INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS
INTRODUCTION
International Relations & the State
 International Relations arises from the vital principle of the state. The
modern state system has been in existence since 1648. The dominant model
of the global system continues to hold the view that the world is composed of
a system of sovereign states. 
 State:
 Territory
Human Population
An Effective Central Government, and
Sovereignty.
 COUNTRY:     territorial unit
              emotional attachment to place;
              territorial imperative;
              my country right or wrong;
              patriotism and nationalism
International Relations & the State
 NATION:  cultural emphasis;
from clan to tribe to nation,
 common language, religion, history; nationalism.
 Nationalism is an ideology.  Many consider it the most powerful of the 19th, 20th,
and 21st centuries. It had its origins in the French Revolution.  At first nationalism
was linked to liberalism and democratic ideals (the nation is the people), later, by the
1860s, it was linked to conservative, monarchical, militaristic, and imperialistic
values.
 NATION-STATE: refers to a state where a single nationality group is
predominant.  In the 19th century, the view grew that only nation-states were
legitimate.  Multinational states were likely to split apart when nationalistic
sentiments grew among the different segments of the population.  At the end
of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire split into several nation-states.
Nationalism was an underlying cause for the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991.
International Relations & the State
 The most important actors within the global system continue to be the
central governments of sovereign states.  Each central government has
relationships with other central governments and other international
actors.  These relationships are summarized as that country's foreign
policy. 
 The state-centered point of view. The sum total and the product of all
foreign policies would result in what we call the global system.
 The state-centered approach does provide important insights into global
politics.
 The modern state system includes both major, middling, and small
powers.  All states conduct  their own foreign policies. 
 One primary objective of each county's foreign policy is to maintain its
(State) own political independence and security. 
History
 History - in many ways an understanding of the main events
in international history is integral to the study of International
Relations.
 Why is history still relevant to the understanding of International
Relations?
 As the philosopher George Santayana said:
 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it'.
 Historical events and developments form the basis of structures and
principles in International Relations, in order to understand the
international political and economic situation of today it is vital to
view them within a historical context.
History: Peace of Westphalia of 1648

 The history of International Relations is often traced back to

the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, where the modern state
system was developed.
 {The term Peace of Westphalia denotes a series of peace
treaties signed between May and October of 1648. These
treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy
Roman Empire, and
 the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the
Dutch Republic.}
Prior to this, the European medieval organization of political
authority was based on a vaguely hierarchical religious order.
History: Peace of Westphalia of 1648

 Classical Greek and Roman authority at times resembled the Westphalia system, but
both lacked the notion of sovereignty.
 Westphalia instituted the legal concept of sovereignty, which essentially meant that
rulers, or the legitimate sovereigns, had no internal equals within a defined territory
and no external superiors as the ultimate authority within the territory's sovereign
borders.
 A simple way to view this is that SOVEREIGNTY says,
"I'M not allowed to tell YOU what to do and
YOU are not allowed to tell ME what to do.“

 Westphalia encouraged :
 the rise of the independent nation-state,
 the institutionalization of diplomacy and armies.
 This particular European system was exported to the Americas, Africa, and Asia via
colonialism.
History: Congress of Vienna of 1815

  At the end of the eighteenth century Europe witnessed the Napoleonic
phenomena in the wake of the French Revolution. It shook the European
political structure to its foundations.
  His defeat in 1815 at Waterloo was not simply the end of an extraordinary
adventurer. It was the beginning of a new era in the world of diplomacy.
 The Congress of Vienna of 1815 marks a watershed in the development
of the European diplomatic system which the rest of the world has come to
adopt. A critical point that marks a change of course, a turning point in
International Relations.
 The Congress placed the responsibility for negotiating peace and
preserving durable international structures on the shoulders of professional
diplomats to regulate the relations between the sates.
 And that is where it has remained.
 Congress of Vienna of 1815
 The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states held in
Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815.
 OBJECTIVE :
 to settle many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic
Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
 RESULTS: redrawing of the continent's political map, establishing the boundaries
of France, Napoleon's duchy of Duchy of Warsaw , the Netherlands, the states of the
Rhine, the German province of Saxony, and various Italian territories, and the
creation of spheres of influence through which France, Austria, Russia and Britain
brokered local and regional problems.
 The Congress of Vienna was a model for the League of Nations and United Nations
due to its goal to constitute peace by all parties.
 The Congress of Vienna prevented another widespread European war for nearly a
hundred years (1815–1914).

