International Relations Notes

October 5, 1998

Suggested Questions for Essay 1

Answer one of the following:

1. Is the balance of power the only reliable basis for order in international relations?

2. Compare and contrast the League of Nations and the United Nations as international organizations.

3. Did decolonization after WWII undermine or strengthen the structure of the modern international society?

4. Why did the 'second Cold War' begin; and why did it end with the collapse of the USSR?

5. Are liberal theories of international relations necessarily utopian, and is this a problem?

October 5, 1998

During the pre-Westphalian system, there was no real concept of sovereignty. There's no real distinction between "domestic" and "international." There was a central authority (the Pope), and a common language, Latin. Therefore, everything is somewhat unified.

Causes for change from Westphalian system

Capitalism

Changes in thought (the Reformation/Renaissance/Enlightenment)

Changes in military

All of this brought about the idea of states and reduced the authority of Christendom. This culminated in the Thirty Years War.

Thirty Years War - a bunch of conflicts evolving around Catholic vs. Protestants.

In Munster and Osnabruck, no less than 194 authorities were present. In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia basically made Protestants the winners.

Important things about the Peace of Westphalia

This all brought about a new "mechanical system" of independent states, along with a system of rules for an international society. These are important concepts for this course: again, a system of sovereign states, and a society of states.

The painting of the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, according to the speaker, reflected a new anonymization of the diplomat, no longer, "John Smith," but just a representative of a certain state.

Operation of the Westphalian System

Balance of power - sort of like the free market economy. Everything is left to itself, and provides stability (but not necessarily peace) that guards against hegemony. The secondary function is to protect the independence of each state. This second function is secondary, because sometimes states are sacrificed for the balance of power (such as the partitioning of Poland).

Balance of power just sort of automatically form because of natural interaction between states. It provides a minimum of order on which other organizations (international law, diplomacy, rules of war, etc) can flourish. The balance of power is makes an equilibrium, and it doesn't require any common moral agreement - everyone cooperates (more or less) not because they are the same, but because it is to each state's best interest.

Other features of the Westphalian System: positive international law, diplomacy, rules of war (from jus ad bellum to jus in bello, whatever that means.)

We see a balance of power emerging in 1815, when people bind together to stop the hegemonic attempt by France under Napoleon. From this brought a "Concert of Europe," a sort of club of states coming together to stop future hegemons. Furthermore, we see the Pax Britannica, the British control of the seas. These two mechanisms describe the things which bring about the "Hundred Years Peace," the long period in the 19th century where there were no major wars, just minor skirmishes. This was also a period of economic prosperity.

Causes of World War I

Basically three reasons set forth:

Was balance of power the cause of WWI?

Since the balance of power was so effective in the 19th century, what happened to it in the 20 century?

Just recently we've had and are having conflicts in the Balkans; why hasn't this escalated into something like WWI?

October 12, 1998

Liberal Theories

Questions: What exactly is a liberal order? Was the inter-war order truly a liberal order?

Three main goals of a liberal society: peace, prosperity, and justice. Different liberals start with different aspects, trying to achieve the same goal: having an international system that extends what democratic societies have done domestically.

Justice: Realists think that politics is an amoral power play. Personal morals and state "morals" are not necessarily the same. Liberals have two objections to this:

Institutions:

1930's - David Mitrany - Classical functionalism that died out and came back in the 1960's. - Institutions are created to fulfill needs. Societies create these institutions. In the 20th century, we need some sort of transnational regulation. All sorts of institutions build up and then spill over into bigger, connected institutions like the EU.

Rightness of Democracy: Realists say that states can balance each other by trying to meet their needs. Liberalists say that states are different and democracies are more peaceful. Since democracies are ruled by the people, the people themselves are less likely to vote for war since they are the people actually losing things. These ideas come from Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace. Michael Doyle has updated this concept by discovering that democracies don't really go to war with each other, but they are still aggressive towards non-democracies.

Free Market: The concept that everyone gains from free trade. Some countries are good at producing different things and trade will allow states to maximize efficiency; this connects states economically so that they are very unlikely to go to war with each other.

Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations

Was the League too liberal, or was it not liberal enough?

Intentions of the Allied and Associated Powers

The Allied powers gave two main reasons for WWI: 1) balance of power politics promotes military buildup and wars, and 2) the balance of power creates an inflexible system of secret diplomacy, making a tendency for little conflicts to erupt into a bigger conflict. (Remember that all these were debates within the victories powers, i.e. the US and the UK.)

These liberals had mainly two "prescriptions":

Wilson brought anti-imperialistic ideas to the table:

Self-determination - people should be able to control their rulers and decide who should rule of them. One big argument was would the UK and French be able to keep their empires. They basically said that self-determination is only proper if the people could "prove" that they were able to do so.

The fate of Germany - Should we punish the Germans (the French idea)? The French wanted the kaiser (the ex-ruler of Germany) and put him on trial (they didn't get this). The French demanded a war guilt statement in the treaty, which they got. They demanded reparations, which they also received. (This reflected the French idea that Germans should be crippled so that they could never do the same things again.

What kind of economic system - Rebuild the old economic system and just "tinker" with it so that it never gets to extremes? They tried to reestablish the old systems and stabilize currencies. (Remember that the idea was that free trade brings about prosperity.) The gold standard was used to try to do this. (The problem is that in the 19th century the gold standard was propped up by Great Britain.) They also wanted systems for international welfare to keep revolutions from happening.

The League Covenant

Article 1: Membership - the defeated states and the Soviet Union weren't allowed to join.

Articles 2-7: Organizational Structure:

Articles 8-17: Preservation of Peace - as opposed to the balance of power system, where hegemons were resisted, this collective security resisted power by the other states binding together against those who use force without the "permission" or the international community. There wouldn't be a need for alliances, because all states would be protected against agression - therefore, you could have disarmament.

Articles 18-21: Legal Status of Covenant

Article 22: Mandates System (Classes A, B, & C) - In Europe, states were broken up to form others (such as Poland), but non-European imperialist possessions and colonies were divided up into three classes which sort of decided where they were on the scale of ability of self-determination (classes A, B, and C). German was made to pay reparations, demilitarized, and the Rhineland was turned into a demilitarized zone.

Article 23: Social Welfare

"Universal peace can be established only if it is based on social justice."

