INTERNATIONAL RELATION
IR, GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPACT ON DAILY LIFE:
DEFINITION OF IR:
The field of international relations concern the relationship between the world’s
government, but these relationships cannot be understand in isolation. They are
closely connected with other actors such as (international organizations,
multinational corporations and individuals) with other social structure and
processes (including economies, cultural and other domestic politics) and with
geographical and historical influences. IR is all about increasing cooperation and
decreasing confrontation.
These elements together power the central trend in IR today and that is
“Globalization”. Basically globalization is the process of growing interdependence
that represents a fundamental change from a world of independent and
individual states to a world of interdependence state.
For example the key event of recent years reflects globalization: The young
protestors of Arab spring who overthrew several govts in 2011 and 2012 used
facebook and cell phones to plan and coordinate their revolution.
IMPACTS ON OUR DAILY LIFE:
Globalization has distinct positive impact on our daily lives. As technology
advances the world is shrinking year by year. Better communication and
transportation capabalities constantly expand the ordinary person’s contact with
people, products, and ideas from other countries. Actually globalization is
internationalizing us. International relation is portrayed as a distant and abstract
ritual conducted by a small group of people such as president, general and
diplomats. Although leaders do play a major role in international affair and othe
people participates. College student and other citizens participate in international
relations everytime they vote in an election or work on a political compaign buy a
product and watch the news. The choices we make in our daily lives ultimately
affect the world we live in. through those choices every person makes a unique
contribution, however small to the world of international relations.
CORE PROBLEM OF IR:
The centrel core problem of IR is collective goods problem. For example every
country has an interest in stopping global warming, a goal that can be achieved by
many countries acting together. Yet each country also has an individual interest in
burning fossil fuels to keep its economy going. Similarly all members of military
alliance benefit from the strength of the alliance, but each member separatley
has an interest in minimizing its own contribution in troops and money.
Individual nations can advance their own short term interest by seizing territiry
milatiraily, cheating on trade agreement and refusing to contribute to
international efforts such as peace keeping or vaccination compaigns. But if all
nations acted this way, they would find themselves worse off, in a chaotic and
vicious enviroment where mutual gains from cooperating on issues of security
and trade would disappear.
Now the problem of shared interest and conflicting interests among members of
a group goes by various names in various contexts like “collective actions”, “free
riding”, “burden sharing”, the “tragedy of the commons” and “the prisoner’s
dilemma”. But the problem is of “ collective goods” that is the problem of how to
provide something that benifits all the members of a group regardless of what
each member contributes to it.
The collective good problem occur in all societies and groups but it is particularly
acute in international affairs because each nation is soverign and there is no
central authority, but within countries government can force individual to
contribute in ways that don’t serve their individual self interest such as by paying
taxes . if individual donot comply, the government can punish them
WAYS TO OVERCOME COLLECTIVE GOODS PROBLEM:
1) Dominance
2) Reciprocity
3) Identity
1) DOMINANCE:
The principle of dominance solves the problem of collective goods through
“power hierarchy” which means those at the top control those below; it’s a bit
like a government without an actual government. Instead of fighting
constantly over who gets sacrce resources, the members of the group fights
occasionally over position in “status hierarchy”.
In international relations the principle of dominance underlies the great power
system in which a handful of countries dictate the rule for all the others. The
UN Security Council, in which the five world strongest milatary powers hold a
veto, reflects the dominance principle. And these five countries are called p5
that is UK, US, RUSSIA, CHINA, FRANCE. The advanbtage of dominance is to the
collective good problem is that, like a govt, it force members to contribute in
common goods.
The disadvabntage of dominance is that it causes conflict over position in
hierarchy can ocassionally harm the group stability and well being, when
challenges to the top position, it leads tto serious fights.
2) RECIPROCITY:
The idea of reciprocity is returning the favour. The principle of reciprocity
solves the collective goods problem by rewarding behavior that contributes to
the group and punishing behavior that persue self interest at the expense of
the group. Reciprocity is easy to undersatnd and can be enforced without
central authority making it a robust way to get individuals to cooperate for the
common goods. But reciprocity operates in both the positive realm (you
scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours) and the negative (a eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth). Now to avoid tit for tat escalations of conflict, one or both parties
must act genoursly to get the relationship moving in a good direction.it only
happens between the equals.
In international relations, reciprocity forms the basis of norms (habits and
expectations) and institutions in international system. For example if one
country opens its markets to another’s goods, the other opens its market in
return.
