Module 3

A History of Global Politics: Creating

an International Order
• Learning Outcomes
• At the end of this lesson, you should be able:
1. Identify key events in the development of international
nations;
2. Differentiate internationalization;
3. Define the states and the nation;
4. Distinguish between the competing conceptions of
internationalism;
5. And discuss the historical evolution of international
politics.
 THE ATTRIBUTES OF TODAY’S GLOBAL
SYSTEM
• World politics today has four keys 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 UNITED
NATION (UN), that facilitate these interactions.
4. Beyond simply facilitating meetings between states,
international organizations also takes on lives on their
own.
• The nation-state is composed of two
interchangeable terms. Not all states are
nation and not all nations are states.
• There are states with multiple nations, there
are also single nation with multiple states.
 Four (4) attributes of a state:
1. Exercises authorities over a specific
population, called its citizens.
2. Governs a specific territory.
3. State has a structure of government that
crafts various rules that people (society)
follow.
4. The state has sovereignty over its territory.
 Sovereignty
• Refers to internal and external authority.
1. Internally, no individuals or groups can
operate in a given national territory by
ignoring the state.
2. Externally, sovereignty means that a state
policies and procedures are independent of
the interventions of the other states.
 Nation
• According to Benedict Anderson, is an “imagined
community.”
• It is limited because it does not go beyond a given
“official boundary,” and because rights and
responsibilities are mainly the privilege and concern of
the citizens of the nations.
• Being limited means that the nation has its
boundaries.
• This characteristic is in stark contrast to many religious
imagined communities.
 Nation
• Calling it “imagined” does not mean that the
nation is made-up. Rather, the nation allow one
to feel a connection with a community of
people even if he/she will never meet all of
them in his/her lifetime.
• Nation-builders can only feel a sense of
fulfillment when the national ideas assumes an
organizational form whose authority and power
are recognized and accepted by “the people.”
• Nation and state are closely related because it
is nationalism that facilitates state formation.
In modern and contemporary era, it has been
the nationalist movements that have allowed
for the creation of nation-states. States
become independent and sovereign because
of nationalist sentiment that clamors for this
independence.
 THE INTERSTATE SYSTEM
• The origins of the present-day concept of
sovereignty can be traced back to the Treaty of
Westphalia, which was set of agreements
signed in 1648 to end the “Thirty Years” War
between the major continental powers of
Europe.
• The Westphalian System provided stability
for the nations of Europe, until it faced its first
major challenge by Napoleon Bonaparte.
 Napoleon Bonaparte
• The Westphalian System provided stability for the nations of
Europe, until it faced its first major challenge by Napoleon
Bonaparte.
• Napoleonic Wars lasted from 1803-1815 with Napoleon and his
armies marching all over much of Europe.
• In every country they conquered, the French implemented the
Napoleonic Code that forbade birth privileges, encourage
freedom or religion, and promoted meritocracy in the
government service.
• Anglo and Prussian armies finally defeated Napoleon in the battle
of Waterloo in 1815, ending the latter’s mission to spread liberal
code across Europe.
 Concert of Europe
• The Concert of Europe was an alliance of
“great power”-United Kingdom, Austria,
Russia, Prussia-that sought to restore the
world of monarchial, hereditary, and religious
privileges of the time before the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
• Under this Metternich system the Concert
power and the authority lasted from 1815-
1914, at the dawn of WORLD WAR I.
• Despite the challenge of Napoleon to the
Westphalian system and the eventual collapse
of the Concert of Europe after World War I,
present-day international system still has
traces of his history.
• Until now, states are considered sovereign,
and Napoleonic attempts to violently impose
systems of government in other countries are
frowned upon. Moreover, like the Concert
system, “great powers” still hold significant
influence over world politics.
 INTERNATIONALISM
• The Westphalian and Concert systems divided the
world into separate, sovereign entities.
• Others imagine a system of heightened interaction
between various sovereign states, particularly the
desire for greater cooperation and unity among
states and peoples.
• Internationalism comes in different forms, but the
principle maybe divided into two broad categories:
Liberal internationalism and social internationalism.
 Liberal internationalism
• The first major thinker of liberal
internationalism was the late 18th century
German Philosopher Immanuel Kant.
• States, like citizens of countries, must give up
some freedoms and “establish a continuously
growing state consisting of various nations
which will ultimately include the nations of
the world.”
• Late 18th century as well, British philosopher
Jeremy Bentham (1780), advocated the
creation of “international law” that would
govern the inter-state relations.
• Propose legislation that would create “ the
greatness happiness of all nations taken
together.”
• Reconcile nationalism with liberal internationalism
was 19th century Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini.
• Advocate of unification of the various Italian-
speaking mini-states and a major critic of the
Metternich system
• He believed in a Republican government and
proposed a system of free nations that cooperated
with each other to create an international system.
• Believes that free, unified nation-states should be
a basis of global cooperation.
• Mazzini influenced the thinking of United
States president (1913-1921) Woodrow
Wilson, who became one of the 20th century’s
most prominent internationalists.
• He forwarded the principle of self-
determination-the belief that the world’s
nation had a right to a free, and a sovereign
government.
• Wilson, in short, became the most notable
advocate for the creation of the League of
Nations.
• At the end of World War I in 1918, he pushed to
transform the League into a venue for
conciliation and arbitration to prevent another
war.
• Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1919.
 World War II
• Axis Powers (Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s
Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan)
• Allied Powers (composed of the United States,
United Kingdom, France, Holland, and
Belgium)
 League gave birth:
1. World Health Organization (WHO) and
2. International Labor Organization (ILO)
• Serve as a blueprint for future forms of
international cooperation
 Ideas for the creation of the United
Nations (UN) in 1946