Articles 24-25: League's Relation to Other Institutions

Problems:

The great powers did not properly back up the system. Germany was not included at first, and the Soviet Union wasn't ever included. The US didn't ratify the treaty and accept the League of Nations. For these reasons, the League's decisions couldn't be backed up and it was therefore delegitimacized. So collective security was flawed from the beginning.

The economic order wasn't fixed, either. Great Britain was weakened and the US didn't hold up currencies. The US economy collapsed. Everyone tried to cling onto stable currencies, set up trade barriers, etc. and the global economy went down. The failure of the US to keep up the economy was, according to the lecturer, was more important than its withdrawal from world politics.

Should the old order have been kept, and just modified, or should everything have been done away with and a new order created?

October 19, 1998

E. H. Carr's work blames liberalism for WWI. He is utopian; he thinks that all IR thought should have some goal in mind. However, the thinks that liberalism was too utopian - he thinks that IR thought should also be realistic. Carr thinks that 19th century liberal harmony was kept together by British hegemony. Towards the end of the 19th century, there became a competition of interests instead of a harmony of interests. He sees the procedures after WWI as an attempt to reconstruct the pre-WWI harmony of interests based on economic free trade. Polani (The Great Transformation) also commented on the League of Nations.

Morgenthau, a German immigrant in the US, constructed a framework for looking at the balance of power. His six principals:

Morgenthau tries to give objective scientific principles about international relations, the endpoint of which says that the only system that will work is a balance of power. He sent a message to the US to work for the well-being of the US without worrying as much about whether the policies are moral.

The policy of containment and the origins of the Cold War

Classical Position - The USSR's expansionism and ideological commitment to establish a worldwide revolution caused the Cold War.

Revisionist Position - The USSR was exhausted at the end of WWII and their actions of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe was justified to provide a buffer. Plus, the US had the atomic bomb and the USSR did not.

Counter-Revisionist Position - The structure of the system produced the Cold War. There was a power vacuum in Eastern Europe:

1945 George Kennan (minister of the US Embassy in Moscow, seen by the US as their expert on the USSR) gives diplomatic advice on how US foreign policy should implement Morgenthau's principals. Between 1947-1950 on, "containment" started to take on a different meaning.

"The Long Telegram" - Said that fundamentally, the USSR was not an ideological country, and the US should not be that worried about it. It is hostile to the US because its leadership needs an enemy to be able to give an excuse of keeping its hold over its citizens, but don't be afraid of this. Communism in itself is not a threat to the US.

n 1947, he wrote an article signed, "Mr. X," which says:

The US policy changes:

1947 "Truman Doctrine" - "It must be the policy of the US to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure." This starts to broaden the US' interests from a very specific region to the entire world. This is because of fear of the "domino" effect and because the Cold War is beginning to become an ideological situation.

1950 National Security Committee (NSC)-68 - This policy says that increased expenditures can keep going and going, in a Keynes-like economic situation. "A defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere." No possibility is seen for accommodation; the USSR's hostility to the US is seen as purely ideological. "Perimeter defense strategy."

Sidenote:

Introduction: What does the question mean? What could count as an answer? What is the plan of the argument?

Literature: What are the main theories? How do they differ? How could they be assessed?

Argument: Logical structure, use of empirical evidence, make a case for a position.

Conclusion: Summarize the argument, state the answer to the question, justify the answer on the basis of the argument.

October 26, 1998

Two Traditions
Realism Liberalism
"Logic of anarchy" "Logic of Cooperation"
Power vs. morality Justice vs. order
Balance and stability Cooperation and peace
Anarchic states-system International society

Towards a Realist-Liberal Synthesis?

Cooperation under anarchy

The "utopian anarchy"

Institutionalizing the balance of power

The "anarchical society"

Hedley Bull says that this idea of anarchy doesn't present as much of a problem as the Realist would like to say it does, but there is a bigger problem of difference.

Pluralist vs. Solidarist

Pluralist agree to just put up with others' differences.

Solidarist think that the states should form institutions based upon shared culture.

Bull's Theory

Core Concepts

Components of International Society

Conceptions of Justice

Bull's History of Modern International Society

The History of Modern International Society
Medieval Christendom Modern International Society
Common values (Christian) Common interest (toleration)
No membership rule Sovereign statehood (i.e. only states possess sovereignty)
Primacy of natural law Positive (volitional) law
Inchoate (ill-defined) and universalist rules of coexistence Equal sovereignty and nonintervention
No defined set of institutions Five key common institutions:
  • Balance of power
  • Diplomacy
  • International law
  • Rules of war
  • Great power system

Main Stages in the Expansion of International Society

1648-late 19th Century: European international society

late 19th Century-1945: A society of "civilized states"

since 1945: The "revolt against the West"

Key themes of the "Revolt against the West"

"Civilized state:" Must have a government, capacity for diplomatic relations with other states (and equal sovereignty), obedience to the rules and norms of international law.

November 2, 1998

From Cold War to Detente

Understanding Foreign Policy Changes: Three Models

(from Graham Allison, Essence of Decision)

Rational Actor Model

The state is seen as a rational actor, like a person. It is fully aware of its interests and how to try to achieve them. Foreign policy can change with changes in balances of power or in the makeup of the system itself. Allison doesn't find this adequate to define the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Organizational Politics Model

Policy is the output of large organizations and bureaucracies. Each of these departments have their own area of speciality. It's the structure of their "standard operating procedures" that determines foreign policy; therefore, change is usually very slow and incremental. We look at these standard operating procedures and see how changes affect the overall foreign policy. Allison thinks this is an improvement, but it doesn't go far enough; it doesn't say anything about conflict between departments

Governmental (Bureaucratic) Politics Model

Policy is the outcome of bargaining games between actors within the domestic political system. "Where you stand depends on where you sit." Instead of looking at standard operating procedures, we look at the interaction among the departments themselves and the other political actors. The outcome is different than any one of the organizations involved intended. Government actions are therefore political resultants:

Therefore, this is what IR would call a pluralist model, including NGO's, transnational companies, etc.

Conventional Approaches to the Cold War

The traditional realist approach is geopolitical. Although the players sometimes make idealistic claims, they usually go back to protecting their national interests. Sometimes, for example, the USSR abandons other communist countries. There are certain rules that the great powers are continually learning - learning how to be superpowers. Fundamentally, they are playing power politics and trying to maximize their power. The neo-liberal approach, on the other hand, sees detente as a shift towards interdependence.

