Introduction to international relations; notes to the book
Chapter 1
International relations: the political, economic, social and cultural relations between two countries or
among many countries.
European Union: group 28 European countries (27 when the UK leaves) that abide by common laws
and practices.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): this requires the US and its European partners to come to
the defense of each other in the event of a military attack against one of them.
Iron Curtain: a term coined by British leader Winston Churchill to capture the profound political and
human divisions separating the western and eastern parts of Europe.
Berlin Wall: the wall that divided Soviet East Berlin from American, French and British West Berlin
during the Cold War, until its fall in 1989.
International governmental organizations (IGOs): organizations that states join to further their political
or economic interests; like UN, IMF, WHO, WTO, OPEC.
National leaders: individuals who hold executive offices as a result of which they are entitled to make
foreign policy and military decisions on behalf of their countries.
State: a political entity with two key features: a piece of territory with reasonably well-defined
borders, and political authorities who enjoy sovereignty.
Sovereignty: the effective and recognized capacity to govern residents within a given territory and an
ability to establish relationships with governments that control other states.
Nation: collections of people who share a common culture, history or language.
Nation-state: a political unit inhabited by people sharing common culture, history or language.
Non-state actors: actors other than states that operate within or across state borders with important
consequences for international relations.
Civil society: collections of non-state actors that operate outside the sphere of government or business
control.
Interest: some condition of the world sufficiently important that a state is willing to pay meaningful
costs to attain or maintain it.
Strategy: the overarching connection of means to an end for a state. A strategy aims at a policy
objective, and outlines what policy instruments will be used to attain that objective.
Objective: a state’s goal in international relations, generally the attainment or maintenance of some
interest.
Policy instrument: a tool used by a state’s government to attain its interest. Policy instruments come in
many forms, divided into persuasive and coercive forms.
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,Statecraft: the use of policy instruments, including military force, economic sanctions or incentives, or
diplomacy to achieve foreign policy objectives.
Theory: a group of ideas intended to explain some empirical phenomenon.
Anarchy: the fact that in international relations there is no centralized authority, no government of the
whole world to adjudicate disputes among states and protect weak ones from strong ones.
Imperialism: a state strategy in which one country conquers foreign lands to turn them into colonies.
Scramble for Africa: the carving up of Africa by colonial powers after 1870. → Lenin explains this as
the need of various capitalistic to expand.
Levels of analysis: different ways of looking for answers to questions in international relations,
generally grouped into the individual, state, and international levels.
Democratic peace theory: the theory that democracies are unusually peaceful toward each other.
Democracies or republics, are understood as states that have elected governments, a free press, private
property and the rule of law. (Example of state level of analysis).
International system: states and non-state actors, taken collectively, coexisting and interacting at some
point in history.
Thucydides wrote a detailed account of the great Peloponnesian War, a conflict between Sparta and
Athens.
Enduring questions are recurring, unresolved and consequential.
Smooth-Hawley Tariff Act: rising US tariffs or taxes → one of starting reasons of the Great
Depression. 1930. To protect the US economy.
Developed countries: wealthy countries with advanced economies.
Developing countries: poor countries with small economies whose residents have not, on average,
attained the living standards typically enjoyed by residents of wealthy countries.
Globalization: the ongoing process of international economic and technological integration, made
possible by advances in transportation and communication.
Brexit: the ‘British exit’ or decision made by British citizens in a popular referendum to have the UK
leave the EU.
Dissatisfied sates: states who feel that their influence, status and material benefits should be higher
than what they are actually achieving.
The East-West division in world politics ended in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
leader of the Eastern side.
Security dilemma: a situation in which a state takes actions to become more secure yet ends up
becoming less secure due to the reaction it provokes in other states.
China as dissatisfied state: territorial claims in the East and South China Seas and to the nationalist
rhetoric of its leader, Xi Jinping.
China as satisfied state: its integration into the Western-dominated world economy and its willingness
to participate in international organizations.
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,Chapter 2
United Nations formed in 1945, 51 independent states. 193 members in 2017.