International System
 “The sovereign states saw the rise of democracy,
industrialization and nationalism in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
 The contemporary international system was finally
established through decolonization during the Cold War.
 While the nation-state system is considered " modern",
many states have not incorporated the system and are
termed "pre-modern".
 Further, a handful of states have moved beyond the
nation-state system and can be considered "post-modern”.
What is International Relations?

 A strict definition of International Relations would

confine itself to the relationships between the world's
national governments, conducted by politicians at the
highest level. However, this is a far too simplistic and
narrow perspective of international relations.
 The academic subject of IR. is interdisciplinary, drawing
on a number of different subjects:
 Politics;
 Economics;
 Security Studies.
What is International Relations?
 Politics - within the field of IR covers:
 the political relations between nations

 the rise of international organizations e.g. UN, EU,

NATO.
 Although nation states remain the dominant form of

political organization, international institutions have a

key role to play in today's world.
 The number and role of international organizations has

rapidly increased in recent decades and in many cases

are challenging the supremacy of the state.
What is International Relations?
 Economics - more specifically, International Political Economy (IPE), the
politics of economic relationships involves:
 trade and financial relations between nations and North-South issues
such as economic dependency and debt.
 The discipline of IPE has a long history, however the subject saw a
resurgence in the 1970s for a number of reasons, the breakdown of post
war prosperity and stability when the IMF gold-dollar system collapsed,
 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) quadrupled oil
prices,
 the Global North suffered the worst economic recession since the 1930s.
 The instability of the 1970s led to a new desire to understand how
politics and economics interact.
What is International Relations?

 Security Studies involves :

 the traditional IR: issues such as war, peace and diplomacy.
 This also increasingly covers :
 areas such as economic and environmental security.
 The optimism which greeted the end of the Cold War is fast
disappearing, many observers of international relations predict
that the Twenty First century will be characterized by an increase
in economic conflict between counties in the Global North and
spiraling military conflict in much of the Global South. Given
this situation, it is important that we understand the causes of
conflict and methods of conflict resolution.
Phenomena of International Relations

 The use of capitalizations of the "I" and "R" in International Relations

aims to distinguish the academic discipline of International Relations
from the International relations (IR) (occasionally referred to as
International Studies (IS)) represents the study of foreign affairs and
global issues among states within the international system.
 It is both an academic and public policy field as it seeks to analyze as

well as formulate the foreign policy of particular states.

 It is often considered a branch of political science (especially after 1988

UNESCO nomenclature), but an important sector of academia prefer to

treat it as an interdisciplinary field of study.
 The roles of States, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs),

international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), non-governmental

organizations (NGOs) and multinational corporations (MNCs).
Phenomena of International Relations

 IR draws upon diverse fields

 Recent changes in world politics are rendering nation-based business and
public policies obsolete. The interactions of global economies and
politics, coupled with ecological concerns for the planet, have given rise
to new educational needs that are international in scope.
 Apart from political science, IR draws upon diverse fields:
 economics, history, international law, philosophy, geography, social
work, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies.
 It involves a diverse range of issues:
 globalization, state sovereignty, ecological sustainability, nuclear
proliferation, nationalism, economic development, global finance,
terrorism, organized crime, human security, foreign interventionism and
human rights.
Phenomena of International Relations

 Events such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the

World Trade Center and the Pentagon raise concerns about the
violent nature of global politics -- even while the globalization of
the world's economy accelerates and international cooperation to
solve emerging global problems continues to increase.
 These are exciting and troubling times to study global politics.
The world has entered a period of dramatic and confusing
change.
 Many of the institutions that shaped and regulated our world's
political life are undergoing rapid evolution or decay, and new
institutions are emerging equally quickly.
Phenomena of International Relations
 Popular Participation .
 International Relations is not just a field of academic study, we all participate in and contribute to
International Relations on a daily basis.
 Every time we watch the news, vote in an election, buy or boycott goods from the supermarket,
we are participating in International Relations.
 The decisions we make in our daily lives have an effect, however small, on the world in which we
live. At the same time, I.R. has a significant impact on our lives.
 The ease at which students obtain employment after graduation is largely dependent on the state
of the global economy, and in a globalised economy graduate jobs are increasingly likely to
involve international travel and require an understanding of the international political and
economic environment in which businesses must operate.
 Our daily lives are increasingly international in their focus, improvements in communications
and transport technology mean we are constantly coming into contact with people, places,
products, opportunities and ideas from other countries.
 The study of International Relations enables us to explain why international events occur in the
manner in which they do and gives us a greater understanding of the world in which we live and
work.
Phenomena of International Relations