3) IDENTITY:
A third potential solution to the problem of collective goods lies in the
identities of participants as members of a community. Although the
dominance and reciprocity principle act on the idea of achieving individual self
interest, the identity principle doesn’t rely on the idea of self interest. On the
contrary members of an identity community care about the interest of others
in that community enough to sacrifice their own interest to benefit others.
For example a eurepean Jew may give money to an Israel bcz o shared Jewish
identity.
In IR identity communities play an important role in overcomming difficult
collective goods problem , including who contributes to development
assistance, world health and UN peace keeping session. Non stat actors such
as non governmental organization and terrorist network also rely on identity
to a great extent.
ACTORS AND INFLUENCERS:
The principal actors in IR are the world’s governments. The international stage
is crowded with actors large and small that are intimately interwoven with the
decisions of governments. These actors are individual leaders and citizens.
They are bureaucratic agencies in foreign ministries. They are multinational
corporations and terrorist groups. But the most important actors in IR are
states. State is the central unit of analysis in IR.
STATE:
A community of person more or less numerous permanently occupying a
definite portion of territory, independent on nearly so, of internal control and
possesing an organised govt to which the great body of inhabitants render
habitual obedience.
FEATURES OF STATE:
1) Soverignty is the supreme, absolute and individual autuhority of bthe state
and it stands above all other institutions.
2) State institutiobns are public in nature unlike the priovate institutionbs
which are particular, provate ins are for probvate interest, public ins are for
universal interest.
3) State is an instrument of domination that is state authority is bucked by
force and it has monoploy on the legitimate use of force.
4) State is an exercise in legitimation. It reflects the permanent interest of
society and its decision or binding.
5) State is a territorially defined association.
STATE ACTORS:
A state is a territorial entity controlled by a government and inhabited by a
population. A state government answers to no higher authority; it exercises
sovereignty over its territory to make and enforce laws, to collect taxes, and so
forth. This sovereignty is recognized (acknowledged) by other states through
diplomatic relations and usually by membership in the United Nations (UN).
With few exceptions, each state has a capital city, the seat of government
from which it administers its territory and often a single individual who acts in
the name of the state. We will refer to this person simply as the “state leader.”
Often he or she is the head of government (such as a prime minister) or the
head of state (such as a president, or a king or queen). Some countries, such
as the United States, the same person are head of state and government. In
other countries, the positions of the president or royalty, or even the prime
minister, are symbolic. In any case, the most powerful political fi gure is the
one we mean by “state leader,” and these fi gures are the key individual actors
in IR.
The modern international system has existed for only 500 years. Before then,
people were organized into more mixed and overlapping political units such as
city-states, empires, and feudal fiefs. In the past 200 years the idea has spread
that nations, groups of people who share a sense of national identity, usually
including a language and culture should have their own states. A major source
of conflict and war at present is the frequent mismatch between perceived
nations and actual state borders. When people identify with a nationality that
their state government does not represent, they may fi ght to form their own
state and thus to gain soverignity over territory.
POPULATION OF WORLD STATE:
The population of the world’s states varies dramatically; from China and India
with more than 1 billion people each, to microstates such as San Marino with
32,000. States also differ tremendously in the size of their total annual
economic activity Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the $15 trillion U.S.
economy to the economies of tiny states such as the Pacific island of Tuvalu
($36 million). Few of the large state posse’s strong military and economic
strength and influence and are called great powers. Some other political
entities are often referred to as states or countries although they are not
formally recognized as states. Taiwan is the most important of these. It
operates independently in practice but is claimed by China (a claim recognized
formally by outside powers) and is not a UN member.
NON STATE ACTORS:
National governments may be the most important actors in IR, but they are
strongly influenced by a variety of nonstate actors. These actors are also called
transnational actors when they operate across international borders.
First type is that state often take actions through, within or in context of “
intergovernmental organization”( organization whose members are national
governments) IGOS fulfill variety of functions and it vary in size , it may be
some states or the whole UN member ship.
For example: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the
World Trade Organization (WTO), military alliances such as NATO.
PRIVATE ORGANIZATION:
Another type of transnational actors or nongovernmental organizations is
private organization which is of considerable size and resources. Increasingly
NGOS are recongnized by the UN and forums as legitimate actors along with
state, but not equal to them. Some of these groups have a political purpose,
some a humanitarian one, some an economic or technical one. Together, IGOs
and NGOs are referred to as international organizations. Various non state
actors interact with states and international organization.