Probably the biggest debate in America is the neo-realist vs. neo-liberal debate (personified by Waltz and Keohane, respectively). The neo-neo debate brings economics into the discussion. Taken from Baldwin's book, there are six points about what's at stake in the debate:

This is significantly different between the old realist/liberalist debate, that is, a description of how things are vs. how liberalists want things to be with enough institutions. In the neo-neo debate, neo-liberalists try to be realistic.

Marxist Approach

Fred Halliday sees two fundamentally different ideological systems, and four stages of the cold war:

Cold War History

Eisenhower, Dulles, and "Asymmetrical Retaliation."

The core notion is how to maintain economic control while maintaining control around the world, and they see nuclear weapons as a cheap way to do this. Whenever the USSR "steps over the line," the US will come back with nuclear attacks. This is referred to as the "New Look." It's an attempt to keep the economic system under control.

Kennedy and the "Flexible Response"

Kennedy says that the US will respond in a similar way - when the US does something, the US will respond in like manner, not necessarily using nuclear weapons.

Kissinger's ideas about detente: Linkage: There are multiple ways in which states communicate, so there are multiple issues that a society must address in its own right. You can change things by manipulating other things. There is less of a scene for military action.

The Role of China

Try to strengthen China so that you foster differences between communist countries, resulting in a tripolarity instead of a bipolarity. The USSR's rapprochement is therefore a reaction to differences with China and the US' new relations with China.

November 16, 1998

Hegemons and International Regimes

International Regime - principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures, about which acts or expectations converge. The institutionalized framework in which the international economy takes place. This is used by neo-realists and especially by neo-liberalists.

The role of hegemonic states are probably what differentiates realists and liberals. Gilpen says that hegemons create regimes, and its dominance over other states in the system creates compliance. Susan Strange says that one of the main things a hegemon does uses propaganda, etc. to make the other states think that it is in their interests to sustain the regimes.

Realists think that when a hegemon declines, its regime declines with it, just like the free trade of Great Britain in the 19th century. Liberals don't agree with this. Keohane's After Hegemony said that 1) states get into a "habit" of obeying these regimes and see its benefits of predictability and stability, and 2) states recognize the functionality of these regimes, such as GATT to maximize gains.

Marxist Theories

Classical Marxism

IR should be considered as a product of capitalist/socialist relations as a whole. There are three core propositions to this (in a very short, crude, explanation)

Lenin's Theory of Imperialism

As capitalism continue, you build up large amounts of wealth which can no longer be invested domestically. Internationally, however, they don't control things politically, so they control these other countries in order to use them economically. They use their powers to control the other state(s) so that they can invest their capital there. His explanation of WWI, then, is that capitalism had reached its limits in extracting surplus from colonies, so there was a competition.

Core-Periphery Model

However, after decolonization this dependency seemed to continue. To explain this, the core-periphery model says that there are core countries that exploit periphery countries by an unequal relationship. The core continually extracts the surplus of the production of the periphery.

"Neo-Gramscian" Theories (Cox)

These other theories don't provide for change. Cox says that we need to bring back in notions of the hegemon and of class. In 1945 we see a neo-liberal economic order with an internationalization of production, with multinational corporations, etc. This is similar to Keohane's argument of a regime staying around after the decline of a hegemon.

Inter-Systemic Conflict (Halliday)

So the Cold War was the result of two completely separate ideologies dedicated to the complete domination over the other. In Halliday's view, detente would never work, and this theory gives us an insight into the end of the Cold War.

Halliday introduces the idea of a "Second Cold War," which included a renewal of military buildup, the emergence of the highlight of an ideological difference (such as human rights), a stalling of negotiations (such as SALT 2), reassertion of domestic controls (such as the Republicans reasserting Cold War things), and other policies (such as Kissinger's linkage) joining the entire Cold War ideology.

End of the Cold War

Realists say that Reagan scared the USSR into dissolving itself, liberalists say that the USSR learned to be different, and Marxists would say that the US was successful in upholding its capitalist order.

November 23, 1998

Paradigms and Traditions in IR Theory

Inter-Paradigm Debate

The 3 Traditions (Wight)

Realism

"Billiard ball model"

State-centric

Realism

"Hobbesianism" or "Machiavellianism"

State of War

Pluralism

"Cobweb model"

Transnationalism

Rationalism

Grotius/Locke

International Society

Structuralism

"Octopus model"

Capitalist world economy

Revolutionism

Kant/Marx

Community of Mankind

Some see IR theories as evolving just like paradigms of scientists - theories will be modified little by little until so much empirical evidence forces a completely different paradigm to come about.

Nuclear Weapons and Cold War Diplomacy

Nuclear Weapons:

Theory of Deterrence

For deterrence, you have to make it clear that using nuclear weapons is perfectly acceptable in certain circumstances.

Mutually Assured Destruction

The key to MAD is the assurance of a retaliation that would be devastating. You have the delivery system to delivery a retaliatory strike. You have to have large numbers of delivery systems, dispersed over a large area. You need them to be protected. You need to conceal them. (e.g. submarines). Making them mobile would be nice. You need some sort of active defense system. Therefore, instead of protecting your population, protect your weapons which will provide a deterrence, protecting the population. You need an immediate second strike policy.

You must have a certain amount of rationality on each side for deterrence to work. Each side must be able to do cost/benefit analysis. You also need to have reasonably good information that is objectively interpreted about what the other side is doing. You need an effective command/control procedure. You both need to be vulnerable for this system to work. This is a problem with Reagan's SDI plan of making the USA more vulnerable. This is like WWI, when Germany felt that the window of being able to attack Great Britain and win was closing. Maybe the USSR would have used its weapons before SDI was implemented.

Deterrence after the Cold War

The "unequal balance of terror." Maybe one side has nuclear weapons and the other does not. Maybe both have nuclear weapons, but they don't have enough for complete destruction, meaning MAD doesn't deter its use. Keene sees this last situation as worrying, because the decision-making for using nuclear weapons won't be on the clearly-defined MAD deterrence, and nuclear weapons aren't as taboo and they might be used on a (relatively) small scale.

Decision-Making in a Nuclear World

The Cuban Missile Crisis is used a lot in analyzing crisis management.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Assumption of Effective Crisis Management

Ethics of Nuclear Weapons

Just War Theory

Just war theory is a very old theory.

