outline of course: security and international relations theory and practice the course is divided...

Outline of Course: Security and International Relations Theory and Practice

• The course is divided into three parts– 1) Part one

• explains why the nation-state became the principal unit of political organization of the world’s populations (Class 1);

• Explains why the security of the state is an imperative of all states within an anarchical state system and why this imperative produces a security dilemma for all states

• These explanations will rely on these important theorists– Thucydides, Peloponnesian War and the Melian Dialogue (Class

2)– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan– Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Class 4)

Part Two of the Course: The Tendency toward Total War of the State System

• World War I: The Struggle of the European Powers for Global Rule (Class 4)

• World War II: The Struggle for Global Rule of three models (Class 5)

• State-based imperialism (European and Japanese Empires)• Coalition of liberal democratic states under US leadership• Centralized Communist World Government under the leadership of the

Soviet Union

• Cold War: Liberal Democratic Coalition vs. Centralized Communist Rule (Class 6)

• Post-Cold War: The Defeat of US Imperial Expansion and the End of State-Based Imperial Systems (Class 7)

Part Three: Prevailing Theories to Explain Security

• Realism and Neorealism (Class 8)

• Classical Liberalism (Class 9)

• Institutional Liberalism (Class 10)

• Marxism (Class 11)

• General Discussion and Take-Home Examinations Due (Class 12)

How and Why Did the Nation-State Defeat Alternative Political Units in Organizing the

World’s Populations?

• Feudal systems (e.g. the European feudal order and Japan’s Tokugawa regime)

• City-states and city leagues (Hanseatic League in Northern Europe

• Empires (the Eurocentric System; the Soviet Union; and American imperial expansion -- the Defeat of the Bush Doctrine)

The World of Nation-States Today: ~ 200 (and more to come?)

Europe, the Source of the Nation-State in 1000

Europe in 1500

Europe in 1648: Treaty of Westphalia and Rise of the Secular State and End of Religious Wars

Europe: 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars

National Integration of Germany

National Integration of Italy: 1815-1870

Europe before World War I

The Euro-Centric System: 1914

World War II: The End of the Euro-Centric System: 1945-1991

The Last Great Empire: The Soviet Union

Europe and the Russian Federation after 1991

Return to the World System of Nation-States Today

Shared Characteristics of Nation-States That Explain Its Power over Other Political Units

• All states claim to be sovereign– There is no higher authority than the state– All other units, including religious bodies, are subject

to state authority and power– All states claim, within the territorial boundaries over

which they rule, to possess a monopoly of legitimate violence

• Only the state can use force to arbitrate conflicts between individuals and groups over the populations they rule

• Only the state is capable of defending its citizens against foreign invasion and attacks

Three Principal Global Forces That Explain the Rise of a Global Nation-State System

• The Capacity of the State to Wage War

• The Economic Integration Capacity of Nation-States in Adapting to Global Capitalist Markets

• The Legitimacy of the Nation-State: The Force of National Identity

Three Key Sources of Authority and Power Derive from the Sovereignty of States

• (1) States have proven more capable than other political units to wage successful wars against other political units– feudal systems (Tokugawa Japan vs. the

Western states), – city-states (too small); – or empires (too large and fail to elicit the

approval of legitimacy over the populations they rule by force )

(2) States Have Proven More Capable of Generating Resources for War and the

Welfare of Their Populations• States develop more efficient taxation and revenue

raising systems• States have also adapted to a capitalistic market

system that generates greater economic growth, providing increased means for war

• Greater economic and technological development equips the state with the tools of war– The challenge of Western penetration into China

(Britain and the Opium Wars): 1837– The challenge of Western penetration into Japan: 1854

(3) The Third and Decisive Factor Explaining the Nation-States: National Popular Identity as the Basis

for Legitimacy • The claim of the state to exercise a monopoly of

legitimate violence over its populations arises from the identity of national will in the state

• With few exceptions (Saudi Arabia), all states base their authority to exercise power and force on the legitimacy they claim is invested in them by the populations over whom they rule

What are the Implications of a Nation-State System?

• The nation-state system is a warfare system

• The explanation of this underlying characteristic of an anarchical system of sovereign states if found in– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan– Illustrated in the Melian Dialogue– And elaborated in On War by Carl von

Clausewitz