Why we need to understand international history:
1. We are still living with its consequences
2. Scholars often use historical materials to test theories of international relations
3. Leaders, officials and media commentators often invoke historical analogies in support of
their policy positions
Empire: political entities that contain a substantial geographical space, often many different peoples
and over which a single powerful ruler governs.
Example: China, Japan, India, The Ottoman Empire, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, The Americas
(Aztec and Incan Empire) → (1500)
Levels of analysis (The World of 1500)
Individual State International
Most individuals in 1500 Large regions of the eastern By 1500 a nascent system of
played little or no role in the and western hemispheres in the dynastically ruled states came
governance of the entities in 1500s consisted of empires. into existence in Europe.
which they lived.
Dynastic states, city-states and
other small entities such as
duchies governed Europe in the
1500s.
China was a consolidated state
in 1500.
Feudalism: a system in which individuals act as ‘vassals’ and receive land in exchange for swearing
loyalty to specific high-ranking leaders (e.g. counts, dukes) and at the apex of the system the king.
Napoleon Bonaparte made himself emperor in 1804. He was defeated in 1814 and 1815 as a result of
an alliance of a democratizing England and an autocratic Prussia, Russia and Austria.
Balance of power: process by which a state or coalition of states increase their capabilities to prevent
the dominance of an opposing state or group of states.
To prevent the Habsburgs from attaining military and political hegemony in Europe, France allied
with small German principalities and also with the Ottoman Turks.
Thirty Years War (1618-1648); it was concluded in 1648 by a series of agreements that have come to
be known as the Peace of Westphalia.
Peace of Westphalia: treaties that ended the Thirty Years War and divided Europe into sovereign
states independent of higher authorities.
Westphalian states system: the modern state system in which each state is sovereign, with no higher
authority (such as a church or empire).
France worked with the Ottoman Empire against the Habsburgs.
In reaction to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the allies Britain, Prussia, Russia and
Austria agreed in 1814-1815 to establish a Concert of Europe; an agreement among the great powers,
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, beginning in the early nineteenth century, to maintain order collectively within Europe. They sought to
create an international order.
Congress of Berlin 1878; Otto von Bismarck gestured toward the idea of a continuing Concert of
Europe when he organised this. To bring to a conclusion a war between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire.
Mercantilism: a doctrine that states that military power is the central goal of states; such power rests
on financial wealth, and the financial wealth of the world is a fixed quantity.
Colonies: areas and people conquered and exploited by a colonizing power over which the colonizer
has political and economic control.
1789: French Revolution
Rum triangle: a transatlantic trading triangle active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
between Europe, West Africa and the Americas.
Meiji Restoration: beginning with the rise of Emperor Meiji in 1868, leaders who set Japan on a
course of selective adaption of Western science, education and industrial technology for the purposes
of strengthening Japan economically and militarily.
Factors that contributed to the success of the European imperialists:
1. The European States and later the US enjoyed technically superior weapons
2. The West enjoyed stronger economic bases
3. European for decades had been caught up in a competitive, war-prone system they were
induced to mobilize resources and find ways to foster economic growth and technological
advances, which made them more formidable foes against non-Westerns
4. Western Europeans benefited from a climate, geography and history of disease that made it
easier for them to emerge as powerful forces in world history.
Levels of analysis (Formation of the international political
system)
Individual State International
From the 1500s to the early European states attained The European system of
1800s, leaders of major states sovereignty and projected sovereign states was
in Europe – successive power overseas from the 1500s formalized by the Peace of
Habsburgs, Louis XIV, and to the early 1800s. Westphalia in 1648.
Napoleon Bonaparte – tried but
failed to establish control over No state achieved hegemony in
the European continent. Europe because of balancing
by threatened states.
The imbalance in power
between European states and
empires in the Americas and
Asia led to the European
conquest of the latter.
Causes WWI:
1. European states believed that wars were inevitable and if it had to come, it could better be in a
near term then wait longer with a decreasing chance of success
2. The role of alliances (Triple Alliance)
3. Illusion; future wars would be similarly fast and profitable
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