Jus ad bellum - The right to go to war.

Jus in bello - How you should conduct yourself.

You could say that the use of nuclear weapons are unjustifiable in the respect that they cannot discriminate between capabilities. Also, another argument is that war should be in proportion to the violation, and Hiroshima illustrates this, also. The argument that Hiroshima saved lives ignores the argument of the possibility of showing the capability of the bomb without dropping the bomb on cities, and the option of the US not requiring a full surrender.

Bull makes the point that all states having nuclear weapons could make the states system more egalitarian.

November 30, 1998

The UN Charter System of International Law

All law systems are in some way related to and constructed by the political system it seeks to regulate.

Hedley Bull makes a distinction between a pluralist and solidarist conception of international society. In this view, states are still the main actors.

Bull thinks realism ignores the normative aspect of international relations, but he thinks that liberalism is far too utopian. He tries to form a middle ground between realism and liberalism. He thinks an international society exists, going beyond the realism claim of power politics, but it doesn't hold everything together as much as liberalism thinks.

Bull thinks that decolonization brought about a "revolt against the West," setting up a new pluralism in international relations.

Pluralist and Solidarist Conceptions
Pluralism Solidarism
War is the prerogative of sovereign states: jus in bello only. International law can only tell states how to conduct wars. Sanctify wars for law-enforcement: jus ad bellum
State consent is the sole source of international law: legal positivism. Since individuals are free, they can only be bound to rules to which they agree. Natural law is the basis for legitimacy: legal naturalism. There are certain a priori principles which can be worked out rationally. We don't need states to tell us whether some things are right or wrong. Natural law legitimizes and originates law.
International society is limited to the area of inter-state agreement. International society is universal in scope (normatively and geographically). There is a universal society of mankind.
Only states have international personality; individuals are merely objects of international law. Individuals are the ultimate members of international society; they are the proper focus of legal concern. Individuals are the ultimate "units of moral value." Everything must be done with the welfare of the individuals involved.

Bull thinks that power politics still dominates relations between states, and international society is divided because of cultural pluralism, so the solidarist conception is premature. He thinks that order comes before justice, because we can't push the limits of the multiple cultures to the breaking point.

People like Falk they think that Bull's description of the world is historically correct, but since 1945 there is a new solidarist conception of the world forming, with the UN at the center.

The UN Charter

The UN Charter contains some elements that look solidarist, but there are some definitely pluralistic sections, also. There was a big surge in 1989 of liberal optimism, which fell rapidly after that. Whether or not the UN appears to be solidarist seems to go up and down with the changing political thoughts of the times.

The UN Charter System of Legal Order

Antonio Cassesse (International Law in a Divided World) sees:

Even though solidarist themes are in the UN charter, there are pluralist themes as well.

The UN Charter: Use of Force, Domestic Jurisdiction, and Human Rights

Article 2.4: Al members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force against he territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

Article 2.7: Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII [Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression as defined by the Security Council.]

Article 55(c): ...The United Nations shall promote... universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all with out distinction as to race, sex, language, and religion.

The UN Charter, therefore, is ambiguous about which things are in the jurisdiction of states. There is a set of warring interpretations, and since 1989 the major force of political thought has been that there has been a huge western influence in the interpretation. It's hard for states to get recognition unless they somewhat adhere to some democratic themes - democratic entitlement.

If, there is a contested interpretation of what principles the UN should be dedicated to, there may be some respects that this new "solidarity" is not through a consensus but through a homogenization through western imperialistic processes.

From the tutorial: There are three subjects which should be kept distinct when discussing the UN Charter vs. previous conditions of international law: the prevalence of the Westphalian System, the presence of power politics, and the imposition of western normative ideas.

December 7, 1998

The US is still a hegemon, but there are reasons that suggest that this hegemony may be in decline. (It's hard to measure whether a hegemon is in decline, however.) What kind of world order can we expect now?

Theories of Hegemony (Review)

Hegemon comes from a Greek word meaning leader; it's the opposite of "balance of power" as a method of order. One particular power has an overwhelming power to the extent that the other states don't have the normal power of a sovereign state. The "rule of thumb" is that a state is a hegemon if it can take on the next two powers (in level of military power) during a war. A system with a hegemon, then, is no longer a pure anarchy. Everything looks more like a domestic political system.

Besides military might, there is a hegemonic ability to influence other states. Carr maintains, for example, that British hegemony created a free trade system, which survived until Britain started using free trade to its advantage. The key point here is that hegemony is not just about military might.

The Marxist view should also be considered, not just in blocks of states but in social manners: the hegemony of a certain class, for example.

The international system is built in a way to resist the emergence of a hegemon. A society of states resists a lapse into a pure anarchy and a lapse into a single hegemony.

Different forms of hegemony are more or less threatening. Naval hegemony is considered less of a problem.

Hegemons can build regimes as a way of gaining consensus. They create regimes to create normal principals that are to their advantage. One theory is that when hegemons decline, the related regimes will also decline. Keohane, however, says that the states will see the regimes as useful and the regimes will stay around after the decline of the hegemon.

The Inevitable Self-Liquidation of Hegemons

Internal Reasons for US Decline Advanced during the 1980's

In the 1980's people thought you could draw up some sort of balance sheet and see that the US was a hegemon, but other factors say other things. For example, you could look at the military power of the US and see that it was great, but some of these weapons were becoming out of date - the use of nuclear weapons doesn't make much sense in the world today. Even though the US may look strong on paper, in real life it is declining. Even though it is economically strong, it is in reletive decline - the difference between it and other states is getting smaller.

A monetary argument would say that the US has went from a creditor to a debtor. A cultural argument talks about US cultural icons (jeans, McDonalds), but it's hard to say exactly how each of these mean anything - how do you measure their effects.

Nye claims that a lot of these theories have created a mythical golden age back in the 50's, and then overestimates the decline from a mythical high.

Keene says that we are seeing what one author calls the "transcendence" of American hegemony. Power is a different animal, now. Being a hegemon means different things. Maybe the US can't be called a hegemon, now, but there is a hegemony, a "hegemonic block." With the end of the Cold War, it's not that the US can "lay down the law," but that the US can advance its ideas and ideals, bringing about the end of the ideological system of communism.

