Vital Interests
LECTURE 1: What are vital interests? 1
LECTURE 2: Power and security of the state 3
LECTURE 3: agenda-setting and framing 6
LECTURE 4: global governance 8
LECTURE 6: Environment and climate change 13
LECTURE 7: guest lecture International Climate Negotiations 19
LECTURE 8: War and peace 22
LECTURE 9: guest lecture war and peace 25
LECTURE 10: Global Cyber Security 29
LECTURE 11: Global cyber security II 32
LECTURE 12: states and pandemics I 34
LECTURE 13: guest lecture states and pandemics II 40
LECTURE 14: wrap up 41
LECTURE 1: What are vital interests?
- protection from harm against acquired values
- acquired values: what defines high value
- harm: as a result of actor and/or circumstances
- protection: priority, means, organisation
- Subjective - objective
- is there a hierarchy of ‘vitalness’
- who gets to say what’s vital
What the state protects - temporary definition of vital interests
The protective state - Ansell
- the most basic form of protection: against threats - foreign invaders, public disorder, water,
etc
- from the late 9th century onwards the state’s idea of protection becomes more and more
encompassing
- protection is always a trade-off with freedom
How preventive is the state?
- eliminating accidents and tragedy, spread of prevention
- prevention and pre-emption
The many faces of risk
- the state protects against risk, but also uses it as a governance technique
, - risk and collective versus individual responsibility
Security and securitization
- security as raison d’etre of the state, but an expansive concept
- safety versus security, internal versus external security
Protection as a moving target
Protection is politics
- power politics
- framing and agenda-setting
- governance
protection is layered
- history adds layers to protection
- technology adds layers to protection
- globalisation adds layers to protection
Globalisation and vital interests
> not all protection can be organised at the national level
> not all vital interests can be achieved at the national level
> International cooperation is sometimes needed to avoid problems (global public bads) or to
safeguard an interest (public goods)
from national to global
> the global arena lacks a government (singular)
> the global arena requires thinking about ‘the public’ (who are beneficiaries, who are the free
riders)
> what is global public? countries? socio-economic groups? generations?
global public goods as vital interests
> benefit a large international public (nonrival and non-exclusive)
> benefits must be quasi-universal in terms of countries, people and generations
- more than one country, etc
Pure public goods: are non-rivalrous in consumption and non-excludable
Impure public goods: goods that only partly meet either or both of the criteria
> club goods (non-rivalrous in consumption but excludable)
> common pool resources (mostly non-excludable, but rivalrous in consumption)
Supply problems and collective action problems
> free-rider problem: why contribute if it is non-excludable
> tragedy of the commons: why limit yourself if you are not sure others will
> prisoners dilemma: lack of information leads to a collective suboptimal outcome
pure global public good is marked by universality - that is, it benefits all countries, people and
generations
,An impure global public good would tend towards universality in that it would benefit more than one
group of countries and would not discriminate against any population segment or set of generations.
In the absence of a global government, how do we produce GPGs?
> final global public goods (the outcomes: environment, peace)
> intermediate global public goods (the regimes that work towards the provision of final GPGs, such
as the UN)
So we negotiate and cooperate (or we fail to)
> two tier negotiation: among states and each state with its own constituency
two main questions for GPGs
>prioritsation: who defines the political agenda, and hence the priorities for resource allocation
> access: who determines whether GPG are in fact accessible to which population groups
> politics: who gets what, when and how
Three key questions
> what is a vital interest and to whom
> how are vital interests identified
> how do decision-makers prioritise and choose which interests to protect
What is a vital interest and to whom?
> an interest is always an interest to someone (including institutions like the state)
> who benefits, who doesn’t?
> who defines?(conflicts/power/calculation/rational bureaucracy/agenda setting)
How are vital interests identified
> what is the role of expertise ad instruments in shaping vital interests
> what are the challenges in assessing risks and threats?
> why do people perceive interests differently?
How do decision-makers prioritise and choose which interests to protect
> who decides? who/what do they favour/promote?
> on which basis: risk/vulnerability assessment, political considerations, etc
LECTURE 2: Power and security of the state
International relations/international security studies
- dominant paradigm: state security and military security (survival of the state) post WWII
view of the world though
- State is both the main ‘referent object’ as well as a moving object when viewed historically
- Core of IR thinking is balance of power
European state evolution
, 1. from divine rule to sovereign states
2. from sovereign states to nation-states
3. the rise of collective interests
God, the sovereign and the church (medieval social structure in Europe)
> hierarchy: god at the top, emperor and pope as worldly powers
> the interests of the rulers as vital interests
> religious interests mixed with geopolitical interests (crusades)
The rise of the sovereign state
→ Thomas Hobbes, the Leviathan
> the absolute sovereign as an answer to the ‘war of all against all’ (as anarchy wouldn’t work)
> linking individual security and collective security
> ‘covenants without swords are but words secure to no man at all’
Raison d’etat
- cardinal the Richelieu: state interests prevail over religious interests
- a mean between what conscience permits and affairs require
- peace of Westphalia (1648): codifies non-interference in the (religious) affairs of other states
From sovereign states to nation-states
> The french revolution
We the people (declaration of independence)
> redefinition of relationship between individual and collective security
> political legitimacy and social cohesion become state interests (need to be able to bind people
together and create one nation otherwise you will get another revolution)
> the nation becomes a referent object (from raison d’etat to national interest) → not just the state,
also the nation
The rise of nationalism and the nation-state
- Ernest Renan (1882): avoir fait de grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en faire encore’ (to have
done great things and to want to do more)
- Bendict Anderson (1983): ‘an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently
limited and sovereign
Inclusion and exclusion - what is the relationship between the state and the people/nation in it. Who
is part of the nation? Ius sanguinis. Ius sole.
The rise of collective states
> form multipolarity, to bipolarity, and back
> THe end of history something
> vital interests of: church → rulers → states → peoples/raison d’etat → national
Power in global affairs
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