IR THEORY - FINAL EXAM

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Capitalism:

capitalism An economic system or mode of production that emphasizes private ownership of the means of production and a free market. One who owns the means of production is a capitalist, or bourgeois

Dependency:

dependency A situation in which the economies of Third World countries are conditioned by and subordinate to the economic development, expansion, and contraction of the economies of advanced capitalist states. It is a situation of exploitation and is examined in an historical context. Domestic constraints and structures (such as land tenure patterns) are also critical in inhibiting balanced economic development. See also economic structuralism.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Writing Security (Campbell): The Traditional Approach

o Campbell then goes on to explain the inadequacy of traditional modes of interpretation in IR, which typically eliminate the interpretation factor in assessing danger. o The traditional and predominant approach taken in IR is epistemic realism. Epistemic realism views the world as containing objects that are independent from the meanings or ideas attached to them. o They utilize the analytical tools of: a narrativizing historiography: in which objects have self-explanatory characteristics, and the logic of explanation: which analyzes the objects to determine these external objects and their measurable causes so that actors may be aware of their necessity.

Feminism: Critiques of Feminism

o Few critics, surprising o Always possible that mainstream scholars often find feminist IR understandings, at least in terms of their own work, to be irrelevant, interesting but tangential, or dangerous to address for fear of being cast as an ignorant male "who just doesn't get it."

Feminism: Gender, War and Security Studies

o Scholars with a feminist perspective have been critical of "masculinist" approaches to conflict that tend to emphasize power and balance-of-power politics, coercive diplomacy, unilateralism, and the use of force. o Women have been excluded from war and the security narrative - no combat, women are too soft and motherly, no strategizing

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy

• "Wallerstein sees capitalism as best understood as a global, system-wide phenomenon" • The world system originally only existed in sections of Europe and the Americas, however with has spread throughout the years to cover the rest of the world. The existence of a capitalist world-economy has always persisted, whether it was recognized or not. • market needs high barrier-of-entry to be competitive • counter hegemony= attempt to dismantle hegemonic power • opposition to the current status quo and its legitimacy in politics • i.e. the BLOCS (?)

The English School: Freedom of Seas (second part of first reading) - Grotius

• Every nation is free to travel between nations and to trade. Grotius argues this using natural law. • Basically, that nature of the world has given people access to each other. Ex: oceans and wind. He backs this argument up with historical examples where freedom of movement was not per-mitted, and conflict ensued. • Important for English School because it show how there are in fact agreed upon rules between states. Also highlights English School methodology, using historical examples to explain theory.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations Beer and Hariman: Realist narrative structure (Story of itself):

• Story of itself: o Then, Realism sets a story for itself as a theory o In this tale, realism is the primary actor in the world of theory, with power greater than the other theories o Realism finds ways to self-justify itself as the main theory o And it presents itself as one version of the most powerful narrative of our time ♣ This is based on the idea that only realism has identified the basic conditions and fundamental laws of IR o Realism becomes not just an account of world politics but the predominant context for explanation, evaluation and action

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: Theoretical Rigidity

♣ There is no tension between theory and findings, little questioning of the frame- work, and an unwillingness to consider alternative hypotheses. Such criticisms, of course, are also often leveled at work associated with realists and liberals.

The English School: Key assumptions:

1) The world operates in an international anarchic society. However, 2) Order is possible in the anarchic society. This comes not only from balance of power but also rules and institutions that are in the rational self interest of the states. 3) The English School recognizes the importance Kantian moral understandings, but balances this with a pragmatic view of an an-archical society where power remains important.

Constructivism: 4 things we can do to question social reality:

1. question what is taken for granted 2. consider how things change 3. look into the origins of today's structures 4.

Grotian:

Grotian Refers to the influence of Hugo Grotius, seventeenth-century Dutch scholar usually identified as the father of international law. The Grotian view is that international relations, although lacking central authority, can be subject to rules or norms, some of which have the binding character of law, that are expressly or tacitly agreed to by states.

World society:

In ordinary usage the term suggests global or worldwide, but in the English School it refers to a Kantian world in which agreed norms or principles are the source of order and justice. See also society, international society.

Chapter - Normative Theory: Justice and Human Rights:

o Justice and human rights has origins in the 17th and 18th century, and the period of the Enlightenment furthered this in to the 19th century. o Different understandings, culturally, historically, etc. of what justice and human rights are o Obviously from this standpoint, human rights workers will adopt a universalist approach. Notions like respect for life and human dignity should at least underlie justice and human rights, even in the context of normative theory, where the question is "what should be" and there will be so many interpretations, based on cultural and other factors on what should be considered human rights.

Constructivism: Agent-Structure Debate

agent-structure An ontological question raised by social constructivists in particular. As stated by Emanuel Adler: "The agent-structure debate focuses on the nature of international reality; more precisely, whether what exists in IR, and the explanation for it, should revolve around actors, structures, or both." To what extent can states (and other actors) as agents shape the world within which they are immersed and not just be prisoners of the structure of the international system? How much of structure is a given, and how much is created by human agency? To what extent does the structure constitute the actors?

Globalization:

globalization The continued increase in transnational and worldwide economic, social, and cultural interactions that transcend the boundaries of states, aided by advances in technology

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Writing Security (Campbell): Discursive vs Non-Discursive

o Campbell's approach focuses on a discursive rather than nondiscursive approach. o Discourse is a managed realm in which certain objects, concepts, characteristics, etc. come to have superior value placed upon them than others. o In the past many theorists believed that the discursive and nondiscursive constituted separate realms as objects could be detached from their meanings. However, after extensive research, this claim is no longer valid. ♣ For example, the relationship of language to society cannot be separated from one another because language is so intrinsic to the human experience. o Campbell's alternative approach denies the notion that objects can assert themselves as external and remain immune to any discursive qualities in their development.

Feminism: Gender and IOs

o Feminists also consider IOs o Organizations over time understood and organized their programs around shifting views of gender o Institutions are a reflection of the interests, norms, and ideas of hegemonic groups ♣ i.e. sexual exploitation and physical violence by UN peacekeepers o Feminist scholars have addressed the empirical neglect of women and gender relations. In no small way they have contributed to the growth of transnational women's networks that have worked with sympathetic actors in states and international organization bureaucracies to effect policy changes. Amnesty International in 1990, for example, added gender to its list of forms of political persecution.

Postmodernism:

postmodernism, postmodernist A rejection of scientific or "modernist" epistemology, postmodernism deconstructs or takes apart the meanings embedded in what we say and write, looking for underlying meanings or subtexts; in the extreme, some postmodernists adopt a purely relativist position—that no knowledge or truth is possible apart from the motivations and purposes people put into their construction. See also critical theory, hermeneutics.

Economic Structuralism: Lenin

• Lenin developed a theory that claimed to explain the necessity for capitalist exploitation of lesser developed countries and the causes of war among advanced capitalist states • From Hobson, Lenin accepted the key argument that under-consumption and overproduction caused capitalists to scramble for foreign markets beyond Europe and to engage in colonialism • In other words, capitalism had developed such that oligopolies and monopolies controlled the key sectors of the economy, squeezing out or taking over smaller firms and milking domestic markets dry. The result was a need to look elsewhere for investment opportunities. This logically entailed the creation of overseas markets. As markets expanded, they required more economic inputs such as raw materials, which encouraged the further spread of imperialism to secure such resources. • For Lenin, imperialism explained why Marx's prediction of proletarian revolution in Europe had failed to come about (a revolt by the proletariat) .... Imperialism provided the European working class a taste or small portion of the spoils derived from the exploitation of overseas territories—new markets, cheap labor, and natural resources. Their benefit at the expense of workers and peasants in the colonies undermined class consciousness and thus solidarity with the plight of fellow toilers in these lands. By buying off the European working class in the short term through higher wages, imperialism delayed the inevitable revolution. • Domestic stability was achieved at the cost of wars among the capitalist powers that resulted from the continual struggle for overseas markets. Once the globe had been effectively divided up, further expansion could come about only at the expense of a capitalist rival. • Thought imperialism was fundamentally economic, not driven by primitive needs, etc. (unlike Hobbes) • The capitalists could not save themselves any other way than to pursue imperialist policies. Imperialism was the direct result of the attainment of monopoly capital. The resulting competition among states, reflecting the domination of capitalist class interests and the differential growth rates of capitalist economies (i.e., uneven development), unavoidably led to world wars such as the one being experienced at the time of Lenin's writing. • Lenin has particularly influenced the economic-structuralist literature with his emphasis on the global nature of capitalism and its inherent exploitation that primarily benefits the bourgeoisie in advanced capitalist states at the expense of poorer countries and their laboring classes. Although there is arguably a good deal of determinism in his theory of imperialism, his work as a revolutionary (like that of Marx) reflected considerable voluntarism in practice. Agency mattered to Lenin as was apparent in his call for a "vanguard of the proletariat" led by a communist party to push history down its revolutionary path. The actions of revolutionaries were at the very least to serve as catalysts to the worldwide proletarian revolution whenever the objective conditions of working-class exploitation were ripe or had reached their revolutionary stage.