The relevant question then is how do regimes gather their power? It may be that liberal ideas are being embedded in the international scene, maybe put there by the US to begin with, but they are hanging around, whether or not the US can be rightly considered a hegemon.

If an opponent of this new order rises, it may well have to use the language (e.g. freedom, democracy) of the new order. For example, Hughs shows how some are using Hedley Bull to speak against the ideas being handed them from the regime itself. They use the ideas of the regime against itself.

January 11, 1999

International Organizations

Intergovernmental Organization - An international organization in which legal membership is solely open to states, and the decision-making authority lies in governments. An association of states, in other words.

International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) - Others besides governments are included. (Issues-based organizations, liberation groups, the mafia, etc.)

International Regime - Social institutions; ways of behaving; states and others occupy particular roles.

Main Branches of Liberal Theory

Neo-functionalism

Formed in the 30's and 40's. Each epoch has a certain function associated with it. The 19th century, for example, was responsible for collecting everything into states. The 20th century is to coordinate transnational activities, and society would form institutions to do these jobs, in this case coordinate international activities. These ideas were revised to make a neo-liberal theory.

When certain patterns emerge, laws and institutions will uphold these patterns - the spillover effect. Making trade flows function better, you'll see more trade, etc. This is functional spillover. You'll also see certain organizations (the European Commission, for example) forming. This is political spillover.

Neo-liberal Institutionalism

The institutions we have are the ones states want to have. This is closer to realist theory. These institutions can always be rolled back if states do not like them.

Constructivism

States will manage to cooperate when they have a common identity and/or culture.

Theories of International Institutions

The UN reaffirms the role of the state. NGO's in many instances are to rescue the state from certain failures. However, IGO's always pose certain problems to states, because they work internationally. An IGO can usually make treaties on its own and with members outside of its membership. It is in a sense above the sovereignty of particular states, because individuals in the organization have immunity and protection in member states. Members can bring action against other member states.

The central issue is how IGO's form certain personalities and through those personalities change the society.

The United Nations

Principal Organs

Specialized Agencies

World Health Organization (WHO), ILO, UNESCO, etc. Have an autonomous status.

UN Programs and Conferences

Subsidiary bodies created by the General Assembly, funded through voluntary contributions: UNDP (Development Program), UNEP (Environmental Program), UNCTAD, INICEF, etc.

The functionalist approach would see the UN as coordinating the responses to trans-national problems. Its turn to its specialized agencies has been a significant development. The current situation is a spillover effect.

The constructivist would say that the UN has managed to create or is founded upon certain common norms, such as the desire to reduce violent conflicts.

Roles of the United Nations

January 18, 1999

Regionalism

Explanations of Regionalism

Structuralism

Realists, who are normally for "get-as-much-power-as-you-can," deal with giving up power to a regional organization in several ways. They may say that banding together with like-minded states will effectively give each state more power - increasing the balance of power in their favor. Another theory is that a hegemon may create a regional organization to enhance its regional power, such as the US and NAFTA.

Liberal accounts of globalization easily accommodate regionalism. Regional organizations help manage flows across national boundaries. Neo-liberalism still see regional integration as state-driven.

Constructivism

Constructivism says that the identities of states determine what their interests are. Regional integration follow from shared values and identities in an area.

Neo-functionalism

Again, you have spillover effects with each level of integration, creating more integration and more reasons for integration.

Unit-level Theories

States join regional organizations in order to strengthen its structure. Another idea is that there is a strong link between democratic states and cooperative regional integration.

The European Union

There are two main reasons the EU began: 1) the need for economic rebuilding, such as early attempts to bind together to rebuild the coal and steel industries, which was later expanded to other areas. Economic integration could also bring about economies of scale. 2) Monnet's idea that closer cooperation, largely through economic integration, would lead to more peaceful relations because deep integration would make war too costly and irrational. Therefore, regional organizations in general are usually to bring about either economic gains, regional security, or both.

The Council of Ministers makes most of the rules in the EU. At first at least, rules were formed by unanimous consent. The European Parliament plays much of a lesser role. The European Commission has standard-setting powers and such, and has played a large role in the direction of the EU. The European Court of Justice is legally very important.

The Single European Act of 1986 made the most changes. This involved creation of a single money system and of certain standards. The Maastrict Treaty of 1992 changed the name form the European Community to the European Union, and made the following important changes:

Therefore, in general we see small integration that spread to much wider regional integration. The EU has advanced far beyond what its initial "founders" ever thought. States, however, still seem to be the main players.

Americas

In South America, a debt crisis brought about regional integration, mainly because of integration started between Brazil and Argentine. Later, the EU was looked at as a model. There's therefore a political aspect to regional integration - look at the situation with Chile's fear of guerillas. In North America, there was a long period of peace between the US and Canada, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) formed out of a US/Canada agreement.

Asia

Asian integration has been much looser. Fears of China and such have helped to form regional agreement, but there seems to be less of a common identity. There is a huge disparity between the position of Japan and the economic position of the other members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Middle East

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was founded in 1981 and was formed to guard against the destabilizing effects of the Iran-Iraq war. Most of the GCC countries are oil-exporting, so they don't really have much reason for more integration with each other, since most of their economic relations are with states outside the organization.

Africa

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was formed against imperialism and colonization. But since these states are trying to get more independence through decolonization, the OAU has had some problems because regional integration inevitably reduces independence to some extent.

The main factors which influence regional integration seem then to be:

January 25, 1999

Questions for Essay #2

International Non-Governmental Organizations

INGOs are numerous and diverse (over 4,000 NGO's and over 35,000 MNC's, according to some older surveys).

A classic way an NGO gains recognition is through the UN, through consultive services. The NGO must support the goals of the UN's charter (e.g. support the sovereignty of states, and of non-intervention). This is of course ambiguous and often contested - what do you do with a state who's government has broken down? There's a problem with accountability, also; should NGO's be accountable to the people paying for their existence, to the home country, or the state in which they operate? NGO must not be profit-making groups to give consultation to the UN, and they can't be established by an intergovernmental agreement.

NGO Categories

Single-Issue Pressure Groups

These are the most common; that is, when someone refers to NGOs, they usually refer to these. They can be purely non-governmental, or can be connected with a government.

Multinational or Transnational Corporations

An MNC has an affiliation with a "home state," while a TNC is not really connected to any of them. About 90% are MNC's, connected with a developed country.

