GP- Power & Developments: How have changes to the balance of power impacted on conflict, poverty, human rights and the environment Flashcards
What has the emergence of China and India, along with Russia’s attempts to restore its influence, done to international relations?
A: It has significantly complicated international relations, making it increasingly difficult to make progress on several vital global issues.
Q: What is the realist perspective on the current distribution of global power?
A: Realists dislike it the most because there is no certainty as emerging powers try to assert themselves.
Q: What does this lack of certainty create?
A: The potential for conflict, especially since the USA is not prepared to relinquish its hegemonic status.
Q: What concept is used to describe this potential for conflict?
A: The Thucydides Trap (explained on page 541 of the text).
Q: What actions by Russia illustrate the challenges to the US-led global order?
A: Russia’s intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime (2015), its annexation of Crimea (2014), and its invasion of Ukraine (2022).
Q: What other potential flashpoint is mentioned?
A: The pressure China is putting on Taiwan.
Q: What is the relationship between China and India?
A: They are increasingly becoming regional geo-strategic competitors.
Q: What happened in 2020 between China and India?
A: At least 24 Chinese and Indian troops were killed in a border clash, as India tried to construct a military air base in land claimed by China.
Q: How has the rise of China and India affected global poverty?
A: It has dramatically helped to reduce global poverty.
Q: What role has economic globalization played in the developing world?
A: It has encouraged industrialization throughout the developing world.
Q: What countries are mentioned as examples of this industrialization?
A: Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, following the example set by Taiwan and South Korea.
Q: How has this industrialization occurred?
A: By utilizing their cheap labor force to manufacture cheap products for the global market.
Q: What has this led to?
A: Growing convergence between the developing world (Global South) and the developed world (Global North).
Q: What are the negative aspects of economic globalization?
A: It has not “raised all boats equally” and has even encouraged dangerous tensions within and between countries.
Q: What do critics say about industrialization driven by economic globalization?
A: That it has led to a “race to the bottom” as MNCs disregard safety standards and demand long hours for low wages to maximize their profits.
Q: How have the changes in the global balance of power impacted human rights?
A: They have made it significantly harder to enforce human rights.
Q: What was the focus of Western powers in the immediate post-Cold War period?
A: Encouraging human rights as part of their commitment to democracy and the rule of law.
Q: What did this focus involve?
A: The establishment of UN tribunals and the International Criminal Court (2002).
Q: What provided the protection of human rights with global centrality?
A: A series of humanitarian interventions, such as in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and East Timor.
Q: What has made it more difficult to enforce human rights?
A: Challenges to Western dominance by authoritarian states like China and Russia.
Q: Why do China and Russia pose a challenge to human rights enforcement?
A: They demonstrate little commitment to human rights.
Q: What examples are given of China and Russia’s disregard for human rights?
A: China’s support for the military junta in Myanmar and Russia’s support of the Assad regime in Syria.
Q: What is the West’s primary concern now?
A: Protecting its own geo-strategic interests rather than launching humanitarian interventions.
Q: What are the consequences of this shift in focus?
A: Claims of genocide in Myanmar and ongoing human rights abuses in Syria, Yemen, and the Central African Republic have gone unpunished.
Q: What are the environmental consequences of economic globalization?
A: It has lifted more people out of poverty but has come at a heavy environmental cost.
Q: What percentage of global carbon emissions were developing countries responsible for in 2023?
A: 63%.
Q: Why are developing countries responsible for such a large share of emissions?
A: Their industrialization has been powered by cheap sources of energy such as coal.
Q: How do China’s carbon emissions compare to the USA’s?
A: In 2021, China emitted 11.47 billion metric tons of carbon, compared to 4.9 billion metric tons for the USA, making it the biggest carbon emitter in the world.
Q: What positive opportunities does political globalization offer?
A: It provides an opportunity for nation states and non-state actors to come together to attempt solutions in COP meetings.
Q: What do political globalization and the internet encourage?
A: The dissemination of new ideas, such as carbon capture, which may help to provide solutions to the challenge of climate change.
Q: What is the current status of progress on environmental issues?
A: Progress so far has been slow.
Q: What does this slow progress suggest?
A: That the environmental crisis caused by economic globalization has yet to be resolved through political globalization.
Q: What did John Mearsheimer argue in his 1990 essay “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War”?
A: He suggested that the relative stability of bipolar rivalry might be preferable to the unpredictability which would come with a more multipolar world order.
Q: What did Mearsheimer describe the period before the Cold War as?
A: “Untamed anarchy — Hobbes’s war of all against all — is a prime cause of armed conflict.”
Q: What warning did Mearsheimer give?
A: “Those who think that armed conflicts among the European states are now out of the question, that the two world wars burned all the war out of Europe, are projecting unwarranted optimism onto the future!”