Economic Structuralism: Dependency Theorists - ECLA and UNCTAD Arguments

• Some of the more provocative work in the economic-structuralist tradition was pioneered by Latin American scholars in the 1960s and 1970s. Representing various branches of the social sciences, they came to be known collectively as dependency theorists. Several of these writers were associated in the 1960s with the Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). They were concerned with the important problem of explaining why Latin America and other Third World regions were not developing as anticipated. North American social science models had predicted an economic takeoff for LDCs. Instead there were balance of payments difficulties, stagnation, and deteriorating terms of trade • One response came from mainstream modernization writers. This modernization literature attempted to answer these questions by exploring the difficulties of LDCs in moving from "traditional" to "modern" societies. The ethos and organization of a traditional society, it is argued, are both a cause and an expression of underdevelopment. The cultural values of a traditional society are postulated to be a hindrance to modernization. The LDCs are wedded to their pasts, reflecting a lack of entrepreneurial spirit that was found in European society during the rise of capitalism in the sixteenth century. • Criticisms: (1) This view of development and underdevelopment as the outcomes of internal processes has been criticized on a number of grounds. Two important criticisms are, first, that the modernization writers assume that the tradition-modernity dichotomy is universally applicable. But is the Latin American experience really so similar to the European experience? No, there are significant historical differences. (2) the modernization literature usually neglects a state's or a society's external environment, particularly international political and economic factors. Instead, modernization writers have tended to focus internally or within particular states or societies, generally ignoring that state's or society's place in the world capitalist order. No societies are immune to outside influences, dependency theorists think, who place particular emphasis on Latin America's colonial heritage and a historical legacy of exploitation also experienced in Africa. • ECLA AND UNCTAD economists focus was narrow, focused on unequal terms of trade between the LDCs who processed raw materials, and industrialized countries who provided finished products. They focused on the benefits of fair trade, diversification of exports, etc. Did all countries fail to experience economic growth? No, some economies did grow, but growth tended to occur in an LDC only when the developed countries had a need for a particular raw material or agricultural product. Because many LDCs are dependent on only a few of these commodities for their foreign exchange earnings, a drastic decline in the demand for one of them (perhaps caused by a re- cession in North America) would have a calamitous impact on an LDC's economy. Or, alternatively, a bumper crop in several LDCs heavily dependent on one particular export (such as coffee or sugar) would also cause prices to fall. The volatility of prices for minerals and agricultural products and the generally downward tendency of those prices contrast sharply with more stable and gradually increasing prices for manufactured items produced by industrial countries. Thus, the terms of trade are thought to be stacked against those Third World states that export farm products or natural resources.

Constructivism: brute facts vs. social facts:

− there is a difference between brute facts and social facts o brute facts= exist regardless of social interactions social facts= made by human interaction

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: System Dominance

♣ Critics see structure as occupying too central a role, effectively marginalizing agency in what is essentially a system-dominant, if not system-determined theoretical enterprise. ♣ Lack of economic growth, social un- rest, and repressive governments are all laid at the doorstep of the richer capitalist countries.

Normative Theory: The Law of Peoples - John Rawls: Four pieces of evidence that demonstrate that a society of peoples is possible:

♣ The fact of reasonable pluralism: different doctrines will be united by supporting the idea of equal liberty for all doctrines ♣ In a constitutional democratic society, political and social unity does not require that its citizens be unified by one comprehensive doctrine whether religious or not. ♣ The fact of public reason: this is the fact that citizens in a pluralist liberal society know that they can't reach an agreement on the basis of doctrines that are irreconcilable. Instead of these doctrines, they should appeal to a reasonable family of political conceptions of right and justice. He says though that this doesn't mean that religious doctrines can't be introduced into political discussions but there should be enough ground and relevance for them to be included. The fact of liberal democratic peace: democratic societies don't go to war with each other and they engage in war only in self defense

Constructivism: reasons why constructivism established in the 90's:

1. rationalists tried to persuade constructivists to establish substantive theories 2. nobody predicted the end of the cold war, searched for other ways to explain things 3. there was an emergence of a new generation of scholars that were very interested in critical theory some rational theorists accepting the constructivist point of view

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Four major assumptions

Four major assumptions 1. Postmodernists assume that there is a prominent link between power and knowledge that must be acknowledged in analyzing IR. Postmodernists are interested in how actors may affix interpretations upon occurrences (i.e. the 9/11 attacks). Reality is constructed by language, and the creation of such discourses causes a particular structure to arise within the system that contains objects with particular meanings attached. 2. The knowledge/power relationship of the present will always be impacted by the events and constructs of the past. 3. This relates to the third assumption of postmodernism, that there is no single all-encompassing explanation or truth for all of history, and positivism is not the only method available to gain understanding. Rather, postmodernists attempt to unpack the past in order to analyze language, actions, events, etc. in order to understand the world without imposing a single grand narrative upon history. 4. The traditional sovereign state is not the sole way to organize political and social activity. The believe that the structure of the sovereign state allows states to brutalize, restrict and manipulate their subjects.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Positivism:

Positivism: o Positivism is literally just the scientific method/empirical research that happened during the enlightenment/modernity o That focused on reason Hypothesis testing to uncover truths

Economic Structuralism: The Capitalist World-System: How does the Capitalist World System Perspective differ from Dependency Theory?

• Capitalist world system theorists focus on the lack of development in the Third World, but ALSO focus on economic, political, and social development of regions throughout the entire world. Developed and underdeveloped states are examined to try to explain uneven development The goal is to understand the fate of various parts of the world at various times in history within the larger context of a developing world political economy. Third World under-development and exploitation are central to maintaining the present structure of dominance in the capitalist world-system. Uses history to understand the plights of particular regions

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists

• Post-colonial lit is particularly criticized • The Question of Causality • Reliance on Economics • System Dominance • Theoretical Rigidity • Accounting for Anomalies • Defining Alternatives and Science as Ideology

Economic Structuralism: Ongoing debate within post-colonialism:

• Ongoing debate within post-colonialism: involves the basic question of definition of key concepts ♣ Such concepts as imperialism, colonialism, and certainly post-colonialism are hotly contested and reflect differing theoretical positions and political values ♣ Hence, while the term postcolonial presumes going be- yond the era of "colonialism," it is not clear what constitutes the temporal dividing line. In fact a number of postcolonial theorists question the utility of even trying to pinpoint the divide between the colonial and postcolonial eras, instead viewing the period from at least the fifteenth century to today as a seamless web of relations be- tween the West and what has variously been termed the "non-West," Third World, developing world, or the South. ♣ While formal empires may have disintegrated, strategies were developed to retain Western power and influence before and during the decolonization process and are still in existence today in the postcolonial world. Earlier approaches designed to maintain power during direct colonial rule (exploiting ethnic and racial divisions among subject people, co-opting activists into colonial administrations, and extending judicious concessions in trade) have been supplemented by more subtle mechanisms of domination ranging from the use of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to the manipulation of language designed to en- courage "mental colonialism. ♣ In other words, the postcolonial world still exhibits neo- colonial forms of cultural, economic, and even political-military dominance over these former colonies. Independence has not really brought liberation when former colonies are still so linked to the metropole—the seat of power in the former co- lonial country. Thus, to understand politics in any African country, it remains im- portant to identify the "former" colonial power, whether Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, or Portugal. Neocolonial patterns of dominance remain important in the postcolonial period. One can see this even in trade and other eco- nomic arrangements the European Union has with former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (the so-called ACP countries) that keep these states in relations that still work to the net advantage of the metropole. ♣ A final point of contention within the postcolonial literature in recent years involves the concept of globalization and its relation to imperialism and the post- colonial era, however defined. For some, globalization is simply a new stage in Western imperialism and has deepened racial, class, and gender hierarchies and inequalities. There is total rejection of the idea that globalization could be of benefit to any peoples except those in dominant positions of power. Others argue that while there might be an increase in economic interdependence, politically the world is breaking into blocs characterized by different forms and mutations of capitalism. World-system theorists wonder what all the fuss is about. For them, globalization is not new but can be traced back to the origins of capitalism. This global world- system was essentially completed in the twentieth century, but has moved into a prolonged period of crisis that in time will bring the system to its end.

Economic Structuralism: Luxemburg and Revolution vs. Reform

• Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919) expressed deep commitment to revolution as the only effective means of transforming society. • She saw reformism as an abandonment of Marxist principles, however helpful such policies might appear to be for the workers in the short run. • In this same genre, Luxemburg argued vociferously the necessity for revolution to effect "removal of obstacles that a privileged minority places in the path of social progress." By contrast, she believed that reformism involves compromise with the bourgeoisie, strengthening the hand of the capitalist class • The issue of whether the kinds of changes anticipated by many economic structuralists can be achieved by reformist tactics or whether they can be achieved only through revolutionary violence remains a matter for dispute. Many economic structuralists are reform-minded, non-Marxists. Economic structuralists who claim to be Marxists are divided. There are reform-minded Marxists in the tradition of Eduard Bernstein who are opposed by those who see revolution as the only effective means to change the existing world order. • The one point on which these theorists tend to agree, however, is the desirability of change from the present unjust order

Differences Between Images and Interpretive Understandings:

-Images are lenses to view the world from --i.e. English School -Interpretive understandings are a critique on how to understand the way the world is. --i.e. Constructivism

Normative Theory: The Law of Peoples - John Rawls: 8 Principles of Law of Peoples?

8 Principles of Law of Peoples? 1. Peoples are free and independent and this is to be respected by other people 2. People are to observe treaties and undertakings 3. People are equal and are parties to the agreements that bind them. 4. Peoples are to observe a duty of non-intervention 5. People have a right to self-defense but no right to instigate war unless for self defense 6. People should honour human rights 7. People should observe certain specified restrictions in the conduct of war 8. People have a duty to assist other peoples living under favourable conditions that prevent their having a just or decent political regime

English School:

English School Scholars influenced by the earlier work of Herbert Butterfield, Martin Wight, Hedley Bull, and others. The school focuses on the societal aspects of international relations rather than seeing politics in purely abstract, systemic terms. Power, law or rules based on enlightened self-interest, and emergent global norms are all part of an anarchical international society. In this volume we represent English School as an image that combines aspects of realism and liberalism in the context of international society. English School understandings have also been seen as a middle way between realism and idealism and between realism and liberalism as images. See also image.