National Liberation Movements

They are recognized as having a special status because, even though they aren't states, they represent a certain group - a nation. Of course, it's hard to define a nation. There has to be a distinction between a National Liberation Movement and pure succession groups.

Once recognized, they are "states-in-waiting." States are prohibited from using force against them. They can form agreements, and their members get official rights.

International Criminal Organizations

They aren't states, but still make an impact.

Transnational Media Organizations

Private Individuals

In very few instances, private individuals can bring cases against a state because of, for example, human rights violations.

It could be looked as how much power NGO's have, in relation to states:

NGO's all use resources to win disputes. Multinational Corporations, for example, fit this category. They work together to "juggle the figures" to make sure they show profits in certain countries (with low taxes, for instance.) They use triangulation, moving resources between several countries to get around sanctions and such. They use regulatory arbitrage - threats (of giving/taking factories, for instance) to get certain things done (tax breaks, funding, etc.) National Liberation Movements and Criminal Organizations in particular use this sort of power, using violence to get their way.

The power to set agendas is used a lot by Transnational Media Organizations. They can put certain issues on the agenda. Perhaps the most important, however, is the use of structural power by NGOs. Susan Strange sees four structures: security structures (you might go along with someone because they provide security), production structure (whoever controls production sets the terms of the wage market), financial structure (controlling someone who is indebted to you), and the knowledge structure (systems of storing and retrieving information and research, organizations that determine right and wrong, etc.).

MNCs especially use the production structure. But as for security, do NGO's provide security that a state doesn't? Maybe. As for the knowledge structure, they set the tone about such things - scientists determine if environmental problems are actually problems or not. INGO's have also been active with the knowledge structure by defining what constitutes human rights violations for example.

Relationship between NGOs and the State

Since NGO's have power, are they taking power away from states? Are states losing their sovereignty? Do NGO's inevitably challenge states?

Keep in mind that states are resilient. NGO's gain their identity by states, after all. NGO's use states to carry out their purposes. NGO's sometimes perform functions the states cannot perform, but this doesn't necessarily undermine the state - rather, it could stabilize the state. Lastly, some NGO's (such as National Liberalization Movements) can be on the same level as states, reaffirming the idea of a state.

You could also look at global order, at a global civil society. In this manner, we don't just have states, we also have NGO's that work on the behalf of society. This would sort of be a "balance-of-power" between state and society. Is such a global civil society really emerging?

February 1, 1999

International Political Economy (IPE)

Classical IPE

It was in large part the oil shocks which started IPE being studied in the 60's and 70's. The new analysis focused along the following lines:

This is a critique of political theory, orthodox economics, and orthodox international relations studies. Economics is not just another leverage in the international sphere. Politics cannot be thought of as purely independent entities; they interact.

Regime-Theoretical Approach

Regimes can be looked at as the internationalization of political power. There's a degree of legitimacy to the rules and regulations they create. There are three ways of looking at regimes:

Marxist Account

Marxist generally think that the IPE approach is a good start and that bringing economics into the picture is a good thing.

World Systems Theory

There is a core of industrialized states and a periphery of developing states which are exploited by the core. Sometimes there is a semi-periphery in the model which facilitates the activity between the periphery and the core. There's something unequal built into the system so that the core always exploits the periphery. To keep this inequality stable, three explanations are offered: the dominance of the core, the existence of the semi-periphery, and the idea of a separate class which maintains order in their particular state and uphold the inequality.

Critical Theory

A static core/periphery model is too rigid; things are too dynamic. At certain periods in time, a certain dominant class and dominant states can come together and fashion world order.

Boyle's Ideas

The entire separation of economy and politics is an artificial separation brought about by capitalism.

Bretton Woods System and Embedded Liberalism

Multilateralism

Designed to make trade function effectively, when all parties work together.

Internal and External Stability

The gains of trade will be unequal, so these multilateral institutions help distribute the gains from trade. These institutions also help minimize social disruptions, helping states work together.

Therefore, the system works to keep exchange rates steady, mitigates the adjustment costs, and maintain the ideological validity of the system. This ideological part is beginning to disintegrate because of globalization.

The Marxist version of all this liberalization reminds us that efficiency means efficiency for someone. This looks at this as the internationalization of capitalism. It allows the existence of international capitalist actors, such as transnational corporations, which can now exploit others internationally. This liberalization is solely to introduce capitalism to the South, reconstructing their political and social order.

February 8, 1999

The International Regime of the Environment

In the formation of the IR discipline at the first part of the 1900's, it was concerned more with "high politics," and largely ignored things such as the environment. "Low politics" such as the environment and economics were picked up around the 1960's. Later ideas of security have also encompassed not just military power but such issues as environmental security.

The states system of divided sovereignty poses problems for environmental policy, which is by nature global. The current global capitalist situation also increases environmental degradation through its exploitative nature. A third problem cited is the enlightenment outlook: that, through knowledge, humans can control nature. All three issues can be referred to as modernity.

There are two ways of looking at solving environmental problems: economistic and political. Dr. Keene sees economic policies as simply certain policy decisions within a political framework.

Looking at economics first, economics is all about scarcity and tradeoffs (e.g. if you buy more apples, you must buy less oranges). Therefore, an economist might bring the environment into the market system: more markets not less. If one gives a price for polluting, etc., it will solve the environmental problems by bringing them into the market system. One policy would be the Polluter Pays Principal. The key question is how it would be worth someone to pollute. There would be free-rider problems - some could ride on the payments of others, getting clean air or whatever without paying. Another problem is whom would the polluters pay (since this is trying to establish property rights). Furthermore, how can you place a value on environmental issues?

Some have suggested pure control: simply set limits on pollution. But how does one get information on compliance, and how can one control the companies? One solution would be impose a tax on certain things such as CO2 emissions. This is more flexible, because some countries might find it so expensive to comply that they might just pay the tax instead of complying. This takes account of different capabilities of countries. But at what level would one set the tax? There might be pollution permits that are issued that can traded - bought and sold - by all countries. This brings the environment into the market system. But how many permits should their be, and how should they be initially distributed? One would still need some central institution that would regulate this.

Establishing Regimes

All states want to protect their sovereignty, and they want something in return if they give up any of their sovereignty. The problem arises when states have diverging goals. Global warming may not be such an acute problem to some countries, for example. There is a continual battle about even what the agenda should be.

