THE GLOBAL

INTERSTATE SYSTEM
Richard C. Garcia
Instructor
Objectives:

1. Identify the key events of international relations;

2. Differentiate internationalization from
globalization;
3. Define the state from nation
4. Distinguish between the competing conceptions
of internationalism; and
5. Discuss the historical evolution of international
politics.
INTRODUCTION
 The world is compose of many states with
different forms of government.
 Studying of political, military, and other
diplomatic engagements between two or more
countries is called International relations;
Moreover, when they are going to explore
deepening of interaction between states is
referred to the phenomenon of Internationalism.
 According to scholars, decrease in the power of the
state and that other actors are actually becoming
powerful.
 This manifests efforts of countries and governments
in the world to cooperate and collaborate together;
 MNCs and NGOs such as Amnesty International, are
significant organizations that put into question the
strength of the national economy and global
politics.
 Nevertheless, it is important to study
international relations as a facet of
globalization, because states/
governments are key drivers of global
processes.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IN THE 21ST
CENTURY
THE FACTORS BEHIND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
The declining power of nation-states
The flow of digital information of all sorts through
the internet;
Mass migration of people and their entry, often
illegally into various nation-states;
Nation-states have long struggle to problems that
deals with interstate system.
The Attributes of Today’s Global System

World politics today has four key attributes:

1.There are countries or states that independent and
govern themselves;
2.Countries interact with each other through
diplomacy;
3.There are International organizations like UN that
facilitate these interactions.
4.Facilitating meetings between states, International
Organizations also take on the lives of their own.
What are the origin of this system?

 The nation-state is relatively a modern

phenomenon in human history, and people
did not always organize themselves as
countries.
What then is the difference
between nation and state?
 State refers to the community of persons
permanently occupying a definite portion of
territory, independent from external control,
and possessing an organized government to
which greater body of inhabitants renders
habitual obedience.
The state is a political and legal concept.
It is not subject to external control.
 A single state may consist of one or more
nations or people.
What then is the difference
between nation and state?
 State refers to a country and its government; a state
as four attributes:
1. People – called the citizens
2. Territory – it governs a specific territory
3. Government – crafts various rules that people
follow
4. Sovereignty – refers to internal and external
authority
What then is the difference
between nation and state?
 Nation is an “imagined community”; limited for it has
boundaries;
 is a cultural or ethnic concept, which may consist of one
or more states.
 is a large group of people who are bound together, and
recognize a similarity among themselves, because of a
common culture; in particular, a common language
seems important in creating nationhood.
 a single nation may be made up of several states.
Interstate System
 The origins of the present-day concept of sovereignty
can be traced back with the Treaty of Westphalia, which
was a set of agreements signed in 1648 to end the
“Thirty Years Wars” between the major continental
powers of Europe.
 Westphalian system provided stability for the nations
of Europe until it faced its first major challenge by
Napoleon Bonaparte – believed in spreading the
principles of the French Revolution – liberty, equality
and fraternity.
 Anglo and Prussian armies finally defeated
Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815;
 To prevent another war, the new system created by
the Royal Powers- “The Concert of Europe,” an
alliance of Great powers (United Kingdom, Austria,
Russia, and Prussia restoring the world of
monarchical, hereditary, and religious privileges of
time before the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic Wars).
 This system is called, the Metternich system
named after the Austrian diplomat, Klemens
von Metternich;
 The Concert’s power and authority lasted form
1815 to 1914 at the dawn of World War I.
Internationalism

 A system heightened interaction between various

sovereign states with the desire for a greater
cooperation and unity among states and people.
 Divided into broad principles: liberal
internationalism and socialist internationalism.
Internationalism..cont..

 The major thinker of Internationalism in the 18th

century was Immanuel Kant – believed that
people living together require a government to
prevent lawlessness, without form of world
government, international system will be
chaotic.
Internationalism..cont..
 Another British philosopher Jeremy Bentham
coined the word “international” in 1780;
 Advocated the creation of “international law”
that would govern the inter-state relations;
 Believed that objective global legislators should
aim to propose legislation that would create
“the greatest happiness of all nations taken
together.”
Internationalism..cont..
 Another thinker (19th) that reconcile nationalism
with liberal internationalism was an Italian
Patriot Giuseppe Mazzini; believed in a
Republican government and proposed a
system of free nations that cooperated with
each other to create an international system.
Internationalism..cont..
 Another internationalist in the 20th century was
US President Woodrow Wilson – saw
nationalism as a prerequisite for
internationalism; forwarded the principle of
“self-determination” that the world’s nation had
a right to free, and sovereign government.
 Became the strong advocate of the League of
Nations at the end of WWI in 1919.
League of Nations
 Came into being that same year (1919);
 US was not able to join due to the strong
opposition from the senate;
 unable to hinder another war for breaking out
and helpless to prevent the onset of WWII;
Axis Powers
 Hitler of Germany
 Mussolini of Italy
 Hirohito of Japan
 Who were ultra-nationalists and had an
instinctive disdain for internationalism and
preferred violently impose their dominance
over nations.
Allied Powers
 Composed of US, UK, France, Holland, and
Belgium
Failure of the League
 Gave birth to some of the more specific
international organizations that are still around
until today.
 The most popular are: WHO, ILO which serve
as the blueprint for future forms of international
cooperation.
Karl Marx
A German socialist philosopher who was one of the
critics of Mazzini; an internationalist who differ with
the latter who did not believed in nationalism;
 He placed a premium on economic equality; did not
divide the world into countries but classes.
 Believed with Engels that in a socialist revolution
seeking to overthrow the state and alter the
economy, the “proletariat had no nation.”
Karl Marx..cont..
 After he died in 1883, his followers soon sought to
make his vision concrete by establishing their
international organization, the Socialist International
(SI)- a union of European socialist and labor parties
established in Paris in 1889; Achievement: May 1
as Labor Day and International Women’s Day; and
successful 8-hour work day.
 SI collapsed during WWI
Russian Revolution of 1917
 After the collapsed of Socialist International, a more
radical version emerged.
 Czar Nicolas II was overthrown and replaced by a
revolutionary government led by the Bolshevik Party
and its leader, Vlademir Lenin and the new state was
called Union Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR.
Communist International
(Comintern)
 Established by Lenin in 1919 to encourage socialist
revolutions across the world.
 Served as the central body directing communist
parties over the world.
 Dissolved by Stalin in 1943
Communist Information Bureau
(Cominform)
 Like comintern, it helped direct the various
communist parties that had taken power in Eastern
Europe;
 the collapsed of USSR in 1991, communist
internationalism also disappeared.
Conclusion
 Examined the roots of the international system;
 Internationalism is but one window into the
broader phenomenon of globalization;
 Increasingly international relations are also
facilitated by international organizations that
promote global norms and policies. The most
prominent example is the United Nations.