 Foreign relations are governed by several conditions within which they exist:
 Chronological - foreign relations may be operational and ongoing where other
nations are concerned, or project-based and temporary where non-state
international agents are concerned; they may relate to factors of historical or
future considerations
 Contextualized - foreign relations may be particularly affected by pertaining to
regional, economic or common goal oriented international organizational
issues, etc.
 Environmental - foreign relations may develop to be cooperative, adversarial,
predatory, altruistic, mentoring, parasitic, etc.
 Dynamic - Contain a degree of dependence or interdependence; a colony
would have a static relationship with the colonizer
 Oriented - foreign relationships are ideally based on commitment to common
goals, but can be dysfunctional, and even destructive
Why Study International Relations?

 States can deal with each other in one of three ways:-

a. They can retreat into isolation and refuse to have anything to
do with the rest of the world.
b. They can try to impose their will on others.
c. They can try to pursue their national interests through
interaction, that is, through dialogue and cooperation with the
community of states.
 Common sense will tell us that the third one is the only realistic
alternative.
 That is why the civilized world acknowledges that the study of
IR is essential for the conduct of inter-state relations.
Why Study International Relations?

 In an interdependent world such as it is today no

community can exist in a vacuum.
 Over time communities have organized themselves
into states and sovereign states have evolved what
may be called 'rules of the game' i.e. accepted
principles which govern interstate relations.
 The study of IR helps us to understand these rules
of the game.
Why Study International Relations?

 International relations is an academic discipline concerned with the

interactions among nations and other international entities.
 International Issues
 Many issues span national borders, including crime, environmental
protection, human rights, and disease. Nations must cooperate to solve
these global issues.
 Relevance
 The interaction of nations, institutions, cultures and ethnicities is relevant
to everyone. You are affected by the decisions your government makes,
and learning about these issues can help you better understand your life
and the world around you.
Why Study International Relations?

 Related Subjects
 International relations is closely related to and complements many
other subjects, including politics, economics, history, law,
psychology and sociology.
 Influence
 Understanding international relations can help you affect the
decisions made by governments, corporations and other institutions.
 Careers
 Studying international relations can lead to many careers, including
diplomatic service, international business, non-profit organizations,
and law.
I R: New Challenges
 Today, another revolution appears to be in process to question
authority and, for better or worse, to resist hierarchical institutions
that attempt to control their behavior and impose order on
political, economic, and social interaction.
 Paralleling this institutional shift is a transformation in the global
agenda and in the meaning of "security." Issues like crime,
disease, human rights, economic development, and environmental
protection increasingly span national borders and compete for
international attention along side more traditional issues like war
and peace.
 And competing conceptions of identity -- along ethnic, gender,
and cultural lines -- create new cleavages in global politics, vying
with those based on citizenship or national identity.
 I R: New Challenges
 Thus in today's world, three sets of fundamental questions about global
politics have simultaneously been reopened.
 First, questions of what "security" means and what institutions will be
responsible for providing it -- questions that were resolved in the
seventeenth century by the development of the "state" -- are again being
debated.
 Second, the central political question of the eighteenth century -- how to
create democratic political institutions that empower individuals and yet
permit the achievement of collective purposes -- is back.
 And third, the question of "who we are" -- that is, the issue of identity --
which bedeviled the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has returned with
a vengeance.

 Conclusion
 Whether the twenty-first century is an age of
unprecedented human achievement or a dark
interregnum depends in no small measure on the answers
we can construct to these questions.
 Ultimately, of course, this is why it is so exciting to
study international relations today. It is not simply that
change is all around us. It is that we can influence, if not
completely control, that change, and by doing so move
the world down different, hopefully better, paths.