Chapter One: Understanding International Relations

1.1. Conceptualizing Nationalism, Nations and States

Nationalism
 Nationalism is one of the modern ideologies that has influenced international affairs,
political and social movements.
 It expresses the state of being national, national affection, and nationality.
 It is a set of ideas that members of a particular state, nation, society or region may
collectively feel towards their nation.
 Nationalism advocates national unity and independence and this could be a cause of
great wars and revolutions.
 Nationalism argues that a group of peoples who share similar culture, history,
psychological make up should have their own government or state.
 So, it is a political doctrine , that believes that nations should be self -governing.
 The end goal of nationalism is to have one’s own independent state and nation-building
 Nationalist believe on “self-determination” as the right of a people to determine its own
future and fate.
 But self-determination undermines the legitimacy, sovereignty and territorial integrity
of existing states.
 Nationalism’s triumph is the coming of the nation-state as key actors in world politics-
accepted as ultimate, legitimate and the most basic form of political entity.
 Ex. Italy 1861, Germany 1871, Greece, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria
Con’t
• Subject Nationality: is a nationality that has not achieved independence. Ex. Catalan,
Basque, Kurds, Scottish Nationalism, Western Sahara, Tibet
• Chauvinism: is an extreme nationalism that exaggerates one nation, culture, civilization
and contribution. Ex. Nazism, Fascism
Development of Nationalism
There are three historical periods for the development of European nationalism.
1. During the Middle Ages
Until the 15thc both nationalism and the idea of the national states did not exist. People
during the middle ages felt their greatest loyalty to their church, feudal lords, city states and
provinces.
2. The Westphalia Treaty of 1648
 The Westphalia treaty of 1648 ended the Thirty Years’ War between the Catholics and
Protestants.
 The treaty introduced the first inter-national system to operate based on the recognition
of the independence and sovereignty of the state. It institutionalized Nationalism.
 After Westphalia Treaty international politics was a matter of relations between states not
religious leaders and others.
3. The French Revolution of 1789
 contributed for the development of intense nationalism that spread throughout Europe
and the rest of the world.
 people placed their country’s national interest above all other considerations
 Three ideals of the revolution, liberty, equality and brotherhood helped for the strength of
peoples’ loyalty and patriotism towards their nation.
Cont.
4. The Congress of Vienna of 1815
 Was held to reverse Napoleonic effect
 The new division of Europe imposed by the Congress had no respect for the
identity of peoples such as Belgians, Polish, Finish, Italians and Germans.
i.e. Belgium to Holland, Polish & Finish to Russia, Italy to Austria German etc.
 All over Europe national communities demanded to be included into the politics of
their respective countries. Nationalism in the first part of the nineteenth century
was a liberal sentiment concerning self-determination – the right of a people to
determine its own fate.
Nation
 A nation is a historical entity that evolves organically out of a more similar ethnic
group who reveals its self through myth or legends and other discourses
(Heywood,2014)
 Nation is a group of people who have a shared culture, history, geography,
psychological make-up and believe that they have common destiny.
 If a nations has a state it forms a compound noun – the ‘nation-state’
 nationalist leaders argue, the nation should take over the state and make use of its
institutional structures to further the nation’s ends e.g. Independence, nation-
building, cultural purity, cultural preservation, expansion
 The nation is taken as a soul added to the body of the modern state
e.g. Jew,
State
 The state is said to have emerged with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
 The Montevideo Convention on the “Rights and Duties of the state” defines the
state has four features: a defined territory, permanent population, an effective
government and sovereignty.
 Nation-State: Nation state is an independent country containing a single
nationality or homogeneous society.
 New ethno-cultural nationalism and religious fundamentalism and revivalism
happening across the world with the post-cold war assertions of religion, culture
and ethnicity as potent forces in world politics that also affect the state.
1.2. understanding International relations (IR)
• International relations is not merely a field of study at university but is an integral aspect of
peoples everyday lives. Eg, Suez canal, Arab- Israeli conflict.
• Studying international relations enables students and professionals to better comprehend the
information we receive daily from newspapers, television and radio eg. Oil price,
• international relations (a term first used by Jeremy Bentham in 1798) was seen largely as a
branch of the study of law, philosophy or history.
• the first university chair of international relations was founded at the University of Wales in
1919. The objective was how to prevent future world war?
• There is no accepted way of defining or understanding international relations, and throughout
the world many have established individual definitions.
• Today, international relations could be used to describe a range of interactions between
people, groups, firms, associations, parties, nations or states or between these and (non)
governmental international organizations.
• events such as international conflict, global warming, infectious dieses, terrorism,
international crime play a fundamental part in the study of international relations.
• Participation in international relations or politics is also inescapable. Hence, understanding
IR is imperative since the world is socially, poltically, economically and emotionally
interconnected.eg. The spread of global pandamic, covid -19.
• IR can be understood as “who” gets “what” and “how” which indicates the actor, the
objective and the means, respectively.
• The governing principle of international relation is “there is no permanent enemy or friend,
but permanent interest”
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 Difference between international and domestic politics

