HIR: introduction
Vraag 3 beantwoorden + enkele woordjes nog zoeken
Kernwoorden: Corps diplomatique, interdependence, liberal values, globalization, multinationals,
cosmopolitans, European Concert, Henry Kissinger, Mahatma Ghandi, predisposition, Paul
Kennedy, distribution of power, Robert Dahl, polity, capitalism, protectionism, Pericles of Athens,
Harry Truman, Xi Jinping, Hans Morgenthau, perennial, sovereignty, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Peace of Westphalia, League of Nations, Sun Tzu, realism, Soviet Union.
Questions
Henry Kissinger: The famous American statesman noted that there are core business of world
politics. Even if the international agenda has been broadened by environmental issues and matters
as trivial as the curve of bananas, it is still diplomacy that bears an enormous responsibility when
situations of great peril arise. This explains why diplomacy has remained such a weighty business
mystical almost.
World politics is again poised precariously at a tipping point. At one end of the balance sits a large
crowd of cosmopolitans insists that the bloody history of great power politics has ended and that
major wars have become much less likely. Competition, such reasoning continues, is much less likely
to spark major wars because of economic interdependence. This opinion was particularly dominant
in politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991: in China, which has designed the doctrine
of peaceful rise; and in the United States of America, where conservatives and progressives alike
have championed a foreign policy premised on liberal values. At the other end sit the many who
believe that the free and open world has not benefited them, that globalization is responsible for
economic turbulence, and that both migrants and multinationals are a threat. They are angry and
rally around strong nationalistic leaders. They want to be protected against a world of injustice and
insecurity.
1. What are the main layers of this book? Make your own scheme.
A. The history of power distribution
o Robert Dahl: power is the ability to make people do what they otherwise
would not have done
o For a polity or state this has both an internal and also an external dimension
Internal = power on its citizens
External = power on the politicies
o Power has two aspects:
Inputs or capabilities: a polity’s capabilities can be measured in
terms of its land and natural resources, its treasure, its military
power, its political system, its legitimacy as a state, and so forth.
Outputs or effective influence: these are never static, but their
relative distribution among polities shapes the balance of power at
any one point in time.
o Rise and fall of empires
B. History of political organization
o Openness >< isolationism
o Kind of political system:(in)direct empire, democracy…