Lockean:

Lockean Constructivists such as Alexander Wendt use this term as a shorthand to refer to John Locke's understanding of people in society coming together by contract or agreement. Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not see the anarchic state of nature—"want of a common judge," government or central authority—as necessarily warlike. In applying Locke's insight to international relations we need not see states as necessarily in a state of war with one another. Moreover, states (as if they were persons in a state of nature) may reach agreements with one another to maintain the peace, whether they remain in a state of nature or leave it by forming a community

Capitalist world system:

capitalist world-system An economic-structuralist approach to international relations that emphasizes the impact of the worldwide spread of capitalism; a focus on class and economic relations and the division of the world into a core, periphery, and semiperiphery

Economic Structuralism/Structuralist:

economic structuralism, structuralist As used in this volume, economic structuralism refers to an image of politics. To understand the overall economic or class structure in world captalism, one must examine more than the distribution of power among states (realism), chart the movements of transnational actors and the internal political processes of states that cross national borders (liberals), or a combination of the two (English School). Economic structuralism focuses on the importance of economy—material factors, especially capitalist relations of dominance or exploitation—to understanding world politics. The economic-structuralist image is influenced by Marxist analyses of exploitative relations, although not all economic structuralists are Marxists. Dependency theory, whether understood in Marxist or non-Marxist terms, is categorized here as part of the economic-structuralist image. Also included is the view that international relations are best understood if one sees them as occurring within a capitalist world-system.

Historical Materialism:

historical materialism Economically oriented methodological approach to the study of society and history that was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in the means by which people in societies live and are organized. The starting point is the economic base, with everything else (social classes, political structures, ideologies) influenced by this material base.

Economic Structuralism: Post-colonialism

o A term that captures not only the period since the formal end of colonialism following World War II, but one that also takes us back to the imperial and colonial experiences that have so many implications for the present day. • Post-Colonialism: Post-colonialism emphasizes an interdisciplinary perspective that encompasses economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of decolonization and highlights the importance of race, gender, and ethnicity in understanding anticolonial struggles. • a good deal of the work is interested in examining the impact of decolonization on both the metropolitan (usually Western) and colonized societies. ♣ Therefore, under post-colonialism you might find Wallerstein's capitalist world-system, but also the influence of both critical theory and postmodern critique

Feminism: Gendered Understandings and IR Theory:

o Feminists utilize gender as an interpretive lens through which to view international relations in general and IR theory in particular. o With such a perspective, we become more aware of inequality and patterns of dominance, making us more sensitive to the discourse and concepts used to analyze international relations. o As such, feminist scholarship offers a counterweight to masculinist understandings that are more prevalent in IR theories that emphasize power, balance of power, and instrumental rationality in the conduct of state and non-state institutions and their agents. o Many women seeking positions in public or university life have been forced to adopt what some feminist theorists have labeled "masculinist" understandings. o Gendered understandings lead us to be critical of theoretical work in IR that masks the masculine or overlooks the feminine. Feminists tend to be more associated with liberal, postcolonial, constructivist, critical theory, postmodern, and other understandings than with realism, English School, economic structural- ism, or other approaches to IR. Many liberal feminist theorists are also likely to see themselves comfortably within the positivist or scientific camp, merely introducing gender as an important albeit frequently overlooked or neglected explanatory factor in IR or other social-scientific work.

Economic Structuralism: Difference between Economic Structuralists vs. Structural Realists

o Focus by the former on structure as the distribution of power among states, the latter on global economic structures—whether expressed as North vs. South, First vs. Third Worlds, core vs. periphery, or capital-owning bourgeois vs. toiling (working or peasant) classes.

Constructivism: Karl Popper- philosopher

o His argument was that the search for timeless laws was impossible for 4 reasons: 1. Humans accumulate knowledge of our activities (what we know tomorrow is more than what we knew today) 2. Humans reflect on their practices 3. Humans acquire new knowledge 4. Humans change their practices as a result

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Writing Security (Campbell): Alternative Approach

o However, Campbell, as well as an increasing number of other IR theorists, chooses to pursue an alternative approach. o He views epistemic realism as a limiting framework to work within as it disregards how concepts and objects are interpreted and the effect that this has on the world. o Campbell argues that the global framework of known information is inescapable due to the fact that information is always interpreted by applying known facts to the unknown in order to gain understanding. o Campbell's approach aims to explore and interpret objects in order to understand their meanings in the present. o Campbell employs a method of historical representation, which attempts to represent history rather than apply a particular narrative to it, and the logic of interpretation, which admits the unlikelihood of identifying causes and instead focuses on the consequences that may arise as a result of employing singular and limiting methods of representation. o Campbell belongs to a group of IR theorists that aim to represent and interpret objects throughout history, rather than to analyze allegedly independent worlds of objects and subjects with simplistic narrative explanations. o Campbell utilizes what he has termed as "a history of the present" which takes our structures and ideas as they presently are and attempts to understand how they came to be this way, as well as what functions they provide as a result. o This method allows analysts to explore how objects have operated throughout history within a discursive context.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Writing Security (Campbell):

o Individual Identity ♣ It is the meaning and ideas attached to objects via discourse that allows for the emergence of identities. ♣ The idea of identity is central to the human experience. However, as unavoidable as identity is, it is not set by nature. ♣ Identities form out of the existence of difference in characteristics. Identity and difference develop through actions and are condensed by the creation of boundaries such as "inside", "outside", "self", "group", "domestic", "foreign". o State Identity ♣ In regards to the state, identity is only formed through its repeated actions over time, rather than a singular formative deed. Contemporary research points to the argument that nationalistic identities are manufactured by states to support their authority. ♣ Due to the fact that states possess no singular ontological form beyond its everyday actions that form their identity, an end to such repetitive behavior would result in the end of state. ♣ The attainment of security and eradication of danger would render the state unnecessary. The subjective nature of danger is therefore not a true threat to the survival or identity of states, but rather a factor that require delicate balance to allow for the states continued existence. ♣ This is a factor overlooked by international relations due to the traditions of epistemic realism in disregarding interpretation.

Feminism: Strands of Feminism in IR

o Liberal feminists: emphasize the exclusion of women from important public spheres of social, political, and economic life. Two strands: o Seeks to expose the many areas of IR where women are underrepresented and to identify ways to overcome barriers to expanded participation. ♣ Such studies look at the underrepresentation of women in security and arms control policymaking circles or international organizations. ♣ As gender stereotyping historically has consigned women to the private sphere, success for women in IR also becomes the practical matter of upping their numbers in diplomatic and security-oriented policymaking positions. o Looks to uncover ways in which women have actually been there—participants in and witnesses of major events, but their presence not reported. If women were not identified in international organizations or on the battlefield, where were they? ♣ Behind the scenes in organizational settings, factories, hospitals, peace campaigns, and even on battlefields? Unsung heroes ferrying airplanes across oceans for use in war zones? o Also, looked at unreported role of women in Third World econ development o Finally, postmodern feminism aims to displace realist and liberal positivist dis- course and epistemology with a commitment to skepticism concerning truth claims about IR. The emergence of postcolonial theory—assessing the historical legacy of colonial and imperial experiences Third World societies and cultures still have to confront—also has an important feminist component relating in particular to these development and human rights challenges. Much of this work has focused on Third World countries and the roles women have played and continue to play in tribal and other settings. Postmodernists are therefore allied with postcolonial critics of liberal and radical feminism by rejecting the implicit assumption that women are essentially a homogeneous group unaffected by race, class, culture, sexuality, and history. What connects all of them is a concern for the nature of power relationships up and down the levels of analysis.

Feminism: Bananas, Beaches, and Bases

o Looks at second strand of Liberal Feminism - where women have actually been o Cynthia Enloe finds some women (spouses, mothers, daughters, girlfriends, and the like) "protected," while other categories (non-Americans, racial minorities, prostitutes—so-called camp followers or those cultivated in communities outside military bases at home and abroad) are exploited. Often denigrated as "common whores," camp followers provide necessary support services such as securing supplies, doing laundry, and nursing. Protection (a form of subordination) and exploitation are, then, two manifestations of male dominance associated historically with militaries at home and abroad.

Chapter - Normative Theory: Armed Intervention:

o Many countries may justify armed intervention by saying that it's for a humanitarian purpose. o 5 pieces of criteria that policymakers consider in the context of armed intervention: and just quickly those are: ♣ sovereignty (and actually the Serbs stated that whatever action that was taken in the province were internal, and external intervention would be a violation of sovereignty), ♣ national interest, ♣ human rights, ♣ expected net effect on the human condition, and ♣ degree of multilateralism

Chapter - Normative Theory: Just War Theory:

o The area of just war is crucial to normative theory, and will also connect well to the speech on war and peace. This theory of just war is made through ideas of what the right reason is and what the right conduct is and is based on philosophical assumptions that have intersected with normative theory. o Jus ad bellum which is the right conduct of war itself, o Jus in bello which is the right conduct to follow once war had already broken out.

