Department of Social Sciences

CENTRAL MINDANAO UNIVERSITY

GEC 13 : THE CONTEMPORARYWORLD

(1 ST SEMESTER, A.Y. 2020-2021)
JORNIE LUMINTAO
Instructor

This material has made available to you for your personal use only in this
course. Please ask permission from your instructor/professor for any other use
or distribution.

Citation:
Abinales, P. & Claudio, L. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon
City. C & E Publishing, Inc

Contact information: +63975-918-0257/ f.jorniejr.lumintao@cmu.edu.ph

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 Lesson 3: A History of Global Politics: Creating an
International Order
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. Identify the key events in the development of international relations;
2. Differentiate internationalization from globalization;
3. Define the state and nation;
4. Distinguish between the competing conceptions of internationalization; and,
5. Discuss the historical evolution of international politics.

IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGIES:

International Relations Napoleonic code Internationalization

Concert of Europe Nation-state Metternich System Nation Internationalism
State Liberal internationalism Citizens Socialist internationalism
Government Territory Sovereignty Nationalism Treaty of Westphalia

Study Guide Questions:

1. What is the difference between international relations and internationalization?
2. What is the difference between internationalization and globalization?
3. What are the four (4) key attributes of world politics?
4. What are the origins of this global system?
5. What is a nation-state?
6. What is the difference between a nation and a state? What is a state? What is a nation?
7. What are the elements of the state?
8. What do you mean by imagined community?
9. How is state and nation related?
10. What is the interstate system? How did it evolve?
11. What is internationalism?
12. What are the two broad categories of internationalism and its manifestation throughout the
course of time?

Required Reading(s):

Chapter 3: A History of Global Politics: Creating an International Order.

Pages: 26-38 Abinales, P. & Claudio, L. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc
Videos:

State, Nation, and Globalization

Channel: Leila imie
Link: https://youtu.be/Bd13W3YwFio.

What is WESTPHALIAN SOVEREIGNTY? What does Westphalian sovereignty

mean?
Channel: The Audiopedia
Link: https://youtu.be/vxqeG-QEe84

Recorded Lecture: To be posted in Google Classroom

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A HISTORY OF GLOBAL POLITICS: CREATING AN INTERNATIONAL ORDER

1. Internationalization – studying and/or exploring the phenomenon

of the deepening interaction between states.

Internationalization vs. Globalization

 Internationalization does not equal globalization (refer to the definition),
although it is a major part of globalization.
 It is important to study international relations as a facet (dimension)
of globalization, because states/governments are key drivers of
global processes.

The attributes of today’s global system

World Politics today has four key attributes:
1. There are countries or states that are independent and govern themselves
2. These countries interact with each other through diplomacy.
3. There are international organizations, like the UN, that facilitate these interactions.
4. Beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international organizations also take
lives of their own.

What are the origins of this system?

What is a country or what academics also call the nation-state?
 It is composed of two non-interchangeable terms.

Not all states are nations and not all nations are states

1. There are states with multiple nations.

Examples:

The nation of Scotland, has its own flag and national

culture but still belongs to a state called the United Kingdom.

In the Philippines, many believed that the Bangsamoro is a separate nation existing
within the Philippines, but recognizes the authority of the state through its elites.

2. If there are states with multiple nations, there are also a single nation with multiple
states.
Examples:

The nation of South Korea is divided into North and South Korea

The ‘Chinese nation’ may refer to both the People’s Republic of China (the
mainland) and Taiwan.

What is the difference between the nation and state?

State
In layman’s term, state refers to a country and its government i.e. the government of the Philippines

A state has four attributes:

1. PEOPLE: It exercises authority over a specific population called citizens.
2. TERRITORY: It governs a specific territory.
a. Aerial, fluvial, maritime, terrestrial
3. GOVERNMENT: A state has a structure of government that crafts various rules that people follow
4. SOVEREIGNTY: The state has sovereignty over its territory.
a. It refers to internal and external authority
Nation:

 It is an ‘imagined community’ (Benedict Anderson). The nation allows one to feel a connection with a
community of people even if he/she will never meet all of them in his/her lifetime
 It is limited, which means that the nation has boundaries. E.g. Christendom, Filipino

 Most nations strives to become states

 Nation and state are closely related because it is nationalism that facilitates state formation.

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The Interstate System

Sovereignty is one fundamental principles of modern state politics.

1. Treaty of Westphalia (1648) - -Sets of agreement signed to end the Thirty Year’s War
between the major continental powers.
- (Westpahlian Sovereignty) It is a system designed to avert wars in the future by
recognizing that the treaty signers exercise complete control over their domestic affairs
and swear not to meddle in other’s affairs.

2. Napoleonic Code.
- He ruled most of Europe destroying the (early sovereignty) of these countries.
- Napoleon Bonaparte believed in spreading the principles of the French Revolution – and
challenged the powers of kings, nobility, and religion in Europe.

3. Concert of Europe –
o Bonaparte was defeated in the Battle of waterloo.
o The concert of Europe was an alliance of “great powers” – the UK, Austria, Russia –
that sought to restore the world of monarchial, hereditary, and religious privileges
before the French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
o It was an alliance that sought to restore the sovereignty of states.
o This alliance was then called Metternich system, which lasted from 1815 to 1914,
at the dawn of WW1.

Significance: The present day international system still has traces of this history.
 Until now, states are still considered sovereign (that is the result of westphalian system)
 The concert system, “great powers” still hold significant influence over world politics.
o Example: the P5 of the UN Security Council.

Internationalism

The westphalian and concert system wanted to divide the world, into separate, sovereign entities.
There are some attempts to transcend it.

The desire to create a system of heightened interaction between various sovereign states, particularly
the desire for greater cooperation and unity among states and peoples is called internationalism.

The principle of internationalism is divided into two broad categories:

1. Liberal internationalism
a. Immanuel Kant – Likened a global system to people living in a given territory. He
believed in a world government.
b. Jeremy Bentham – Coined the word “international.” Advocated the creation of
“international law” that would govern the inter-states relations

Motivation Questions:
Would not a world government, in effect, become supreme?
Would not its laws overwhelm the sovereignty of individual states?

Thinkers who reconcile nationalism with liberal internationalism

c.Giuseppe Mazzini - Proposed a system of free nations that cooperated with each other
to create an international system. A Nationalist-internationalist who believed that free,
unified nations-states (Republican system) should be the basis of global cooperation.
d. Woodrow Wilson - He saw nationalism as a pre-requisite for internationalism. He
advocated for the Principle of self-determination, a belief that world nations had the right
to a free and sovereign government.
2. Socialist internationalism
a. Karl Marx – internationalist but did not believed in nationalism. He believed that any
true form of internationalism should deliberately reject nationalism, which rooted people
in domestic concerns instead of global ones.
b. Vladimir Lenin – encouraged global revolutions and created the USSR which exhorted
the revolutionary “vanguard” parties to lead the revolutions across the world using
methods of terror of necessary.
c. Joseph Stalin – established the Communist Information Bureau and helped direct the
various communist parties that had taken power in Eastern Europe.