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Introduction to International Relations The Globalization of World Politics
Introduction
• International politics/relations are focused on nations-states world politics is focused on a
very wide set of actors
• Theory is a kind of simplifying device that allows you to decide which historical or
contemporary facts matter more than others when trying to develop an understanding of the
world
Realism
• States are main actors legal sovereign actors (no actor above state) other actors act
within the framework of inter-state relations
• Human nature is seen as centrally important and rather selfish international (not world)
politics represents a struggle for power among states, with each trying to maximise its
national interest
• Balance of power diplomacy = key most important tool is military force self-help
system
• States are motivated to look for power (= material, military resources in the contribution of
these to the power or security of a country)
• Neorealism (since 1970s-1980s) stresses the importance of structure of the international
system in affecting the behaviour of all states (Cold War shaped rules) structure is
moving towards multipolarity (after a phase of unipolarity)
• Globalization: does not affect international political system of states
Liberalism
• Human beings can be improved
• Focused on individuals and IO’s not just states
• States are not seen as united actor, but as made up of individuals and their collective,
societal preferences and interests
• They stress possibilities for cooperation
• States may be legally sovereign, but have to negotiate with all sorts of actors
• Interdependence between states is a critically important feature of world politics
• Globalization: end product of a long-running transformation of WP
Social constructivism
• We make and re-make the social world much more of a role for human agency than other
theories world changes
• It’s not a theory of WP in itself. It is an approach to the philosophy of social science with
implications for the kinds of arguments than can be made about WP need to link it to
another political theory about WP to make substantive claims
• Globalization: rejects the idea that it’s an external force acting on states, which leaders often
argue is a reality that they cannot challenged we can mould it in a variety of ways
Marxist theories (historical materialism)
• Most important feature in WP is that it takes place in a highly unequal world capitalist
economy most important actors are classes degree of economic autonomy
• All states have to play by the rules of the international capitalist economy
• They conceive of WP as the setting in which class conflicts are played out
• Key features of the international economy are the division of the world into core, semi-
periphery and the periphery areas.
• Globalization: sham
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1. Poststructuralism (postmodernism)
• Scepticism towards any theory that asserts it has clear foundations for making
knowledge claims and thinks that all truth claims about some feature of the world can be
judged true or false
• All power requires knowledge and all knowledge relies on and reinforces existing power
relations there is no such thing as ‘truth’ existing outside of power, it’s not sth
external to social settings but is instead part of them
• Globalization: does not exist out there in the world
2. Postcolonialism
• Questions whether all Eurocentric theories can really support to explain WP as a whole,
or WP as it relates to the lives of most people on the planet more likely that they help
to continue and justify the military and economic subordination of the global South by
powerful Western interests (‘neocolonialism’)
• Global hierarchies of subordination and control, past and present, are made possible
though the historical construction and combination of racial, gendered, and class
differences and hierarchies
• Globalization: highlight the important degree of continuity and persistence of colonial
forms of power in the globalized world
Feminism
• How does gender both affects WP and is it an effect of WP?
• Explanatory theories = sees the world as sth external to our theories (realist, liberal)
• Constitutive theories = our theories help construct the world (new theories)
• Foundational = all truth claims about some feature of the world can be judged true or
false
• Anti-foundational = truth claims cannot be so judged since there are never neutral
grounds for doing so
• The question is, has a ‘new’ WP system really emerges as a result of these processed of
globalisation?
Chapter 2 - The rise of modern international order
Framing questions:
• When did modern international order emerge?
• To what extent was the emergence of modern international order shaped by the
experience of the West?
• Is History important to understanding contemporary world politics?
Introduction
• Difference between international politics and domestic politics is that political units are
forced to coexist in the absence of an overarching authority ‘political multiplicity’
• International orders= regularised practices of exchange among discrete political units
that recognise each other to be independent
• One of the most important characteristics contemporary international order= Dominance
of ‘Western’ ideas and institutions rise of the West has only occurred recently + many
aspects of its rise can be traced to international processes (imperialism, global expansion
of market)
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Historical international orders
• It is possible to speak of multiple international orders in world history, perhaps even as
far back as ancient Sumer
• 1648 Peace of Westphalia eius regio, cuius religio established the principle of
‘sovereign territoriality’ = a claim to political authority over a particular geographical
space some consider it the basis for ‘modern’ international order, but a number of
critics have emerged (impact was very local)
• The choice of when to date the emergence of modern international order depends on
what people consider to be the most important components of international order
• Regularized practices of exchange = ex. economic interactions, systems of transport and
communication these generate forms of interdependence in which events in one
place have a major effect on others
• We can speak of numerous regional international orders before the 19th century, but we
should locate the emergence of a distinctly modern international order only in the last
two centuries during this period, multiple regional international orders were linked in
a global order in which all parts of the world were closely connected (‘global
transformation’ = a term to denote the shift from a world of multiple regional
international orders to one characterised by a global one)
How did modern international order emerge?