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: World Economy

• "world-economy is a large geographic zone within which there is a division of labor and hence significant internal exchange of basic or essential goods as well as flows of capital and labor." • This world economy is not constrained by a singular political construct, but rather many exist within it, creating a diverse global economic system. • World-economy= large geographic zone within which there is a division of labour and hence significant internal exchange of basic or essential goods as well as flows of capital and labour o Defining feature is that it is not bounded by a unitary political structure, rather there are many political units inside the world-economy loosely tied together in our modern world-system in an interstate system o Contains many cultures and groups o Not culturally homogenous, world economic structure is unified by the division of labour within it

Economic Structuralism: The Structure of Dependence:

• 6 different components in the article: o Historical context of dependency. ♣ Spilt into three different aspects- • the basic form of World economy, its own laws of development, and • the type of economic relations dominant countries capitalist centers and how it expands outward and • the types of economic relations existing in the peripheral countries o The Export Economies. ♣ The focus here is on raw materials/ agricultural being exported out of peripheral countries. And how this production is determined on the demand of core country needs. o New Dependence: ♣ This explained as the process of developing and is conditioned by the demands of the international commodity and capital markets- once again the core country's need. This is more focused on industrial development. o Effects on the productive structure: ♣ The productive system in peripheral countries is essentially determined by IR. This focus on the issue of labour power. And follows closely with the Marxist view of bourgeois and the proletariat. o Dependent Reproduction: ♣ I would guess it's the reproduction of dependency between the core and periphery that disabled periphery countries from developing

Normative Theory: The Law of Peoples - John Rawls: Analysis

• Analysis: o Kant: Moral and ethical principles, as opposed to expediency - guides individuals to the "ideal" politics: ♣ "All politics must bend its knee before the right" ♣ He opposes the idea of a "middle course pragmatic conditional law between the morally right and the expedient" o Rawls: Behind a "veil of ignorance", two non-liberal societies will accept the same Law of Peoples, as is accepted by liberal societies. o Distinction between Kant's utopia and Rawls' realistic utopia: ♣ Is Rawls' conception of the "veil of ignorance" in line with ethics and morality? • For Kant, moral and ethical principles are above expediency and this guides people to what he believes are ideal politics and I think this quote that is included in the reading demonstrates this: all politics must bend its knee before the right. for him, theres no such thing as a conditional law between the morally right and the expedient. • on the other hand, Rawls outlines this veil of ignorance - its the ignorance of people that will allow many different societies to accept a single law of peoples. so I wondered if Rawls conception of this all, is at all in line with ethics and morality, of even if its meant to be? ♣ Kant's understanding of the relationship between politics and morality/ethics: realistic or relevant in foreign policy today? • Obama piece

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: Capitalist System in the World Economy

• Capitalism= not the mere existence of persons or firms producing for sale on the market with the intention of obtaining a profit • World-economy and capitalist system go together, they need each other to exist, have never successfully existed without one another • World-economies lack the unifying cement of an overall political structure or a homogenous culture, held together by the efficacy of the division of labour • Capitalist system cannot exist within any framework except world-economy • Capitalist world-economy= collection of many institutions, the combination of which accounts for its processes and all of which are intertwined with each other o Basic institution of capitalist world econ = the market(s) o The market is concrete local structure in which individuals or firms buy and sell goods and a virtual institution across space where the same kind of exchange occurs o Firms are the main actors in the market, firms are normally the competitors of other firms operating in the same virtual market o Quasi-monopoly= depend on patronage of strong states, often located inside those states o Plunder and unequal exchange are ways to move accumulated capital from politically weak regions to politically strong regions

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: Income in the Capitalist System

• Capitalist system requires that there be workers who provide the labour for the productive processes • Income= five types 1. Wage income 1) Paid for work by someone outside of house 2. Subsistence activity 1) Efforts of rural persons to grow food and produce necessities for their own consumption 2) Even assembling furniture from a store 3. Petty commodity production 1) Product produced within the household, but sold for cash on a wider market 4. Rent 1) Profit from ownership, not work of any kind, that makes this an income 2) Rent drawn from investment, locational advantage, ownership 5. Transfer payments 1) Comes to an individual by virtue of a defined obligation of someone else to provide this income 2) Gifts, reciprocity, from the state, etc. In capitalist system employers would in general prefer to employ wage-workers coming from semi proletarian households

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: Strong (Core) vs. Periphery (Weak)

• Core-like processes tend to group themselves in a few states and to constitute the bulk of the production activity in such states • Peripheral processes tend to be scattered among a large number of states and to constitute the bulk of the production activity in these states • Role of each state is very different vis-à-vis productive processes depending on the mix of core-peripheral processes within it o Strong states with disproportionate share of core-like processes tend to emphasize their role of protecting the quasi-monopolies of the core-like processes o The very weak states which contain a disproportionate share of peripheral production processes are usually unable to do very much to affect the axial division of labour

Economic Structuralism: The Structure of Dependence: Dependency Theory

• Dependency Theory o The dependence of Latin American Countries on other countries cannot change, unless the change occurs in the internal structures and if there is change in external relations. o Dependence of Latin American countries on "Core" countries (using World System terminology) causes them to resort/conform to a particular type of international and internal structure. o This structure then results in the dependent countries to be underdeveloped, which in turn creates problems for its peoples. o To understand dependency reproduction- you have to be able to see it as a system of world economic relations- based on the monopolistic control core capital countries. o Dependency theory- and class analysis within dependency theory through the use of labour power ♣ I found that a lot of this is similar to Marxist theory, except instead of using persons as the unit of analysis states were replaced there. ♣ Primary focus of the article was on how Core or Dominate Countries have control and hinder the development of peripheral Countries through the economy.

Normative Theory: On War and Pace: Nobel Peace Prize Speech - Obama:

• During this period (2009), the United States had a military presence in Iraq, in the context of a war that was not supported by many countries; on political, strategic and ethical terms. • Just War: War is only just when it meets certain conditions o Total War: The shift towards total war: war between nations, as opposed to armies. The line between soldier and civilian became increasingly blurred o No Third World War: What Does it Mean? ♣ There has been no Third World War: ♣ Evidence that the efforts of institutions such as the United Nations have succeeded, despite the numerous atrocities that have occurred since World War II ♣ Obama states that the absence of a Third World War is evidence that the efforts of institutions just as the United Nations have been successful: • In the context of normative theory, ethics and morality: o The morality or immortality, of maintaining this stance despite the numerous atrocities that have taken place since World War II (genocide, ethnic and sectarian conflicts, etc.)

Feminist Understandings in IR Theory:

• Feminist approaches are important for highlighting major blindspots in main- stream IR, providing an alternative lens—gender—through which to view world politics, and providing new insights on the often-overlooked political, social, and economic roles that women play in IR • IR discipline falls into the trap of believing that the masculine experience is the human experience • Has a strong normative commitment to enhancing the prospects of peace and reducing violence and conflict • Feminist understandings = impact on human rights (equal treatment and the empowerment of women, same opportunities that traditionally and historically have been reserved in most cultures to men) • Some feminists think empowering women will give them the means to limit family size voluntarily, reducing population growth rates to economically sustainable levels. • Feminists think women are prone to approaching issues of peace and conflict resolution from a broader, both social and cultural perspective. • Epistemology: some use empirical research; some adopt constructivist approach and emphasize how knowledge is shaped by culture, history, context; some in line with realism; lots in line with liberals; critical of scholars who marginalize gender as interpretive lens

Economic Structuralism: Dependency Theorists - Radical Critiques

• ECLA AND UNCTAD economists tended to restrict their analyses to economic dimensions and to cast their arguments in terms of nationalism and the need for state-guided capitalism • Others emphasized political and social factors within the context of a capitalist economic system that bind Latin America to North America. Choices for Latin American countries are restricted or constrained not only as a result of the dictates of capitalism, but also due to supporting political, social, and cultural relations. The result is a structure of domination. This multifaceted web of dependency reinforces unequal exchange between the northern and southern parts of the hemisphere. Opportunities for LDCs are few and far between because LDCs are allocated a subordinate role in world capitalism. • Economic exploitation is an integral part of the capitalist system and is required to keep it functioning. • The result is a condition of dependency, succinctly defined as a "situation in which a certain number of countries have their economy conditioned by the development and expansion of another..., placing the dependent countries in a backward position exploited by the dominant countries. • Latin American and other Third World countries are attempting to develop under historical conditions quite different from those of the northern industrialized states. • MNCs and Intl. Banks are viewed very differently but economic struturalists. • Economic structuralist, however, they are central players in establishing and maintaining dependency relations. To economic structuralists of Marxist persuasion, MNCs and banks are agents par excellence of the international bourgeoisie. They represent two of the critical means by which Third World states are maintained in their subordinate position within the world-capitalist economy. • Liberals or English School: MNCs and international banks appear merely as other, potentially benign, actors in world politics or global society. • Realist: tend to be of secondary importance because of the emphasis on the state-as-actor.

Economic Structuralism: The Structure of Dependence: History of Dependency Theory

• History of Dependency Theory o Dependency Theory was started by Latin American Scholars (60s 70s) ♣ majority of these theorists were a part of the ECLA (Economic Commission on Latin America) and the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) ♣ Wanted to explain why Latin American Countries and other 3rd world regions were not developing the way it was anticipated. o Focus is to gain understanding of how the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development of another's economy and how it is exposed to the developing or peripheral country. o The relationship between two counties where one is able to be self-sufficient (the dominant/core) while the other country in this relationship is unable to be self-sufficient- and it is a 'reflection' of the dominant country. This can either be a good or negative thing for the development of the peripheral country. o Can look at Dependency Theory through diff lenses: Modernization, Imperialism and so forth. o Santos used the theory imperialism to explain the Marxist tradition- He notes that it "Transcends the theory of development which seeks to explain the situation of the underdeveloped countries as a product of their slowness or failure to adopt the patterns of efficiency characteristic of developed countries- or to 'modernize/ developed them."