For example, the terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001, have
demonstrated the increasing power that technology gives terrorists as
nonstate actors. .
POWER:
Power is defined as the ability to get another actor to do what they don’t want to
do. A variation on this idea is that actors are powerful to the extent that they
affect others more than others affect them.
Power is not infl uence itself, however, but the ability or potential to infl uence
others. Many IR scholars believe that such potential is based on specific
characteristics—such as their sizes, levels of income, and armed forces. This is
power as capability. Capabilities are easier to measure than influence. States
possess varying amounts of population, territory, military forces, and so forth. The
best single indicator of a state’s power may be its total GDP, which combines
overall size, technological level, and wealth.
International influence is also gained by forming the rules of behavior to change
how others see their own national interests. If a state’s own values become
widely shared among other states, it will easily infl uence others. This has been
called soft power.9 For example, the United States has infl uenced many other
states to accept the value of free markets and free trade. As the concept of soft
power illustrates, dominance is not the only way to exert power. Power is a
relational concept, a state can have power only relative to other states’ power.
Relative power is the ratio of the power that two states can bring to bear against
each other.
GOVERNMENT:
The group of people with the authority to govern a country or state, a particullar
ministry in office.
GOVT AND STATE:
Govt is part of the state and state is bigger than govt.
State is permanent and govt is temporary.
Govt is an agency trhrough which state expresses its will.
Gpovt is limited and state is unlimited.
State institutionbs are impersonal in nature which means they are universal.
NATION:
Nation is a socio cultural entity, a union of people sharing an identity based on
culture, language and other agreed denomination, e.g religion. Nation has
nothing to do with political boundries. Within one state, there could be many
nations. It is based on intrinstic stuff. State and nation are two different entities.
Nation boundries can be more than state boundries.
INTERNATIONAL STATE SYSTEM:
A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states,
conscious of certain com mon interests and values, forms a society in the sense
that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their
relations with one another, and share in the worki ng of common institutions.
TREATY OF WEST PHALIA:
INTRODUCTION:
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and
October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. The treaties
ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire and the
Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic. The
treaties did not restore peace throughout Europe, but they did create a basis for
national self-determination.
WAR TRIGGERS:
Two destructive wars were the major triggers behind signing the eventual Peace
of Westphalia: the Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty
Years’ War between Spain and the Dutch Republic.
BACKGROUND:
The Thirty Years’ War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and
1648. Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the
fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general
conflict involving most of the great powers. The war began when the newly
elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, tried to impose religious uniformity on
his domains, forcing Roman Catholicism on its peoples. The northern Protestant
states, angered by the violation of their rights to choose granted in the Peace of
Augsburg, banded together to form the Protestant Union. The Thirty Years’ War
devastated entire regions, with famine and disease significantly decreasing the
populations of the German and Italian states, the Crown of Bohemia, and the
Southern Netherlands.
The Eighty Years’ War or Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648) was a revolt of
the Seventeen Provinces against the political and religious hegemony of Philip II
of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands. . After the initial stages,
Philip II deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebelling
provinces. After twelve-years of ceasefire, hostilities broke out again around
1619, which coincided with the Thirty Years’ War.
THE PEACE OF WEST PHALIA:
SOVERIGNITY:
According to the Peace of Westphalia, all parties would recognize the Peace of
Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince would have the right to determine the
religion of his own state. Christian living in principalities where their
denomination was not the esatblished church were guaranteed to practise their
faith in the public in alloted hours and in the private at their ill. The delegates also
recongnized the exclusive soverignity over its lands, people and agents abroad,
and responsibility for the warlike act of any of its citizens and agents.
TERRITORY:
Multiple territorial adjustments were also decided. Among the most important
was the recognition of independence of switzerland from the holy roman empire
and expansion of terrortries of sweden and france.
RESULT:
The peace of west phalia established a model of peace in the new system of
political order in Europe based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states. A
norm was established against interference in another state’s domestic affairs,
known as the principle of Westphalian sovereignty. As European influence spread
across the globe, these Westphalian principles, especially the concept of
sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world
order.
1) West phalia brought the concept of political equality of legal states.
2) States stability brought a renewed vigour in the society.
3) Building on these foundations, European evelpoed objective science.
4) Universal form of morality.