Then there is the problem for compliance. How do you know when countries are complying? Then there s adherence. Would any states want to use their power to back up the rules? Why would states want to adhere to the rules? How can one incorporate international legal systems into domestic legal systems.

There are a lot of uncertainties, also. A lot of the terms that are handed around are in themselves unclear, not to mention the clarity of the results of proposed policies. Related to knowledge issues, Haas has talked about epistemic communities, groups of scientists who share beliefs about how things are. Crises bring about a demand for solutions, which bring about epistemic communities with shared beliefs which can formulate policy.

Ozone Regime

Started at the Vienna Convention in 1985. The UN Environmental Program (UNEP) has come about to monitor worldwide environmental CFC production. The later Montreal Protocol expanded this, with everyone agreeing to eventually eliminate all CFC production.

Global Warming Regime

The picture is much bleaker here. The science is less clearer that human-made greenhouse gasses will cause global warming. The US recognized that the costs of reducing CO2 are high and that other factors made it different from the ozone issue, and so the US has balked at complying.

To create an environmental regime, it is therefore better to have a technical consensus, and there needs to be a way of monitor compliance. There needs to be converging interests on compliance.

Litfin notes that scientific ignorance can be exploited by knowledge brokers through discourse.

February 15, 1999

Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime

(Arrived in class late...)

Nuclear Norms

Nuclear Weapons

For deterrence, again, you must have a well-defined commitment. The deterrent must be made public, and there must be a capability of using the weapons after surviving the first strike. You must have a willingness to the commitment, and the opponent must know this. This all assumes actors are rational.

If deterrence is such a good thing, wouldn't it be good to have more nuclear weapons? Bipolarity is however an important concept. With only two sides, there is less of risk of misperceptions and defections are not as hard to deal with. It's easier to manage crises with only two powers, and they have clearly marked spheres of influence. Therefore, the realist thinking is that bipolarity makes for a more stable situation. Introduce nuclear weapons into the picture, and you have Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). That is, nuclear weapons + bipolarity = MAD = stability.

The non-proliferation regime isn't just a regime created by the superpowers, however. The Baruch Plan 1946 was that by technical means alone the US could remain the only power with nuclear capability and prevent its proliferation. Of course, proliferation followed soon after this. Peaceful nuclear knowledge is very similar to weapons-related nuclear knowledge, which makes technological controls difficult. The focus then turned to a non-proliferation regime.

The superpowers obviously want to keep a monopoly on nuclear technology. They thought that monitoring might impede commercial development. They want certain assurances:

The states which didn't subscribe to the non-proliferation regime (e.g. Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina) were always a problem, although South Africa and Argentina have signed up to the regime. There are "rogue states" such as Iraq and North Korea which have signed up to the regime but are suspected to have developed or be developing nuclear weapons. Another problem for the regime is the "fragmented nuclear states," basically the former USSR. Most would say that these are not "rogue states," but the problem is more the capability (or lack thereof) of these states to maintain control over the weapons.

There is a list of reasons why countries are acquiring or trying to acquire nuclear capabilities. Nuclear weapons not only bring prestige, but also bring a bargaining power.

March 1, 1999

Security

Security Studies

The traditional IR realist view of security is that states try to protect their way of life and get to a condition where they would not be defeated if a war were to occur. This view sees war and violence as simply means of effecting political goals. It is primarily concerned with military security.

After the end of the Cold War, this view fell out of favor - how can one explain the collapse of the Soviet Union in terms of military status? Buzan says that the term security is sometimes ambiguous, and that security should be reexamined in terms other than those of military. Not only should we examine other issues of security, we should carry out the analysis at the individual, state, region, global, etc. levels. Think about regional security - how does the security of one state depend on the feelings of security of another state?

Critical security studies says that one has to think of security in terms of emancipation, another term which can be interpreted in a large number of ways.

Theories of War

Waltz saw three images of war. The third image says that there is nothing in the international system to prevent them from happening - wars occur from anarchy. This is a Humian theory of causation, which means that there are no true causal connections, just certain correlations of events. But what other reasons are there for wars happening; does anarchy in itself cause war?

The second image of war says that democracies do not go to war with each other or sees conflicts as resulting from capitalist competition and expansion. Neither of these views see wars as always inherently bad.

The first image of war looks at the individual level, and see tendencies of individuals as causing wars. For example, humans may no get their basic needs fulfilled: food, water, autonomy, etc. A feminist explanation would fit in this category: it would therefore not be caused by humans in general, but by men in particular. Patriarchal society is viewed as promoting war; until recently, for example, most industrial war complexes were predominantly men.

Another view would see war as an expression of culture. Some wars can only occur in certain settings with certain cultural beliefs and situations.

Theories of Peace

Galtung thought that you could distinguish between negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace, the absence of violence, is inadequate because there may be other exploitations in a society. He advocated positive peace, the presence of harmony (yet another ambiguous term).

Michael Banks later said you should think of four parts of peace. One should think of harmony, of course, but that's not enough because a society might wipe out another society, leaving harmony. One should also think of order, which includes predictability and such, but violent systems might be orderly but not peaceful. You could think of peace as related to justice, but this really just changes the emphasis to another term. His fourth (preferred) option was to think of "peace as process," a way of resolving conflicts whenever and wherever they occur.

March 8, 1999

Democratic Peace Hypothesis

(Arrived in class late...)

Kant

Kant's Perpetual Peace describes the modern international society that had been evolving about 100 years before he wrote it.

Kant's First Definitive Article

Kant is then aware of the evolving states system, but then adds three points to this:

Kant's Second Definitive Article

Michael Doyle

Michael Doyle has possibly the most popular contemporary formulation of Kant. He tries to amend Kant. He says that democratic stays have been successful at forming a union within themselves, but there are serious defects with their dealings outside the union. His first question is whether they are peaceful because they are all alike, and his conclusion is that it is not because of shared identity.

He examines Kant's argument that democratic states won't go to war if its citizens can decide, and he finds that this isn't so; they seem to only be peaceful between themselves, but warlike to non-democratic states. He advances the idea of a "spirit of commerce," that the more states are integrated with each other economically, the less they want to disrupt this activity.

He gives three reasons why liberal states fail. The first is that they go out of their way to be belligerent with non-liberal states because, like Kant's idea of a liberal state being inherently right, the other non-democratic states must be wrong.