Theories of IR

• Idealism (the theory that never was) • Realism (3 S's - statism, survival, self-help) • Liberalism (3 images: man, the state and the structure) • Neo Realism - it's all about the anarchic order • Neo Liberalism - it's all about the institutions • I.P.E. - international political economy (how does the world function economically speaking?) • Feminism - where are the women? • Critical theory - what is the WORLD order (and focus on security) • English School - societies matter

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: Kondratieff Cycle

• Kondratieff Cycle= expansion of the world economy with quasi-monopolistic leading industries and contraction in the world economy when there is a lowering of the intensity of quasi-monopoly • Up-and-down curve of expansion (A) and stagnation (B) • 50-60 years in length now • When ends, never returns to the situation where it was at the beginning of the cycle

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Main Points:

• Main Points: o Critical Theory tradition originated from Frankfurt School o Booth "seeks emancipation from dangerous ideas that put the collective health of human society in jeopardy" (339) o Depart from traditional theory, viewing knowledge as part of a social process (RE: Constructivism) o Flaws of traditional theories (realism and liberalism): reductionism, grounding in naturalism, regressive claims o Focus should be on denaturalizing the state and other institutions (should be revealed as essentially human creations that serve powerful interests) o Objective: a progressive world order that enhances world security o Must identify what is real (ontology), how we know it (epistemology), and what can be done about it (praxis)

Feminism: Major Assumptions:

• Major Assumptions: 1. Uses gender as the major category of analysis to highlight women's perspectives on social issues and research ♣ Gender = set of socially and culturally constructed characteristics that are (often stereotypically) associated with what it means to be masculine or feminine • Masculinity = associated with power and forceful activity, a rationality often cold to human concerns, self-empowered autonomy, and assumption of leadership in public roles. • Femininity = associated with less assertive or less aggressive behavior, willful dependence on—or interdependence in—nurturing relationships with others, sensitivity to emotional aspects of issues, and a focus on the private realm. • Gender qualities permeates all of life, profound and unnoticed effect on actions of states, IOs, transnational actors • Seeks to develop a research agenda and concepts that follow and explain effects • Defined in relation to one another, reinforced by society 2. Gender is particularly important as a primary way to signify relationships of power not only in the home, but also in the world of foreign policy and international relations ♣ When we privilege masculinity, women socially but also legally can be cast into a subordinate status. ♣ Gender hierarchies perpetuate unequal role expectations, contributing to inequalities between men and women in IR. ♣ Feminists emphasize social relations as the key unit of analysis, obviously interested in the causes and consequences of unequal power relation- ships between men and women. ♣ V. diff perspective on power than other images (i.e. usually states, IOs, MNCs, NGOs, classes, etc.) ♣ Realist rational, unitary, power-maximizing state—which many feminists have noted interestingly is associated with male characteristics—marginalizes (or worse, leaves no room at all for) gender as an analytical category. ♣ Virtually the entire Western philosophical tradition ignores feminine perspectives or even exalts a masculine bias. 3. Many contemporary IR theory feminists are dedicated to the emancipatory goal of achieving equality for women via the elimination of unequal gender relations ♣ Many feminists find highly suspect the view that the levels of analysis demarcate abstractly a clear division between the international system and component states-as-units. ♣ Human dimension is missing ♣ When gender is introduced as a category of analysis, old assumptions about security as well as new assumptions about who benefits from globalization can be examined in a new, more humane light. i.e. how military conflict can affect women

Chapter - Normative Theory:

• Normative theory encompasses norms, morality and ethics. • All these concepts deal with what the world should be, and what should be right conduct. This is this opposite of empirical theory, which deals with what is. • if humans have will, and control over their affairs, then normative theory should not be neglected • Normative theory doesn't deal with the same empirical testing that takes place within empirical theory o Many people have questioned whether or not normative IR theory is worthy of scholarly attention • I thought that it'd be important to point out even though empirical theorists may try to get rid of individual biases through testing hypotheses, personal values can't be filtered out completely. • Normative theory has a critical place in foreign policy and you'll see this especially when we discuss Obama's speech on War and Peace • There are many alternative perspectives to take when looking at normative theory and the text mentions the levels of analysis which we've heard of many times o Highlight universal or cosmopolitan normative theorizing, which is the opposite of moral relativism o Moral Relativism: says there aren't universal standards that we can use to assess an ethical proposition. o Within universal normative theorizing, there are many subtopics: I've bolded the terms that I believe are most relevant to the readings we'll be discussing soon: and those are Kantian moral imperatives and from this weeks readings o Kant is not in line with moral relativism Kant reading, and social contract bases for moral choice, which related to the John Rawls reading, who is a social contract theorist.

Economic Structuralism: Hobson and Imperialism

• Marx saw capitalism as a worldwide mode of production. His observations on capitalism were applied to imperialism. • Imperialism assumes an international, hierarchical division of labor between rich and poor regions of the world, but the relation is not one of mutually beneficial comparative advantage. Rather, it is one of exploitation. • Hobson noted that capitalist societies were faced with three basic interrelated problems: ♣ overproduction, under-consumption by workers and other classes, and over-savings on the part of capitalists. As the capitalist owners of industry continued to exploit workers and pay the lowest possible wages, profits mounted and goods began to pile up. Given the low wages, not the mass of the working class couldn't buy things because members of this class did not have sufficient purchasing power. The efficiency of the capitalist mode of production resulted, however, in the relentless production of more and more goods the society was unable to consume. ♣ The solution reached by capitalists was to invest in what became known as Third World countries. The result was imperialism — the endeavor of the great controllers of industry to broaden the channel for the flow of their surplus wealth by seeking foreign markets and foreign investments to take off the goods and capital they cannot sell or use at home the supposed inevitability of imperial expansion." He stated that it is "not inherent in the nature of things that we should spend our natural resources on militarism, war, and risky, unscrupulous diplomacy, in order to find markets for our goods and surplus capital." Hobson hence rejected the determinism so often found in the work of Marxist scholars who write on imperialism. ♣ For Hobson, imperialism did not benefit the home country as a whole. Instead, selected groups (industrialists, financiers, and the individuals who staffed the colonial empires profited) ♣ Because the flag followed trade, large military expenditures were required to protect the imperialist system. The drive for capitalist profits by securing overseas territories led to competition and rivalry among European powers. Hence, imperialism was to Hobson a major cause of war, and Hobson suggested that capitalists might indeed profit from such conflicts.

Chapter - Normative Theory: The Law of Peoples - John Rawls

• Rawls puts forth the idea of the Law of Peoples: o = a set of laws that transcend the borders of states and separate societies o Despite this law of peoples, Rawls' is not a proponent of a world state ♣ He says that a world state, which for him translates to a unified political regime with legal powers that would be exercised by a central power - would result in global despotism and a ruling over a fragile empire. o Rawls mentions "Veil of Ignorance": ♣ = a non-liberal society and an authoritarian regime would ultimately, accept the same Law of Peoples that would be accepted by a liberal democratic society. o Two Types of Stability: ♣ Domestic type ♣ Also, stability in the context of the liberal democratic peace

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations Beer and Hariman: Seeing Realism as a Rhetoric:

• Seeing Realism as a Rhetoric o Beer and Hariman's piece finished off by analyzing political realism as a persuasive discourse, or a rhetoric, rather than as a positive theory o They make the point that realism communicates not only propositions but also attitudes ♣ It both represents the world and structures relationships among the speakers, subjects and audiences of world politics ♣ In this way, realism can be seen as not only a set of ideas but a mode of symbolic action o Ultimately this piece analyzes the Realist paradigm and unfolds the self-proclaimed Realist narrative o Then, the authors explore the post-realist critique of realism and examine how realism is not the dominant theory it has been made out to be o Finally, the authors consider looking at realism as a rhetoric or a persuasive discourse instead of as a positive theory

Economic Structuralism: The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy: Universalism

• Universalism*** is a positive norm (something most people believe in) o quasi-monopoly= monopoly which has more than one service o provider for particular good/service but the nature of the competition is such that similar kind of service/pricing is offered to the customers occur when the marketplace in question has several characteristics, few very large suppliers

Constructivism: Constructing International Politics Wendt

− Critical IR theory is not a single theory − Family of theories: post-modernists, constructivists, neo-Marxists, feminists etc. − Unites them is a concern for how world politics are socially constructed − Two claims: o The fundamental structures of international politics are social rather than strictly material o These structures shape actors' identities and interests

Constructivism: The Lockean Culture Wendt: Individualizing effects of the Lockean culture:

− Individualizing effects of the Lockean culture: 1. Defining the criteria for membership in the system, which determines what kinds of "individuals" have standing and are therefore part of the distribution of interests 2. Determining what kinds of type identities get recognized as individuals 3. Their collective or social identities 4. To obscure the proceeding three effects and constitutive states as "possessive" individuals instead The third degree (legitimacy) is the basis for what we today take to be "common sense" about international politics" that a certain type of state is the main actor in the system, that these actors are self-interested individualists, that the International system is therefore in part of a self-help system, but that states also recognize each other's sovereignty and so are rivals rather than enemies

Constructivism: How States Learn:

− states learn based on previous actions, much alike individuals o how states learn: ♣ standards, DIFFUSION

Normative Theory: On War and Pace: Nobel Peace Prize Speech - Obama: The Existence of Evil:

♣ Evil does exist: man is imperfect and there are limits to reason ♣ One does not have to believe that human nature is perfect, in order to believe that the human condition can be perfected. Here, is obama positing some sort of modern interpretation of the theory of human nature? Is this conception more helpful during modern times, compared to that of Hobbes etc? ♣ A gradual evolution of human institutions, as opposed to a sudden revolution in human nature: on this he takes a note from John F Kennedy ♣ Three ways to building a just and lasting peace: will not outline, not entirely relevant. ♣ The suggestion that the upholding of human rights is a Western principle, is false. • Simultaneously, no Holy War can be a just war. o No Holy War can be a just war: ♣ Consider this statement in the context of today's world, where the oppression and grievances of many peoples are increasingly being acknowledged the international system. Today, are we more and more acknowledging in some situations that holy wars are just wars in some ways? Or if not, will our continued acknowledgment of the oppression and grievances of people worldwide lead us to this place where we may believe that a holy war could be a just war? I'll ask you about your thoughts on this during the question period, so you can keep that in mind. ♣ Evil does exist; man is imperfect and there are limits to reason; ♣ One does not have to believe that human nature is perfect, in order to believe that the human condition can be perfected; • Obama positing a modernized theory of human nature here, that is similar to Kant's, however; • "The human condition can be perfected": If this proposition as utopian as Kant's utopian perspective and therefore, unrealistic?

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: Defining Alternatives and Science as Ideology

♣ It is argued that some economic structuralists have done a poor job in defining reasonable alternative world futures, let alone strategies, for LDCs to pursue. ♣ Critics also charge that value preferences infuse economic-structuralist work. Economic structuralists, however, are not apologetic for their normative commitment to fundamental changes in the relations between the North and the South. Such works are considered to be "more true because they assume that, by discerning which are the historical agents capable of propelling a process of transformation . . . , these analyses thus grasp the meaning of historical movement and help to negate a given order of domination."

