IP NOTES 9/12

show up to class, dumbass, else you get FUCKED

What is IP
Fundamental issues-
-Survival/Security
-Liberty

-historian comes up with 21 civilizations, realizes that 20 of them have died out
trend---
Initially plural states, lots of different organizations-> into an empire-> which became increasingly despotic ("crush" outcome)
Also---> increasing amounts of war (often leading to empire) OR --> leads to total war ("crash" outcome)

IR is an unsettled field, no ONE dominant worldview (it's a series of debates w/o right/wrong, rather strong/weak positions)

Traditions
A) On tradition

• definition: worldview (assumptions that are difficult to test) about human nature, history, and political order
• lots of different theories (X leads to Y)
• We look at not only debates BETWEEN traditions, but also WITHIN traditions

B) Realism

• Strongest of the theories/traditions, all the rest are basically challengers
• Realism's been around for a loooong time (machiavelli, hobbes, etc), gives realism authority

Main ideas:

1. Power matters most (most important factor)

• more specifically, material power (power to destroy, military, etc)
• only from power comes order, security, and only THEN comes justice and freedom

2. Security from violence has a paramount status ('public safety is the highest law')
3. Humans are self-interested, and fallible

• humans are fundamentally selfish and stupid (fallible), even (especially) in groups
• this is human nature
• humans have a tendency to be competative

4. The actors in world politics are states and nations (NOT individuals, ideologies, or even religions)
5. Order is a spectrum-- Anarchy <------------> Hierarchy
Realists believe that existence is a sea of anarchy (evincing lack of world government), within which there are islands of hierarchy (states)
6. History is cyclical (everything dies)

C) Liberalism

• The rise of the US and rise of Liberalism have gone hand-in-hand
• political freedom is fundamentally liberal, and only in the last few centuries has liberalism come to the forefront of discourse
• Realists see Liberals as 'idealists' or 'utopians'

Main tenets:
1. Justice/consent/freedom is paramount (comparable to power for realists)

• only through justice is there order, and therefore power/security
• failure of all realist organizations can be traced back directly to lack of justice/consent/freedom internally (take USSR as example, didnt collapse for lack of arms)

2. Freedom is most important value- security from violence is most important freedom

• this is 'first liberalism' or 'early liberalism'
• life is ALWAYS on top of lists of rights (i.e. life, liberty, pursuit of happiness)

3. Humans are self-interested (much like realism), but under certain conditions there exists 'enlightened self-interest'

• only occurs when humans look at the longer-term
• produces cooperation, sometimes even harmony, through enlightened self-interest

4. Fundamental unit of action is the individual

• this brings the problem of how do you scale up an individual
• capitalism is liberalism applied to economics
• democracy is a fundamentally liberal form of government (relies on the individual)

5. Order- Realists have too simple a view of political orders. order is a TRIANGLE, simultaneous avoidance of hierarchy and anarchy (go up), is NEGARCHY (republic)
6. There can be progress! history is not necessarily cyclical (but it can be), but has the POTENTIAL to improve


Historical and Contemporary Systems

Things covered in this course (not all human history)
Greek history (~500 years -> war/empire)
European history ~1500-1945 (~300 years up until WWII)
American history ~1789-1861 (not looked at as a nation, but rather a state-union)
Global/planetary system (present day)
this is mainly european (but only because that's how things really are and have evolved)

Realist system-evolution
MULTIPOLAR (many nation-states) --> BIPOLAR (everything is basically a substate of US or USSR) --> UNIPOLAR (US comes out on top, and WILL collapse, and soon) --> (future) MULTIPOLAR (as other countries regain some power, such as Europe, China, etc)

Liberalist system-evolution
Mostly heirarchy, islands of H, and small, protected island of Republics --> Age of contending states (basically 3 world wars), one Republic (USA) protects the rest of the smaller republics, hierarchies FAIL (USSR, Hitler's Germany, etc) --> Liberal Hegemony (US forces organization of other countries into republics and such, ie Europe, East Asia, etc), NOT sea of anarchy but rather connections between the states. this is NOT unipolar, but rather a "tent", which other nations wish to join rather than destroy (ie china)

Terrorism is basically NGOs and 'gangs' obtaining extremely destructive weapons
-this is the 'long war'
-key point- we need globally comprehensive CONTAINMENT of these issues, etc.

Method