• The rapid turnaround during the 19th century represents a major shift in global power
before that Asia and India produced more than the West
• After 1800 there was a ‘great divergence’ between some Western states and much of the
rest of the world
• There were three main sources
o Industrialization expansion of world market increasing levels of
interdependence and heightening practices of exchange opportunities for
accumulating power (forcing own goods and banning other goods)
o The ‘rational’ state = refers to the ways in which states become organized less
through interpersonal relations and family ties, and more abstract bureaucracies
such as a civil service and a nationally organized military
The imperial wars increased the coercive capacities of European states
while requiring that states raise extra revenues, which they often
achieved through taxation. This in turn fuelled further state
development.
o Imperialism
• These three dynamics served as the mutually reinforcing foundations of modern
international order
• These dynamics were deeply intertwined with international processed, most notably
industrialisation with de-industrializatoin, and rational states with imperialism
The consequences of the global transformation
• Shrinking of the planet
o The infrastructural gains prompted by the global transformation generated
efficiency savings (steamships, railways, telegraph) more world trade
o Division of labour between an industrial ‘core’ and a commodity-producing
‘periphery’ (2nd place) that first emerged as a defining feature of the global
political economy during the 19th century
o They ratched up cultural encounters, enabling (and often requiring) people to
interact on a previously unprecedented scale
• The emergence of IO’s and NGO’s
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o Technological changed created demands for international coordination and
standardisation IGO’s as permanent features of international order These
‘regularized exchanges’ were increasingly managed by IGO’s and INGO’s
(international non-governmental organisations)
• The development of an unequal international order
o The global transformation generated a deeply unequal international order
o ‘Scientific’ racism: according to them lighter-skinned people inhabited the
highest rung on the evolutionary ladder the result was the formation of an
international order premised in large measure on a global ‘colour line’. This
colour line, in turn, served as the basis for a global ‘standard of civilization’
o Economic exploitation: the profits form capitalist expansion helped to forge an
unequal global economy. While colonised countries could be the main producers
of primary products, imperial powers maintained an advantage in high-value
exports and finance.
o The modern international order that emerged during the 19th century was
profoundly unequal. The source of this inequality included racism and economic
exploitation.
Chapter 3 - International history 1900-99
Framing questions
• Would you agree that the colonial powers were responsible for the violence and armed
conflict that characterised much decolonisation?
• How important were nuclear weapons to keeping the peace after 1945?
• The cold war is best understood as the defence of Western values and interests against
Soviet aggression. Do you agree?
Modern total war
• Debates about the origins of the First World War focus on whether responsibility should
rest with the German government or whether it originated from more complex factors
(alliances)
• The Paris peace settlement (conference of the winners) in 1919 failed to address central
problems of European security, and in restructuring the European state system created
new sources of grievance and instability (Germany had to pay a lot). Principles of self-
determination (right of a people to termite its own destiny), espoused in particular bij
Woodrow Wilson, did not extent to European powers’ colonial empires.
• The rise of Hitler posed challenges that European political leaders lacked the ability and
will to meet, culminating in the outbreak of the Second World War
• The German attack on the SU extended the war from short and limited campaigns to
extended, large-scale and barbaric confrontation, fought for total victory
• The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour brought America into the war in Europese and
eventually forced Germany into war on two fronts (again)
• Debate persists about whether the atomic bomb should have been used in 1945
End of empire
• The belief that national self-determinations should be a guiding principle in IP marked a
transformation of attitudes and values decolonisation influenced by: the attitude of
the colonial power; the ideology and strategy of the anti-imperialist forces; and the role
of external powers decolonisation marked the eclipse of European power
• Yet while imperialism withered, other forms of domination or hegemony took shape. The
notion of hegemony has been used to critique the behaviour of the superpowers (SU in
Eastern Europe and US in Central America)