International politics Domestic politics

• Internal law rests on competing legal systems, and • law is generally obeyed and the police and courts
no common enforcement. enforce law.
• no one has a monopoly of force, and international • a government has a monopoly on the legitimate
politics is anarchy and self-help. No government use of force- hence stability.
• Anarchical • Hierarchical
• No sovereign body • Government is sovereign within its legal
• No shared loyalty but sense of global citizenship is jurisdiction
being emerging • Loyalty is shared among the people
• Actors are not sovereign • Actors are sovereign
• No borders. No beginnings no ends • Limited borders
Similarities Similarties
 Power struggle
 Power struggle  Conflict of interest
 Conflict of interest  Power
 Power What is domestic is international
 What is international could be domestic eg. The spread of disease – Covid-19 from China to all
Eg.International financial crisis could affect even the countries or the globe
small economies of a country. Terrorism and international crime
These force countries to have accepted international Which force the global community to have the same
financial policies and measures. policy towards these global issues

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The nature and evolution of International Relations
1.The Treaty of Westphalia, 1648
 Ended the “thirty years’ war between France and Austria and their aides to control
Europe.
 Since Westphalia treaty international politics was a matter of relations between states
and no other political units i.e the pope or church or the emperor
 All states were sovereign, meaning that they laid claims to the exclusive right to rule
their own territories and to act, in relation to other states.
 All states were formally equal and they had the same rights and obligations.
 However, sovereignty and formal equality led to the problem of anarchy and future
alliance systems which led to WWI and WWII.
 European model of statehood and the European way of organizing international
relations that eventually came to organize all of world politics.
2. Industrial revolution
new productions →new markets →natural resource → Colonization →new states after
WWII based on European terms and interest
3. The end of WWI
 Contributed for the emergence of new independent and sovereign state through the
principle of self-determination.
 League of Nation was also established
4. The end of WWII
led for the establishment of UN many international organizations

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1.4. Actors in International Relations
“The world is a stage and the men and women merely players” William Shakespeare
There are two types of Actors in IR: state actors and non-state actors
1. State Actors
 States are the basic and the only sovereign actors of IRs
 international politics is a „world stage‟ on which the states are the leading actors
 There is asymmetrical power relation among state actors in terms of political and military,
economy, diplomacy, influence and persuasion
Eg. UN‟s voting system and veto power in UNSC
2. Non –state Actors
 Are non-sovereign actors of IRs. These include
 International Governmental Organizations UN,AU,EU,AL, IGAD, WB, IMF,NATO, WTO
 International Non –Governmental Organizations Red Cross, Red Crescent
 Multinational Corporations (MNCs) Toyota , coca cola
 Religious institutions eg The Vatican
 Terrorists
 Individuals eg, ex- US presidents, the Catholic pope, Bill gets, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Mark
Zukerberg
All these are the players and potentiaries in international relations that challenge the traditional actors of
IRs, the state.
 the increased focus on non-state actors and cross-border issues has marked a revolutionary turn in
IR; something that could be interpreted as a shift away from the inter-national („between-states‟) to
the „trans-national‟ („across/beyond-states‟ and their borders).
That is why according to Robert Keohane recently stated that „International Relations‟ is no longer a
suitable label and that we should instead refer to the discipline as „Global Studies‟ or „World Politics‟
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 1.5. Levels of Analysis in International Relations
• Kenneth Waltz‟s „Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis‟ (1959) introduced an
analytical framework for the study of IR:
• According to Waltz there are three analytical frameworks or levels of analysis for the study
of international politics. These are individual, state and systemic level. The group level is
considered as the fourth.
The individual level
 International relations can be analyzed from the perspective of individuals
 It analyzes the behaviors, motivations, beliefs and orientation of the individual in affecting
a particular international phenomenon.
 It sees the psychology and emotions behind people‟s actions and decisions, their fears and
their visions as well as their access to information and capacity to make a difference while
making decisions.
The group level
 Sees the role of lobbying groups and the way they influence national decision making on
an issue. Eg. The role of trade unions, lobbyist, pressure groups, voters
The State Level
 it is the dominant level of analysis which is known as ‘state-centrism’
 the state acts as the arena in which state officials, politicians and decision-makers operate.
 the state remains the main location of power- monopoly on violence-within the
international politics. I.e., the state has the legal right to use the means of violence

