o Sovereignty.
THEME 1 o “A monopoly on the legitimate use of force (violence)” Max
Weber.
INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL
o France is a nation-state, a country and a nation.
RELATIONS o Wales is not a nation-state, but it is a country and a nation.
o France has sovereignty, Wales does not.
WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (IR)?
Globalisation
• Academic discipline.
o The growing interconnectedness and integration of people and
• The study of international events and phenomena.
countries across the world.
• Aim to understand and explain international events and
o It is a process of defined by the rapid and easy flow of goods,
phenomena.
services, finance, technology, people, diseases and ideas
• Concerns everything about how human beings have organised our
across borders.
world.
• It drives world politics across borders - concerns states and
increasingly concerned with individuals and international
THEME 2
organisations.
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
‘international relations’
o “international relations”: describes relations between states, KEY TERMS
organisations and individuals at the global level. State
o “global politics” o Defined geographical or territorial boundaries
o “world politics” o Central government or administration.
o “international politics” o A state has sovereignty - right to govern in its borders as it sees
fit.
Nation-state/state
o Defined geographical/territorial boundaries.
o Central government/administration.
, o The state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force o Power is decentralised and there are no shred institutions that
(violence) - the state has a right to have an army and a police have the power to enforce rules.
force and to use weapons in conflict. o Anarchy is the organising feature of the state system.
Sovereignty Diplomacy
o Exclusive right to govern own territory and act in relation to o Practices to regulate international politics peacefully.
other territories as one sees fit - o Europe was permanently at war for hundreds of years and
o States that are sovereign are equal in the eyes of the law and diplomacy emerged as a way to manage relations between
they have the same rights and obligations. states in a peaceful manner without having to go to war.
o A state is free from interference in its domestic affairs by o Diplomatic practices: dispatching ambassadors, negotiating to
another state. resolve disputes, sharing intelligence.
o Theoretically states should be equal and have no interference,
but what happens is other states try and often succeed in THE RISE OF THE SOVEREIGN STATE
interfering in the affairs of weaker states. • Eurocentric view of world history - we came to understand the
o Judicially equal and have same rights and obligations. organisation of the world through a European state system.
• The view of how the world and state came to be is based on the
Anarchy history and experiences of different groups of people from Europe.
o Is the organising principle of the Westphalian system which is • In IR, the development of the international system is traced back to
defined by anarchy. There is no supreme, sovereign, coercive the emergence of the European state system.
power that can resolve disputes among states in international • The way in which the change in the organisation of Europeans
politics. society from diverse medieval political entities to the Westphalian
o There is no international government that can make states do state emerged in 1648.
things. • The Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire dominated
o Because there is no central government that resolves disputes Europe.
between states, each state has to look after its own security and
to protect itself from other states.
,Ringmar “The political system of medieval Europe was thus a curios
o He states that international relations is all of the events, combination of the local and the universal”
phenomena, people and news that we hear about what is - Ringmar (2017: 10)
happening in the world. E.g. all of the wars being fought,
negotiations, the way in which states are fighting and battling o In that relationship as equals, states engage with each other,
the virus. they engage in diplomatic relations, declare wars, negotiate
o He says that thinking of the state is a good place to start when trade etc.
we think about IR and how we think about the various events o We can think of international politics as a world stage, like being
that happen in the world. in a theatre, where we think of states as the actors on the world
o States are the organising and central unit of international stage.
relations. o States determine in many ways, the way in which world politics
o There are 195 states in the world and all of those states are functions.
very different from each other - they are located in different o However, there are other actors that have become important on
places in the world, different kinds of governments and different the world stage e.g. NGO’s, international organisations,
kinds of people occupying the states. multinational corporations, philanthropists (e.g. Bill Gates).
o However, states share some common characteristics = within a o Over the years there have been many kinds of states e.g.
set territorial territory, surrounded by borders, have capital Athens, Sparta, Rome.
cities, have armies, have flags, have national anthems, and o The different states of the world used to be cities - organised
foreign ministries. polities and had their own types of policies within their territorial
o ALL STATES HAVE THE RIGHT TO CALL THEMSELVES boundaries.
SOVEREIGN - all states have exclusive rights to govern, within o In the medieval times in Europe (1300 & 1400), the state and
its borders, in whatever way it wants to. European politics were dominated by localized leaders, feudal
o States can also be sovereign in relation to each other - states lords, who dominated and ruled their estates as they saw fit.
are independent from each other and they can engage with o There were also cities made up of merchants the state was
other states as equals. ruled by the church (clerics and representatives of the Catholic
Church)
, CHANGE IN EUROPE o They wanted to form their own religious denomination that didn’t
- Within all these political entities, there was a lot of conflict that took take their orders from the Catholic Church in Rome, The
place - they were sometimes in constant conflict with each other Vatican.
because they were fighting wars and battles to try and have control o Each new church aligned themselves with the states that were
over each other’s territory. emerging in Europe.
- From the 14th century, the different types of all of these government o There was a split between the Catholic Church and the
systems began to be simplified and wat emerged is the state as the Protestant Churches that were the new Protestant
primary political entity. denominations formed. E.g. Lutheran, Presbyterian
- The state became the in-between = it was between the local politics o Before 1600, the borders and boundaries of Europe looked very
of individual chiefdoms within the feudal system and the universal different - Europe was mainly Roman Catholic and there was a
entity which was the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. shared religious view throughout Europe.
- States emerged as governing large territories of people by providing o After the Reformation, there were localised Christian
particular goods to those people which made the lives of those denominations that preached in the language of the area they
people easier. were in - they had a distinct identity from each other.
- States provided security, public goods, welfare etc. o These new formations were able to spread so quickly because
- States emerged because they were useful to people living in of the invention of the printing press.
particular territories in Europe.
The invention of the printing press:
The Reformation: 16th Century - The printing press allowed individual people to read the
o Was a major change in Europe in the 16th century. bible on their own because before the printing press made it
o This emerged because of the different types of Christianity that easier to print the written word, the people who had
separated themselves from the dominance of the Catholic dominance over writing were the priests and the monks of
Church. the Catholic Church.
o 1517 - the Reformation started with Martin Luther’s Ninety-five - Most people (feudal lords, peasants etc.) were illiterate and
Thesis. therefore, the religious leaders were the only ones who
o This thesis was a declaration of independence from the Catholic could read and interpret the bible for other people.
Church.
