lecture 1 Flashcards
'’the End of Sykes-Picot’’
- example
vice news: rides along with ISIS fighters near Iraq border 2014
ISIS wanted to create caliphate no matter the borders
conclusion: ISIS says they rejected/broke the Sykes-Picot agreement (Britain-French 1916 diplomatic meeting to split the Ottoman empire between themselves)
= anti-(western)imperial rhethoric
example that shows how contemporary political actor uses history for its own goal + ISIS used the wrong borders (they weren’t the borders of Sykes-Pikot)
point = all sovereign territories on modern maps are historically artificial (they aren’t necessarily old or uncontested)
main question
why study global history in an international relations degree?
article myth of Westphalia because:
- reason why we shouldn’t see N-S as the only and most important actor in IR and during history
- it is written by Vergerio, who made the course
peace of Westphalia
- treaties of Osnabruck and Munster
- ended the 30 years war between kingdoms and empires of Europe (civil and military war)
- 1648
huge deal when it happened: end of a violent war
for us: important because it has come to symbolize the standardization of the sovereign state in IR
- sovereign state: they could decide religion + powers as France would protect the boundaries
Vergerio: overlapping authority and loyalty after Westphalia
many centuries : it was not sovereign states, it were empires with complex forms of sovereignty + many non-state entities (e.g. mercantile companies)
why has Westphalia become significant?
20th century IR scholars used it to project idea of sovereignty in the past
reason: wanted to promote a ‘Westphalia’ for the Middle East
problematic to say that what they should do now is what Europeans had to do then (makes them look backwards + they aren’t the same + reflects poor use of history in IR)
concept of state sovereignty
the state is the form of human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory
- Max Weber: Politics as a Vocation
- Thomas Hobbes + Jean Bodin have similar indivisible definition of sovereignty
!! in this definition sovereignty cannot be shared (indivisible): the entity that has the monopoly is the state
agents of the state (e.g. police and military) can use legitimate type of force (by law)
illegitimate use of physical violence = private use
physical violence can also be seen as cultural, non-visible use of force
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why study the past rather than try to analyse the present or predict the future?
we cannot predict the future!
history is important to understand the present - I want to theorize about the present, and I want to be a theorist rather than a historian. Do I really need to study history? Will I ever use it for theory building?
theorists also rely on history (history as scripture) - What kind of history is “good enough” to know for students aiming to be international relations (IR) specialists?
Hegel - philosophy/history
read philosophy as history (as he means that)
Philosophy, as the though of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready … When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. the owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering
meaning = we can only evaluate, understand (determine the consequences) when something is done
- e.g. also because archives only come available afterwards
from scripture to butterfly
approaches to history in IR
history as scripture = treating it as data to test hypotheses, to make laws etc.
- emphasis on continuities, on ‘‘timeless lessons’’
- history as monochrome flatland: always the same
- e.g. Peloponnese war to understand US behavior later
history as butterfly = history as being/having accidental minor events that have huge impact, insane to discern patterns
- emphasis on discontinuities
- gives a list of facts rather than narrative, highlights equality in importance of facts
- e.g. Cleopatras nose: if it wasn’t pretty, she wouldn’t have married ….. & then ….
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
history as scripture
‘for the social scientist, history is a laboratory by which to test both their claims about how variables are associated with each other and their propositions about causation’
middle-way approaches to history in IR
English School, constructivism, historical sociology, intellectual history, this course e.g.
- history in thick detail (not selective facts)
- try to establish patterns (not random chaos)
- uneven and combined development (globalization)
meso-level approach: focus on continuities and discontinuities, long term and short term
history vs meta-history vs anti-history vs big history vs global history
history = nonfictional account of the past
- looks at change over time
- is a craft (has to be made, written, peer reviewed)
- aspires to discover/construct order and structure by creating a narrative of an argument, based on verifiable evidence (e.g. when did the industrial revolution start?)
- !is no hard science + no art
metahistory = emphasizes patterns and regularities, great drivers of development, larger meaning of history
- often about one idea (e.g. freedom)
- popular in C19, bad reputation in C20, now coming back
- e.g. marxist history of society and of class struggle
- associated with longue duree (Braudal) that looks at long-term trends/patterns and distinguishes the contingent from the permanent
anti-history = idea that when we speak of history fiction and non-fiction are identical
- relevant in today’s age of ‘fake news’ and post-truth
- e.g. no holocaust V no moonlanding V Obama not American
- relativism: no truth + narratives are equal
big history = universal history, beginning history, mix of social and natural science
global history = connection within global human community
- look at how the specific is integrated in the interconnected whole (which was created: e.g. global standard calendar, time)