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Cont.d
the systemic level
 Looks and analyzes the global system as the structure or context within which
states cooperate, compete and confront over issues of national interest.

 It analyzes the disrubution of power among states internationally.

 Internationally there are three types of power distribution that influence and
condition the behavior of states viz-a viz their national interest. These are unipolar,
bi-polar and multi polar structure.
 The systemic level conditions the ability and opportunity of individual states and
groups of states to pursue their interests in cooperative or competitive ways.
Important IRs Terms and concepts
 Polarity :i.e., unipolar (since 1991);Bi-polar (since 1945, Britain and France),
multipolar (historical since the Westphalia Treaty to WWII).
 Power: power is the currency of international politics. According to Hans
Morgenthau international politics is “is a struggle for power”
 Anarchy: is a situation where there is absence of authority
 Sovereignty: refers a state’s ultimate authority within its territorial entity (internal
sovereignty) and, (ii) the state’s involvement in the international community
(external sovereignty).

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 Theories of International Relations
 Theories of international relations allow us to understand and sense of the world
around us through various lenses.
 IR theories present contending theories about the nature of international politics.
 IR theories are divided in to three
traditional theories, aka mainstream IR theories
middle-ground theories and
critical theories
1. Main stream IR theories
Liberalism/Idealism
 This theory aka Utopian
 Views human being as naturally good, peace loving and cooperative
 Believes on the relevance of morality, diplomacy and cooperation in international politics.
 It focuses on “what it should be”
 Believes that peace and cooperation are achievable.
 The theory is influenced by philosophers like John Locke and Immanuel Kant.
 Immanuel Kant developed the idea in the late eighteenth century that states that share liberal
values should have no reason for going to war against one another.
 Kant‟s idea influenced the emergence of the Democratic Peace Theory (DPT), which
argues that democracies do not go to war with each other.
Why democracies do not go to war?
 Their citizens do not allow tax payer‟s money to be used for war
 They solve their problems via peaceful means
 They have faith on institutions and diplomacy to solve emerging problems eg. LN (1920)
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 Cont.d
• Liberalism /idealism believes in liberal internationalism which says the academic study of
international relations had the potential to contribute to the prevention of war and the
establishment of peace.
• liberal internationalism argues that the prospects for the elimination of war lay with a preference
for democracy over aristocracy, free trade over autarky, and collective security over the
balance of power system‟ (Burchill, 1996: 31).
• democracy and free trade, are the two formative pillars of liberal internationalism, required the
establishment of international relations which promote collectivist aspirations than competition.