The first problem Dr. Keene sees with these ideas lies in the definition of a democracy. "Democracy" is hard to quantify, especially if there is an ambiguity between a republic and a democracy. Secondly, does a correlation mean causation, or are some states democratic simply because they live in a pacific region that is, say, protected by a hegemon such as the US? Thirdly, how close is this to Kant's original argument, and should we worry about any differences? Doyle doesn't really examine the relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy. Fourthly, what is the relationship between Westernization and democratization?

Francis Fukuyama

Liberal democracy will eventually spread throughout the world because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has no contender. Liberal democracies value equality and mutual respect, and all humans are constantly striving for recognition. It's only in the context of liberal democracies that we can reach mutual equality.

Samuel Huntington

Huntington agreed with Fukuyama to begin with, but has since moved away from this. He now says (in Clash of Civilizations) that the spread of liberal democracies is ultimately a process of Westernization, and this will create its own component: other societies will rally around their cultures, bringing about "the West against he rest." This addresses identity, which is important and has been left out by liberals.

March 15, 1999

Human Rights and International Relations

If we are to have any consistency between the concepts of state sovereignty and an idea of global laws, we must have consent of the states involved. Human rights are seen as naturally occurring, not depending on the consent of states. Can they then be imposed on states? How do we know that these "naturally occurring" rights are universal, and not the product of cultural differences?

Human Rights Overview

They have a relatively short history as international principles; they've only recently been thought of as something that can be used to intervene internationally. They show up especially in Article 55 of the UN Charter, but it is not very specific. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 is more specific.

There were furthermore the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976. There is also the European Convention on Human Rights which specifies rights of people to express their grievances. There are other regional conventions.

These are all agreements between states. The opportunities for people to express their grievances personally on their own behalf are not usually available - they must instead go through states. There are "universally minimum standards" of human rights which serve as benchmarks for states to judge their peers.

A human right is something one possesses by nature of being a human being. Since we are all human beings, we all have human rights.

All people are social or political animals. There is a distinction between our social interactions and our inherent individualities. If our identity is formed simply through social interactions, human rights cannot be universal. On the other hand, if there are some natural qualities of a human, human rights become more realistic.

"Rights" imply that someone else is forced to behave in a certain way. If something is a right, what if someone tries to take the right away from you? That is, do you have to go to court to get a right (a legal right), or is it something you have even if you are powerless (a moral right).

Human Rights Classifications

If you have a positive right, the government is forced to give you something (the right to employment, for example). If you have a negative right, the state is restricted from doing something - the right to be free of torture, for example.

There is a difference, especially in the Covenants, between civil/political rights and social/economic rights. Liberals have always maintained that civil/political rights are more important, but socialists claim that if there is not a certain standard of living, there is not much point of civil/political rights. For example, there's not much of a use for a free press if there is not widespread literacy.

There is a traditional three-generational framework. First generation human rights dealt with civil/political rights of the ruler, which was gradually transferred to the people. Second generation human rights were economic and social, in the countries where sovereignty had already been given to people, giving rights to the proletariat. The third generation is cultural, referring to the right of former colonies to be free of domination.

This then says that human rights only emerged in 1945 in effect. This three-generational framework sees the emergence of human rights and assumes that it is the product of the sovereign state, and ignores human rights activities in the 19th century and ignores non-European history.

Humanitarian Intervention

The standard view is that there is a problem between sovereignty and international human rights. The UN Charter is ambiguous - although Articles 1 and 55 refer to human rights, Article 2 strongly refers to state sovereignty. There is then a problem of selectivity - only certain states are picked out to criticize.

Vincent says that this tension between sovereignty and human rights is overstated. He says that states get their sovereignty only by recognition by the international system in the first place. If states are scrutinized by other sovereign states, this will, if these states stand up to the scrutiny, further legitimize the states.

Revision Topics

Section 1: Theory and History of International Relations

General Theories of International Relations

The Evolution of the Modern International System

The Cold War System

Section 2: Contemporary International Politics

International Organization

International Regimes

Issues in Contemporary World Politics

April 26, 1999

Justice in Post-Cold War International Politics

Even realist skepticism (saying that altruism or morality has no place in politics, because it is all about power) sees a place for certain moral codes, such as the ethic of responsibility, the responsibility a statesperson has for his/her home country.

Students of International Relations have to ask who the theories are for? Are they simply for analysis, or for critiquing them as well? (There's always the danger of sliding into pure realism, however.)

Liberals look at individuals as pre-social; they are born with the ability to reason about right and wrong. John Locke, for example, would say that we are born with a conscious. In a modern sense, we all have a moral sense of right and wrong.

Communitarians, on the other hand, says that individuals gain moral behavior through social construction in their communities. Morals are not universal, but created in and specific to certain communities.

Liberals and cosmopolitans don't see that states have any specific moral qualities; what matters are individuals. Communitarians see a need for the state. Cosmopolitans talk about universal moral principals, the "view from nowhere," that can be abstractly developed without regard for the setting. Communitarians have moral particularism; they don't see a way to specify one moral framework as better than another. Does moral particularism mean that there is no basis for international justice at all?

There are three main variants of cosmopolitan and liberal theories of international justice.

Beitz says that this should be extended internationally. States are already interlocked through trade. There should therefore be cooperation internationally. Rawls comes back and says that we have to cooperate domestically, but international cooperation is relatively quite small; Beitz may be somewhat right, but overall interdependence is so low that it is negligible.

Communitarians say that Beitz ignore crucial differences between communities. Since we as moral agents are constructed by communities, if we start out with no knowledge of a conception of good, there is no basis for international justice. We therefore need a common moral language before we can talk about international justice.

People have tried to make a synthesis of liberalism while keeping a place for cultural differences. Andrew Linklater, for example, says that citizens have a certain view of what citizenship means and the framework and obligations that comes with it - the equality of citizenship. He sees that globalization is causing people to lose territoritality feelings, and start to feel themselves as "citizens" of a larger group. The state has given a sense of a community, and through communication, trade, etc. we can gain a wider sense of community.

Globalization, however, comes with certain assumptions and frameworks for morals and norms. Is this dangerous? Is the framework brought about by globalization even worse than before, or is it bringing about a new less-defined, neutral global community?

Copyright © 1998-2003 Garret Wilson