• The league was the concretization of the

concepts of the Liberal Internationalism.
1. Kant (need to form common international
principles)
2. Mazzini (principles of cooperation and
respect among nation-states)
3. Wilson (democracy and elf determination)
• Karl Marx (internationalist) German socialist
philosopher was Mazzini’s (nationalist) biggest critic.
• Placed a premium on economic equality;
• Did not divide the world into countries, but into
classes.
• The capitalist class referred to the owners of factories,
companies, and other “means of productions.”
• The proletariat class included those who did not own
the means of production, but instead, worked for the
capitalists.
• Marx and his co-authors, Friedrich Engels, believe that
in socialist revolution seeking to overthrow the state
and alter the economy, the proletariat “had no nation.”
• “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose
but your chains.”
• Marx died in 1883, but his followers soon sought to
make his vision concrete by establishing their
international organization. The Socialist International
(SI) was union of European socialist and labor parties
established in Paris 1889.
• Declaration of May 1 as Labor Day and the creation of
an International Women’s Day.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• SI collapse during the World War I
• Confirmation of Marx warning: when workers
and organizations takes side of other countries
instead of each other, their long-term interest
are compromised.
• Russian Revolution of 1917, Czar Nicholas II was
overthrown and replaced by a revolutionary
government led by the Bolshevik Party and its
leader, Vladimir Lenin.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• Bolsheviks did not believe in obtaining power
for the working class through elections.
Rather, they exhorted the revolutionary
“vanguard” parties to lead the revolutions
across the world, using methods of terror if
necessary.
• Today, parties like referred to as communist
parties.
 Comintern
• Lenin established the Communist International
(Comintern) in 1919
• Serve as the central body for directing
Communist Parties all over the world.
• This International was not only more radical
than the Socialist International.
• It was also less democratic because it followed
closely the top-down governance of the
Bolsheviks.
 World War II
• World War II when the Soviet Union joined the Allied
Powers in 1941
• Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, dissolved the
Comintern 1943
• Stalin re-established the Comintern as the Communist
Information Bureau (Cominform)
• Soviet Union took over the countries in Eastern
Europe when the United States, the Soviet Union, and
Great Britain divided the war-torn Europe into their
respective spears of influence.
• The Soviet Union collapse in 1991
• SI manage to re-establish itself in 1951,
but its influence remained primarily
confined in Europe