Normative Theory: The Law of Peoples - John Rawls: What are limits of this realistic utopia that he's constructed through the law of peoples?

♣ It that it may be that a social world where many people suffer and for these people, their spiritual well-being is never guaranteed.

The English School: History

♣ The English School was created in the mid 1950s by a group of English scholars. This became known as the British Committee. ♣ All agreed on the idea that world politics should be viewed more as a society than a system. Formed in response to the growing emphasis on positivism in American IR research. ♣ 3 authors who were very influential on early English School thinking 1. Grotius: known as the father of international law. He moved beyond theories of power, and looked at how norms or rules govern interstate behaviour. Believed these norms and rules can produce some degree of order, which is in the self interest of these states. This is the Eng-lish School idea of rationalism. Grotius' sources of International law are natural law (laws inherent in nature that transcend laws made by people), but also historical Roman laws. 2. Kant: While most English School authors consider Kantians to be revolutionists who put moral principles above the realities (ex: power and interest) of international politics; some English School scholars have been influenced by his idea of a world society. Carr: E.H. Carr acknowledged the tension in IR between power and interests on one hand, and moral interests on the other. This set the stage for a rationalist middle path within the English School.

English School: Difference Between it and Constructivism:

-English school combines elements of liberalism and realism! -believes in power and anarchy but also that actors make decisions -They share some similarities. One major difference between the two is that the English School is an image, while constructivism is an interpretive understanding. --Image: a theory with substantive elements whereas --interpretive understandings are substantive, they like critiques or like varying ways to understand things -Interpretive understandings are less about positivism and empirical research than images -Like they see things as social rather than scientific

Economic Structuralism: Similarities between Economic Structuralism and Liberals

1. Both stress an approach to international relations grounded in political economy. The distinction between high politics and low politics (the relative importance of political-military as compared to economic factors) is rejected—if not totally reversed for certain economic structuralists. For the economic structuralist, various manifestations of political and military power generally reflect the driving force of underlying economic factors. 2. Both economic structuralists and liberals are much more attuned to events, processes, institutions, and actors operating both within and between states; the impermeable billiard ball (the state as unitary, rational actor common in many realist understandings) is broken down into its component parts. Both approaches tend to range up and down the levels of analysis and focus on a greater variety of ac- tors, but economic structuralists place a much greater emphasis on the context (i.e., the capitalist nature of the international system) within which these actors operate than do liberals. Agency matters to both economic structuralists and liberals. But on the whole, there is decidedly more voluntarism in liberal understandings, more determinism in most economic-structuralist theorizing. 3. Both the economic structuralists and those liberals who write in the transnationalist tradition emphasize socioeconomic or welfare issues. A number of liberals have a normative commitment to peaceful change. International relations do not have to be viewed and played as a zero-sum game with winners and losers, but can be seen as a positive-sum game in which the restructuring of interstate relations is achieved through bargaining and compromise, allowing all parties to gain. ♣ Although economic structuralists are also concerned with the welfare of less-developed countries (LDCs), they are not so optimistic about the possibility of peaceful change. The hierarchical nature of world politics with South subordinated to North and the economic dictates of the capitalist world-system make it unlikely that the northern industrialized states will make any meaningful concessions to the Third World. Change, peaceful or revolutionary, is problematic until the capitalist world-system reaches a point of systemic crisis.

Economic Structuralism: Four Key Assumptions

1. It is necessary to understand the global context within which states and other entities inter- act. Economic structuralists argue that to explain behavior at any and all levels of analysis (the individual; group, class, bureaucratic or institutional units; state and society as a whole; and between or among states or societies) one must first understand the overall structure of the global system within which such behavior takes place. a. Starting point of analysis is the international, or for them, the capitalist world system 2. Second, economic structuralists stress the importance of historical analysis in comprehending the international system. It is this historical focus that postcolonial studies also bring to economic-structuralist understandings. Only by tracing the historical evolution of the system is it possible to understand its current structure. a. Key historical factor and defining characteristic of the system is capitalism (works to benefit some states, at expense of others) 3. Third, economic structuralists assume that particular mechanisms of domination exist that keep Third World states from developing, contributing to worldwide uneven development. ...Dependency relations between the "northern" industrialized, capital-rich states (principally those in Europe and North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) and their capital-poorer neighbors in the southern hemisphere (Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific island states) 4. Economic structuralists assume that economic or material factors are absolutely critical in explaining the evolution and functioning of the international or capitalist world- system and the relegation of Third World states to a subordinate position. These factors have important impact on political, social, cultural, ethnic, and gender is- sues, which also are captured in the more recent post-colonialism literature.

Economic Structuralism: Karl Marx (1818-1883)

1. Marx focused attention on unequal and exploitative relations and thus set an important backdrop or context for scholarship by economic struturalists, whether they be Marxist, neo-Marxist, or non-Marxist in orientation. 2. Marx could claim the title of being the original critical theorist. Current work in this genre 3. Marx's work concerns humankind's historical growth process and movement toward final self-realization and fulfillment in a society he called communist. 4. For Marx, history was not so much the story of the rise and fall of particular city states, empires, and nation-states as it was the story of class conflict generated by the advance of technology from ancient times to present-day economic modernization. 5. Preceded by a feudal system in the Middle Ages, a change in mode of production occurred over time—often accompanied by violence—with market capitalism reigning supreme in the nineteenth-century Europe in which Marx lived. Marx argued that capitalism—which involves market exchanges, labor as a commodity, and the means of production typically held in private hands—produced particular political, social, and cultural effects

Economic Structuralism: How has Marx influence Economic Structuralism?

1. Marx was concerned with exploitation of the many by the few, in particular the patterns and mechanisms of exploitation in different modes of economic production. He no doubt recognized the historically progressive role played by capitalists (the proletarian revolution would not be possible until after the establishment of a capitalist system), but his personal sympathies were with the down- trodden who were alienated from the means of production 2. According to Marx, capitalism exhibited certain law-like qualities in terms of its development and expansion. He viewed capitalism as part of a world historical process unfolding dialectically, an economic system riddled with clashing contradictions or internal tensions that could be resolved only by a revolutionary transformation into a socialist mode of production. While recognizing the important role of human agency in moving history forward, he felt that historical economic and social realities were paramount in explaining outcomes.... Not unlike many present-day IR theorists, Marx was interested in the interplay or dialectic between agents and structures, in particular the processes by which the former is historically constructed. 3. Marx insisted that a society must be studied in its totality, not piecemeal. An analyst must be aware of how various parts of society were inter- related, including those aspects not so apparent to the casual observer • This perspective has deeply influenced the economic structuralists • Were almost solely involved with units of analysis as states or individuals. • "If there is one thing which distinguishes a world- system perspective from any other, it is its insistence that the unit of analysis is a world-system defined in terms of economic processes and links, and not any units defined in terms of juridical, political, cultural, geographical, or other criteria."3 • Still use units of analysis, but different connotations from other theories ♣ The state, for example, is not viewed in terms of its being a sovereign entity preoccupied with security concerns. Rather, it derives its significance from the role it plays in actively aiding or hindering the capitalist accumulation process. Any one particular state is not viewed in isolation but in terms of how it fits into the overall global capitalist system. • In sum, Marx has influenced contemporary scholars working within the economic-structuralist image by virtue of his emphasis on exploitation, discernible historical patterns of capitalist development and expansion, how change occurs, and the importance of understanding the "big picture" and then asking how individual parts fit into the whole.

The English School:

The English School is an image of IR that focuses on the history and development of international society. What is international society? A group of states, that establish and consent to common rules and institutions that govern their relationship. • Overall, the English School is scholarly diverse, it draws from the realist conception of an international system, rationalist (Grotian) conception of international society, and Kantian con-ception of a world society. • Important to understand how rationalist, realist and Kantian con-ceptions of international politics interact in English school. World system is less than international society (in the sense that a world system is an informal network of states that operates inde-pendent of its members), and world society goes further than an international society (universal cosmopolitan norms). • There is tension and debate amongst English School authors about which way international society leans. This is the solidarist vs pluralist debate. • Levels of analysis: Primary level of analysis is the global or systems level. States are principal actors, but some authors are willing to incorporate other actors. • Methodology: ♣ English School theorists use an approach that emphasizes historical sociology. ♣ For example looking at past societies and examining how they dealt with particular issues. ♣ Many authors have emphasized an interpretive understanding (remember back to Max Weber reading), while others have tried to synthesize positivist and interpretive understandings

Economic Structuralism: Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Major Summarization

o **IMPORTANT** A world hegemony is thus in its beginnings an outward expansion of the internal (national) hegemony established by a dominant social class. o The economic and social institutions, the culture, the technology associated with this national hegemony become patterns for emulation abroad o Such an expansive hegemony impinges on the more peripheral countries as a passive revolution o These countries haven't undergone the same thorough social rev. or econ. development, but try to incorporate elements from the hegemonic model without disrupting old power structures o Hegemony at the intl. level is thus not merely an order among states. It is an order within a world economy with a dominant mode of production which penetrates into all countries and links into other subordinate modes of production o Also a complex intl. social relationship which connects social classes of diff. countries o World hegemony = social structure, econ structure, and political structure. Must be all three. Expressed in universal norms, institutions, mechanisms which lay down general rules of behavior for states and for those forces of civil society that act across national boundaries, rules which support the dominant mode of production

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Historical Materialism

o =ideas and material conditions are always bound together, mutually reinforcing one another, and not reducible one to the other. o Ideas have to be understood in relation to material circumstances ♣ Material circumstances include: social relations and physical means of production ♣ Super-structures of ideology and political organization shape the development of both aspects of production and are shaped by them

