory
- prescribes values and standards of conduct; it deals with what ought to be, rather
than with what is
- all empirical theories of global politics are underpinned, at some level, by normative
considerations
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