2. Realism
 aka real politik
 Considers human nature as selfish, evil, conflictual, competitive, war mongerer,etc
 It focuses on “what really is”
 Views that the international system is „anarchic‟- absence of global governance.
 Conflict is an inevitable and continual feature of inter-national relations.
 Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes are the founding voices of realism
 It believes in power and balance of power which is the source of peace
 Argues that states are the primary and the only actors of IRs.
 State survival, accumulation of power, national interest are key concepts of realism.
 Power is the means to an end- survival in the Darwinian world.
 The International system is a self-help system.
 If you need peace, then prepare for war.
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 Structuralism/Marxism
 In Marxist terminology structuralism refers structures which promote economic and class domination.
 Marxism argues that a capitalist society is divided into two contradictory classes – the business class (the
bourgeoisie) and the working class (the proletariat).
 Marx hoped for an eventual end to the capitalist society and overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat.
 International socialist revolution is the only solution for global peace since socialists do not fight
imperialist wars.
 Focuses on the inequalities that exist within the international system, inequalities of wealth between the rich
„North‟ or the „First World‟ and the poor „South‟ or the „Third World‟
 Is a paradigm focused on dependency, exploitation and the international division of labor which relegated
the vast majority of the global population to the extremes of poverty,
 Structuralism focuses on center-periphery relations or division of labor. The center being the west (north)
and the periphery the third world (south).
Periphery
finished industrial products Africa,Asia
Center South
raw materials
America
Price makers (seters) price takers
Independent of the south dependent on the north
 Effect: 1. global inequality
2. debt burden
3.violence and instability which were caused by
Imperialism of the capitalist west
Social (state ) capitalism by USSR
 Major contributors of dependency theory are Latin American, African and the Middle East scholars
 Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems analysis provided a historicist account of the
spread of capitalism from the sixteenth century to the present, providing a definitive
statement on the impact of this structure on interstate, class and other social relations.
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Constructivism
• Constructivism is a theory commonly viewed as a middle ground IR theory.
• the importance of values and shared interests between individuals who interact on the global
stage.
• argues goals of state are shaped by their ideas and values
• Alexander Wendt, a prominent constructivist, described the relationship between agents
(individuals) and structures (such as the state) as one in which structures not only constrain
agents but also construct their identities and interests.
Eg. US, as the bastion of liberal idea
Iran (IRI) as the Islamic revolutionary state (1979) and defender of Shia sect
KSA, defender of Orthodox Islam (Sunni sect)
Israel, the only Jew and democratic state encircled by reactionaries, despotic and others
DPRK, committed to the building of socialism and fighting US‟s imperialism.
Ethiopia, Christian island in the sea of infidels – this was during emperor Hailesilassie I.
 International anarchy as the defining principle of international politics, it has become part of our
reality.
 Anarchy is what actors make of it.
 To understand constructivism is to understand that ideas, or „norms‟ as they are often called,
have “power”.
 IR is fundamentally political, normative, socially constructed and interest-driven.

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 Critical Theories
 Critical approaches refer to a wide spectrum of theories that have been established in
response to mainstream approaches in the field, mainly liberalism and realism.
 they oppose commonly held assumptions in the field of IR
 call for new approaches that are better suited to understand, as well as question, the world.
 They identify positions that have typically been ignored or overlooked by mainstream IR
theories.
 They provide a voice to individuals who have frequently been marginalized.
e.g. Women, the global south, minorities, stateless peoples
 Critical theories influenced by Marxism, oppose the internationalization of the state which
led ordinary people around the globe becoming divided and alienated.
 They call that the legitimacy of the state must be questioned and ultimately dissolved.
 emancipation from the state is their wider agenda for the world.
 Feminism, critical theory, post-modernism are sub theories of Critical theories.

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Post-colonialism
 focuses on the inequality between nations or regions.
 effects of colonialism are still felt in many regions of the world today as local populations
continue to deal with the challenges created and left behind by the former colonial
powers.
 Post-colonialism‟s origins can be traced to the Cold War period when much activity in
international relations centered around decolonization and the ambition to undo the
legacies of European imperialism.
 Edward Said (1978) developed the prominent „Orientalist‟ critique, describing how the
Middle East and Asia were inaccurately depicted in the West or Euro-centrism.
 Orientalism focuses on including the viewpoints of those from the Global South to ensure
that Western scholarship (Euro-centrism) no longer spoke on their behalf.
 Euro-centrism signifies the cultural, moral and rational aspect (superiority) of the
Western world and its dominance over the other.
 Afro-centrism, Orientalism are counter scholarships that focus on the centrality of Africa
and Asia in their own knowledge production other than „Western‟ mindset.

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