world politics for beginners

The state as the basic unit
-The state: a set of governing institutions with control over defined territory and population
-State is often but not always associated with certain national or ethnic group: the nation-state

Sovereign state system
The spread of the system
Displacing other kinds of political government structures, from local and community governance to empires and colonies in 1945, 51 members states of the united nations in 2013 193 UN member states
Sovereignty as the norm:
“Expectancy that states has legal and political supremacy- or ultimately authority- within their territorial boundaries.”
Peace of Westphalia 1648
Sovereign equality of states
Recognized in the UN charter
Difference between theory an practice
Phases in the state systems
1) The mercantilist era 1492-1815: explorers and traders discover the new world
Mercantilism: as central doctrine
Military and economic power sees as complementary
Desire by leading governments to protect national markets and your business interest
Decisive of military force in European colonialism
Looking ahead: note connection to realist thinking
During the mercantilist era:
Fight for hegemony, Anglo French rivalry
Interest: security through power, control of markets and resources

The Pax Brittanicca 1815-1914 :
Hundred years peace
Sources of cooperation (desire to restrain domestic revolution)
Notion of hegemony “predominance of one state over another”
Looking ahead. Benefits of hegemony?
Industrial rev. altered interest
Exchange replaces mercantilism
Economic integration including through
- Increased migration
- Free trade
- Gold standard facilitating trade
This period also sees new tension as rising powers including a newly unified Germany scrambled for colonies.
Interest: economic wealth through trade and investment
Interactions: informal diplomacy; states cooperation in security and economic affairs.

Thirty-Year Crisis 1914-1945

Europe divides into two camps
Central power (Germany, Austria, ottoman empire)
Allied powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, and eventually the USA)
WW1 and the changing nature of warfare
Millions killed
New element of fear for even powerful states
Desire to control warfare
Ww1 followed by great depression 1929
Countries turned inward
Decline of free trade protectionism
Rampant inflation
WW2
Begins in 1939 only 2 decades after ww1 ended
Bloodiest conflict in history of the world more than 50 million people were killed
Development of atomic weapons t the wars end
Interest- security through alliances, expansions

Cold war 1945-1990
Eastern block led by soviet union
Western bloc led by the USA
Conflicts, crisis, and coups proxy wars between cold war camps
Omnipresent threat of global nuclear war
Decolonization and the rise of the third world

Post cold war 1991- Present
Collapse of the soviet union
(Was the end of history) Fukuyama
Increased cooperation at least initially
Revitalization of international institutions
But new sign of major power tension?
How central are institutions?

Limitations of a Historic Approach
-History as “one damned thing after another”
- The move from history to theory (informed history )
- Theory employs history but provides a conceptual

Advantages of theory:
Theories can help us
Categorizing and prioritizing information
Understanding current events
Explain why events happen
Make us question what we know
Potentially help us predict future events

Caveats about Theory
These are broad, diverse schools of thought
No uniform approach even within theoretical schools
Theories are prism
Tenets of Realism
A world dominated by states
Persistence of conflict (their never will be world peace)
Difficulty of cooperation between states:
Human nature- humans are selfish, hard to corporate
Structure of the system: anarchy
The way the world is they way the world is going to be: fundamental change in world politics is impossible
The near impossibility of fundamental change
Difficulty of applying conventional morality to international politics
Centrality of states
Little emphasis on other actors such international organizations and NGOs
Emphasis on anarchy as key element of international system
Realism is a gloomy theory
Claims to describe the world as it is, not as we want it to be
Leaders and perils ignore these insights are peril

The Melian Dialogue
Part of Thucydides History of The Pelopmnesia wars
Thucydides writing as historian
Athens (super power at the time) prepares to assault the island of Milos- dialogue between Athenian generals and Milian leader
Athens dismisses the Milians reliance on principles of justice
The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept

Hans Morgenthau
He fled Europe around the time of second world war and came to the USA
Often seen instructing the USA o the realities of world politics
Political realisms believes that politics is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature

Morgenthau Realism
Interest defined in terms of power
-Power is anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man – anything that allows you to control others
-Motives and particularities of leaders largely irrelevant
This is a very broad definition of the word power, which could includes military, economic, and conceptual power
-Generally most realist talk about economic and military power
Tension between conventional morality and effective action in world politics
Realism according to Morgenthau refuses to gloss over this tension

Development of Neolism
Kenneth waltz as a leading neorealist scholar
Attempt to make realist insights more rigorous and more scientific- move away from reliance on human nature
Less about human nature than anarchy nature of international politics
States need maximum security
Waltz – self help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order
Neorealism
Key distinction between national and international politics is the distinction between hierarchy and anarchy
Prisoners Dilemma
2 suspects who rob a bank and are being interrogated separately
Unless they both cooperate they cannot be arrest because there is no case
If one rats the other out, the one who didn’t fess up goes to jail and the one who ratted him out is freed and keeps the loop
Balancing vs. Bandwagoning
Neorealist have focused on “balance of power” as a central concept
They want to understand the rules, in a anarchic system
Waltz gives predictions about how states will act in the face of a powerful competitor
Balancing align with other powers in order to balance the leading power
Bandwagoning seeking security aligning with the leading power
Offensive vs. defensive realism
-Security maximization and power maximization
What’s the distinction?
Offensive realism predicts that states will maximize their power
-Defensive realism predicts that states will maximize their security
Realist ethics
If realist principles are correct, what can leaders and citizens do?
Realism is sometimes clearer on what political leaders should not do
Don’t ignore power realities
E.G Western powers during the 1930s as Germany to rise in power
Resist legalistic impulses
Resists legalistic impulses
Don’t put faith in treaties
Don’t engage in crusade’s to change the world
Leading realists opposed the Vietnam and Iraq was as foolish and idealistic adventures
What should political leaders do?
Prudence. As highest virtue
Try to maintain balance power
Morgenthau: engage in workmanlike manipulation of perennial forces

Security dilemma:

Point on theory
Recall realism distinction between the way we want the world to become and the way it is
The nature of theory
Description explanation and prediction
The two approaches can do work together often but the distinction between them is important

The liberal differences
Liberalism
Terminology distinction between liberalism in world politics and liberalism
Kant as forefather
Liberalism is a diverse school of thought, as with realism there are classic and modern versions

Kant perpetual peace
Essay written on 1795: this essay is to liberalism what melian dialogue is to realism
Kant is offering a prescription for how to attain perpetual peace
Note to difference with most modern scholars
Notion distinction between republican and democratic
All states should be republican
Note distinction between republican and democratic
“Consent of citizen is required to go to war... Nothing is more natural than they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game”
Necessity of a “league of peace”
This league does not tend to any dominion over the power of the state but inky to the maintenance and security of the freedom of the state itself and of other states
Importance of universal hospitality
Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another
Introduces the concept of world citizenship
Thinking beyond states to the rights of an individual

Basic tenets of liberalism
Change and progress in world politics are possible
Trade and commerce matter
Economic globalization
Trade produces independence which tends to produce peace
E.g. relations between EU-Japan United States