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Blocco Storico (Historic Bloc)

o =state and society together constituted a solid structure and revolution implied the development within it of another structure strong enough to replace the first o It cannot exist without a hegemonic social class o Where the hegemonic class is the dominant class in a country or social formation, the state maintains cohesion and identity within the bloc through the breeding of a common culture o A new bloc is formed when the subordinate class (e.g. workers) establishes its hegemony over other subordinate groups (e.g. small farmers, marginal, etc.) o Gramsci thought it would come when the first structure had exhausted full potential o Either dominant, or emergent, the forming of a new bloc/structure = historic bloc o Intellectuals play a role in the building of this historic bloc ♣ i.e. bourgeoisie intellectuals did this for bourgeois hegemonic structure ♣ intellectuals for working class, would do the same in creating new historic bloc and working class hegemony

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations Beer and Hariman: Realist narrative structure (Story of the World)

o Beer and Hariman explore the idea that Realism has its own narrative that explains how it exists in the world and how it sees itself o Realism is grounded in two intertwined stories about the world and about realism's place in it • Story of the world: o Realist's story of the world is the narrative it creates for the international system o the persuasive power of realism comes from the theory's own narrative on world politics o realism provides a narrative that explains how the world is o and thus, the realist narrative of world politics sets the scene, and in so doing both structures the subsequent argument for its case and defines the natural attitude of the discourse o Realism's narrative: ♣ Nation-states are the primary actors in world politics ♣ These states necessarily inhabit a condition of anarchy ♣ Learn to conduct their foreign policies on the basis of national interest defined in terms of power ♣ Calculate and compare benefits and costs of alternative policies and rank each other according to their power, which is measured primarily in terms of material and military capabilities ♣ Finally, national policy makers use whatever means are most appropriate, including direct violence, to achieve the ends of national interest defined in terms of power o This account coordinates all the key elements for representing the human motivation: ♣ It provides an actor- which is nation-states ♣ Sets the scene- which is a condition of anarchy ♣ It uses an agency- which is calculation ♣ It identifies an act- the application of force And finds a purpose- which is national interest

Economic Structuralism: Economic Structuralism in Contrast to Other Images

o Both economic structuralists and structural realists (neo-realists) place greater emphasis on the importance of the system level, or world as a whole, in affecting actors' behavior than do liberals and scholars in the English School. But they differ ontologically as to how they characterize system-level components. o There is also little in common between economic structuralism and the English School— the latter more of a middle path between realism on the one hand, liberalism and idealism on the other. o Thus, economic structuralists tend to focus on economic structure (e.g., classes or blocs, core vs. periphery, North vs. South, etc.) within a capitalist mode of production, while for neo-realists structure is to be found in the distribution of aggregate power among states (e.g., unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar labels for structure). o Economic structuralists are much more likely than realists to emphasize the intimate connection between the international or capitalist world-system and domestic politics. State and society are never viewed as being encapsulated by a metaphorical hard shell. Class structure, for example, transcends the boundaries of states and their component societies.

Economic Structuralism: Core vs. Periphery vs. Semi-periphery of Global Capitalism

o Core: capital-rich countries ♣ The core areas historically have engaged in the most advanced economic activities: banking, manufacturing, technologically advanced agriculture, and shipbuilding. o Periphery: The Third World or southern, capital-poor countries ♣ The periphery has provided raw materials such as minerals and timber to fuel the core's economic expansion. Unskilled labor is repressed, and the peripheral countries are denied advanced technology in those areas that might make them more competitive with core states. o Semi-periphery: residual category is reserved for those somewhere in between core and periphery ♣ The semi-periphery is involved in a mix of production activities, some associated with core areas and others with peripheral areas. The semi-periphery also serves a number of other functions such as being an outlet for investment when wages in core economies become too high o Still sometimes a preference to focus on economic development over geography, therefore use First World, vs. Third World vs. Second World o It's possible to move between core, periphery, semi-periphery

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism: Writing Security (Campbell): Danger as a subjective "condition"

o Danger is not an objective condition. It is a concept intimately attached to those which it may become a threat. Danger is not fundamentally attached to events or actions, it arises as a result of the interpretation of such occurrences. o The threats that societies charge as dangerous are interpreted as so due to the prescribed levels of "dangerousness", often in disregard of their objective qualities. For example, the "War on Drugs o Often it is simply the existence of multiple truths or existences that indicates that a variety of identities exist. This undermines any notion of the existence of one true identity, which can be interpreted as a threat. o The application of negative or abhorrent qualities upon certain objects by states or individuals pushes the interpretation of such issues as dangerous threats. Particular events, threats, actions, etc. are not actually even necessary for issues to be interpreted as dangerous.

Economic structuralism

o Economic structuralism concentrates on the broad question of why so many Third World, capital-poor states in Latin America, Africa, and Asia have been unable to develop. The upper classes in these societies may have been able to carve out benefits for themselves, but the masses continue to live in poverty—their life expectancies cut short as well. o For some economic structuralists, this question is part of a larger effort to construct a theory of world capitalist development. o There are both Marxists (and neo-Marxists) as well as non- Marxists who work within what we have chosen to call an economic-structuralist image, some avoid Marxist modes of analysis altogether o However, all economic structuralists draw intellectually from Marx's focus on material structures and exploitative relations that in zero-sum fashion benefit some at the expense of many others. They're not all Marxists, but they've drawn from him in some way o Still relevant, revival of interests in times of global economic hardship o economic structuralism has always been independent of the rise and fall of particular regimes occurring within a capitalist mode of production.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations Beer and Hariman: Realist paradigm:

o For most scholars the analysis, explanation and the evaluation of international relations begins and ends with realism o But, Francis Beer and Robert Hariman make the claim in this piece that by identifying how realism works as a persuasive discourse, one can challenge its hegemony within international studies ♣ This piece's main point is to demonstrate how a rhetorical sensibility can contribute to a more sophisticated and strategic understand of foreign affairs

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Hegemony & IR

o IR follows logically fundamental social relations o Basic changes in intl. power relations or world order (changes in the military-strategic and geopolitical balance) can be traced to fundamental changes in social relations o He doesn't ignore the importance of the state - the state remains the primary focus of social struggle and the basic entity of IR, but it's the enlarged state for Gramsci, which includes its own social basis ♣ Doesn't reduce it to military or foreign policy capabilities o Gramsci was aware of dependency ♣ Great powers have relative freedom to determine their foreign policies in response to domestic interests, smaller powers have less autonomy ♣ Economic life of subordinate nations is penetrated by and intertwined with powerful ones ♣ The states that are powerful are ones that have undergone profound social and economic revolution and most fully worked out the consequences of the rev in regards to state and social relations • i.e. Cold War - nation based conflict that spilled over national borders to become internationally expansive phenomena • Other countries (i.e. ME, Africa) were impacted passively = passive revolution o Occurs when the impetus to change comes as a reflection of intl. developments that transmit their ideological currents to the periphery, rather than out of local economic development o Local groups pick up ideas from prior foreign econ. and social revolution, and the ideas take idealist shape ungrounded in domestic development o Their conception of the state then becomes the form of a distorted "rational absolute"

Economic Structuralism: Capitalist World-System Perspective (Global Capitalism?)

o Imminent, anticipating the continual unfolding of the logic of capitalism and its inexorable spread to virtually every nook and cranny around the globe—the process of globalization understood through these economic-structuralist lenses.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): The Critical Theory Tradition:

o Influenced by Kant, and the Frankfurt School (est. 1923) ♣ 3 other 'feeder' roads: ♣ Gramsci: hegemony, civil society, different roles of intellectuals in politics ♣ Marx: ideology, class, structural power ♣ Embryonic school of critical IR theory (?): cosmopolitan ideas and practices, community, democracy, force, law o Key scholars from the school: Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): The Highway of Critical Security Theory

o Kantian metaphor: highway ♣ Visualize: 2 major roads (critical theory tradition in social theory & radical tradition in IR theory) made up of 'feeder' roads converging and widening into one single highway (critical security theory) ♣ Feeder roads: Social Idealism, Peace Research and Peace Studies School, World Society/World Order School, Feminists, Historical Sociology

Economic Structuralism: NICs

o Newly industrializing states like China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand that also have accumulated substantial capital, adding yet another category to the complexity of uneven development. o Further complicates Core, Periphery, etc. system of analysis

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Passive Revolution - Two Types of Societies

o Not all WE societies were bourgeois hegemonies o Gramsci distinguished between 2 different types of societies ♣ 1. One had undergone a thorough social revolution, and worked out the consequences of it through new social relations and modes of production (i.e. France and England = extreme advanced examples) ♣ 2. The other type had revolution imported, or aspects of new orders created abroad were thrust upon them, without the old order being displaced • Neither the new or old orders could triumph, and the revs. Were usually blocked • New industrial bourgeoisie failed to achieve hegemony, stalemate with traditionally dominant class • This created what Gramsci termed: Passive Rev. ♣ Passive revolution • = the introduction of changes which did not involve any arousal of popular forces • The concept of passive revolution is a counterpart to the concept of hegemony in that it describes the condition of a nonhegemonic society o = no dominant class has been able to establish a hegemony in Gramsci's sense o The idea of passive rev., together with its components, Caesarism and Transformismo, is applicable to industrializing Third World countries

Economic Structuralism: Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Mechanisms of Hegemony: IOs

o One mechanism universal norms of world hegemony are expressed through = IOs o Functions as the process through which institutions of hegemony and its ideology are developed o Features of IOs that express its hegemonic role: • Institutions embody the rules which facilitate the expansion of hegemonic world order • They are themselves the product of hegemonic world order • They ideologically legitimize the norms of the world order • They co-opt the elites from peripheral countries • Absorb counterhegemonic ideas o Intl. institutions embody rules which facilitate the expansion of the dominant economic and social forces but which at the same time permit adjustments to be made by subordinated interests with a minimum of pain o Allow for problem situations to be taken care of o There is an informal structure of influence reflecting the different levels of real political and economic power which underlies the formal procedures for decisions o Elite talent from peripheral countries is co-opted into international institutions in the manner of transformismo o Individuals from peripheral countries, though they may come to international institutions with the idea of working from within to change the system are condemned to work within the structures of passive revolution • Absorbs counterhegemonic ideas and makes them consistent with current power structure o Hegemony is like a pillow: absorbs blows, eventually comfortable to rest upon o Third World radicals do not control intl. institutions. Super-structures are inadequately connected with any popular political base. They are connected with the national hegemonic classes in the core countries where they have a broader base. In the peripheries, they connect only with the passive revolution

