International relations relates to politics between states Flashcards
“State” and “Nation”
State: formally constituted, sovereign political institution encompassing people and territory
Nation: Collective identity grounded in a shared history and culture and may or may not lay claim political recognition or a specific territory
International Relations
Emerges as a discipline following WW1
Primary focus on relations between sovereign states
Today also focuses more broadly on non-state actors (NGO’s, MNCs, civil society, organized crime and terrorist groups)
Global
“Global” or “world Politics” is replacing “international relations”
Typically used to refer to the entire world
“Globalization” emphasizes interconnectedness across state boundaries
Core Questions
How does Power Shape the international system?
What causes war, and how can peace be achieved?
Can international politics be ethical? What is the connection, if any, between how politics is conducted versus how it should be?
How do international organizations and law shape global governance?
How do states’ interests form and evolve and how do they influence global politics?
States and International Systems in world History
Empires have come and gone
The sovereign state system is also likely to be replaced by something else
International organizations? Multinational companies? Or devolution into sub-state tribes, clans, nations, cities, religions, etc?
Early “States”
Political communities recognizable as “States” have been around since the beginnings of agriculture
Relationship to the land was a key commonality
A way of organizing and protecting people and resources
Ancient Greece
Athen’s city-state was the model of democratic society
Aristotle: “man is by nature a political animal”
Thucydides (the Peloponnesian War): a key figure in the tradition of realist thought
The Roman Empire
Best-known empire of the ancient world
Central in the development of republicanism
Origin of the main legal systems in Europe
Linked to the predominance of Christianity in Europe
Empire
Earliest Empires found in the regions around the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile Rivers
Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian empires
Later also in Africa, India and China
The Chinese Empire
Lasted from Shang Dynasty (18th century BCE) until early 20th century
Interrupted by the “warring states” period
Confucius writes in a time of violence, and is largely concerned with the proper political and social arrangements for good order
Modern Empires
Current international system shaped by empire
British empire by far the most influential
Mantle of power transferred from the British to the Americans following WW11
A new definition of Empire
Doesn’t have to impose direct rule
The emergence of the State System in Europe
Typically understood to have emerged around 1500
Associated with the rise of European science and technology, leading to industrialization, increased military power, and other social changes
Took place in the context of ideas imported from China, Arabia, and the New World
The Peace of Westphalia (1648)
Establishes the Key characteristics of the modern state and the modern state system; grounded in the principle of the sovereign state (as a concept and a practice)
Includes the principle of religious co-existence, the state’s claim to sole authority in matters such as the declaration of war and the negotiation of peace, diplomatic representation, and the authority to make treaties with foreign powers
Sovereignty
Internal Leviatan, but, external anarchy
Sovereignty and Nationalism
Idea that each nation should have its own state
Arises late in the 19th century along with democracy, which requires a distinct sovereign people
The concert of Europe
Established at the congress of Vienna (1815), following the Napoleonic wars
Emergence of new “national” states in Greece (1830), Belgium (1831), Italy (1861), Germany (1871), and Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro (1878)
By the early 20th century, the sovereign nation-state system was well entrenched in Europe (and to several settler societies), but had yet to spread elsewhere
Changes in the Sovereign State System
By the end of WW11, the European colonial system was collapsing
A range of new sovereign states with legal international sovereignty but many are domestically weak, fragile, or failed states
Globalization of economies has put increasing pressure on the sovereign state
Difficulties of independent statehood have produced a range of weak,quasi, and fragile or failed states:
Weak or quasi states lack capacity to organize, regulate, and deliver political and economic goods to their citizens. Sometimes depend on foreign aid to the detriment of their sovereign status (Jackson 1990)
Failed states are weak states that have reached the point of Breakdown, social unrest, and violence (e.g., Somalia)
Even if many of the problems facing states as internal, there are also external factors
Economic globalization has put increasing pressure on the sovereign state system
Rise to both globalization and regionalization call into question the persistence of the sovereign state-model
From war to international cooperation
Thirty years war (1618-48)
- Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
War of Spanish Succession (1701-14)
-Treaty of Utrecht (1713)
Napoleonic Wars (1803-15)
-Concert of Europe (1815-1914)
WW1 (1914-18)
-League of Nations (1920-46)
WW11 (1939-45)
-United Nations (1945-)
Future?