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Hegemony & World Order: Is Gramscian Hegemony Applicable to Intl. or World Level? (221): Periods of Hegemony:

o Periods of Hegemony • Period 1 (1845-1875): Britain held balance of power in Europe, no challenges to hegemony. Economic and social doctrines consistent with British supremacy • Period 2 (1875-1945): Non-hegemonic period. Everything reversed. British hegemony challenged. Balance of power in Europe destabilized, leading to 2 world wars. World economically fragmented into econ. blocs. • Period 3 (1945-1965): US founded new hegemonic world order, similar to past British. But with complex institutions and doctrines for more complex world econ. 60s-70s evident US order was no longer working well.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Postmodernism

o Postmodernists view all aspects of the world around us as products of human creation due to interpretation and perception colored by previously known information. o To understand political and social relations, postmodernists participate in an analytical deconstruction of both the spoken and printed word using discursive methods. • Postmodernists search for subtext in all interactions and popular narratives. They believe that humans act as their own sources of knowledge, and form their own identities through the interpretation of the world and one another.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 8 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME EIGHT: Progressive World Order Values Should Inform the Means and Ends of an International Politics Committed to Enhancing World Security ♣ Agenda for progressive change is exhaustive ♣ Exploration of conflict resolution and conflict management is a major departure from realism's fatalistic assumption of violence in human affairs (belief that force can only be met by force) ♣ World Order School advocates for (normative goals/values): ♣ Delegitimization of violence ♣ Promotion of economic justice ♣ Pursuit of human rights ♣ Spread of humane governance ♣ Development of environmental sustainability

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 5 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME FIVE: Human Society is its Own Invention ♣ IR is one aspect of human made reality ♣ "Self-forged chains"/"deformed ideas" existing in the mind (Allott): political violence is a learned behaviour, not an inevitable feature of human social interaction (peace research) ♣ Social learning ♣ Regressive attitudes have been internalized, humans have internalized conflict as a foundational myth (tragi-comedy of the state-system) Humans could have chosen a different direction and still can (politics and economy) - realists take this notion for granted/ignore other outcomes

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 4 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME FOUR: The Test of Theory is Emancipation ♣ Fact of structural oppression suffered on account of gender, class, race ♣ Just society: limits the power of regressive structures and processes (eliminating violent behaviour) ♣ What does it mean to be human? ♣ Emancipation begins with critique and a radical rethinking of theories and practices that have shaped political life ♣ Must embrace a global perspective (cosmopolitan/universal) secure the "whole" before units can be secured ♣ Sees political studies as a subfield of IR (rather than the other way around) ♣ Emancipation = a critical device for judging theory and the continuing goal of practice (denaturalize and overcome oppressive social divisions at all levels) ♣ Individual human being = only transhistorical/permanent fixture in human society (therefore individuals are the ultimate referent/ actor in security question) ♣ Reverence (deep respect) for singular person is synonymous with collective existence of people in social context (notion of community = living a good life) ♣ Biggest institutional challenge: search for multilevel emancipatory communities, local and global ♣ Discourse ethics: communication (the basis for community) rather than traditional politico-military strategizing (the medium of conflict) must be a priority

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Main Themes of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME ONE: All Knowledge is a Social Process o THEME TWO: Traditional Theory Promotes the Flaws of Naturalism and Reductionism o THEME THREE: Critical Theory Offers a Basis for Political and Social Progress o THEME FOUR: The Test of Theory is Emancipation o THEME FIVE: Human Society is its Own Invention o THEME SIX: Regressive Theories Have Dominated Politics Among Nations o THEME SEVEN: The State and Other Institutions Must be Denaturalized o THEME EIGHT: Progressive World Order Values Should Inform the Means and Ends of an International Politics Committed to Enhancing World Security o These goals should be pursued in a 'non-dualistic' fashion (avoid dangers of instrumental reason ('the genocidal mentality'): the threat of bringing about a perversion of humanity, society, or nature by concentrating entirely on functional processes even in the rational pursuit of a desirable goal.) (i.e. Nuclear strategy - priority of national defense) rationality of ends justify the means (Gandhian conception of conceiving ends and means as amounting to the same thing)

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 1 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME ONE: All Knowledge is a Social Process ♣ Doesn't exist waiting to be discovered ♣ Theorists write and are written by theories of their time and circumstance (contextual, not ahistorical) ♣ All knowledge about human society is historical knowledge ♣ Social/political theories are not neutral/objective, they contain "nontheoretical (normative) interests" ♣ Robert Cox: theories are "for some one or for some purpose" (same with common sense) ♣ Critical theory seeks to reveal "interests of knowledge" (ethical dimensions) Political realm = ethical/moral realm

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 7 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME SEVEN: The State and Other Institutions Must be Denaturalized ♣ Human institutions (i.e. state) are historical phenomena, not biological necessities ♣ Principle that every person has equal moral worth (individual = referent for security) collectivity of individuals, sharing common humanity ♣ Bull: "international society" approach: world order is more fundamental and primordial than international order b/c ultimate units of human society are not states or other socio-political groupings but individual human beings (permanent and indestructible)

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 6 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME SIX: Regressive Theories Have Dominated Politics Among Nations ♣ Theory constitutes behaviour ♣ Our theories have not been calculated to produce a more civilized, peaceful, or just system of IR (i.e. ethnocentrism, masculinist ideas, negatives images of humanity derived from realist human nature/condition) ♣ Regressive/noninclusive theories about humanity make important sections of society invisible (gender, race, class downplayed as categorical structures of humanity) ♣ Ideology of statism corrupts all it touches (idea of human security = more important referent than sovereign state, now incorporated into statist discourse)

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 3 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME THREE: Critical Theory Offers a Basis for Political and Social Progress ♣ Critical theory avoids negative consequences of 'problem-solving theories' (ie. legitimizing/replicating of regressive aspects of prevailing situations) ♣ Problem-solving theory (ie. Realism): leaves power where it is ♣ Critical Theory: attempt to bring about structural changes in the human interest (reordering power in emancipatory ways) ♣ Power cannot be escaped, only reordered in a more benign (good-natured, less harmful) direction ♣ Immanent (inherent, operating within) critique: the discovery of the latent potentials in situations on which to build political and social progress (grounded)

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): Theme 2 of Critical Theory Tradition:

o THEME TWO: Traditional Theory Promotes the Flaws of Naturalism and Reductionism ♣ Horkheimer criticized the way that traditional theory's commitment to the scientific method had spread uncritically and powerfully into all fields (ironic because realism is not legitimately 'positivist') ♣ 'Fallacy of Naturalism': human beings and societies belong to the same world of nature, hence they should be explainable by the same scientific method ♣ Characteristic reductionism of scientific method needs to be replaced by a holistic perspective ♣ Division b/w scientists seeking objective truth (believe they can work apart from the world they seek to explain) and Frankfurt School critical theorists who accept they are part of a social process/embedded in society (seeking to promote emancipation) ♣ Theorizing is a social 'act' ♣ Distinction b/w traditional and organic intellectuals (Gramsci)

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Gramscian Hegemony (2 Strands)

o The Gramscian idea of hegemony contains two separate strands of hegemony. The first originated in the "debates within the Third International concerning the strategy of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of a Soviet socialist state". ♣ Hegemony of the proletariat, similar to the dictatorship of the proletariat ♣ He applied the idea to the bourgeoisie, cases in which they had attained a hegemonic position of leadership over other classes from those in which it had not ♣ His perception of hegemony caused Gramsci to expand his idea of the state ♣ Illustrated by Northern European countries, where capitalism was first established, bourgeois hegemony was most complete ♣ Bourgeois made concessions to lower classes in return for the reluctance acceptance of bourgeois leadership and dominance • These concessions ultimately led to social democracy which preserved capitalism, and made it more acceptable for lower classes • The Bourgeois hegemony was strongly entrenched in civil society, so they didn't need to run the state themselves o Rulers, aristocracy, etc. did it for them as long as they recognized the hegemonic structures of civil society • This resulted in Gramsci enlarging his definition of the state, to include aspect of the political structure in civil society (church, education, press, institutions, etc.) because when the structures of gov. are constrained by the hegemony of the leading class, limiting the def of the state to its traditional structures o The second strand comes from Niccolo Machiavelli's works. ♣ Gramsci applied the idea that "workers exercised hegemony over the allied classes and dictatorship over enemy classes" to the case of the hegemonic position that the bourgeoisie held. ♣ The same way Machiavelli talked about the individual prince ruling new city states, and related it to the modern prince: revolutionary party engaged in a continuing and developing dialogue with its own people ♣ The centaur idea adapted - combination of consent and coercion ♣ Applied it to hegemony. Coercion is latent, but enough in combination with some form of consent to enforce conformity ♣ Hegemony ensure conformity generally ♣ Gramsci relates Machiavelli's idea to that it can be applicable to any form of domination and subordination, including relations of world order

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Three Levels of Consciousness in movement towards hegemony & creation of historic bloc

o Three Levels of Consciousness in movement towards hegemony & creation of historic bloc ♣ Economico-corporative consciousness: aware of the specific interests of a particular group ♣ Solidarity or class consciousness: extends to a whole social class but remains at a purely economic level ♣ Hegemonic consciousness: brings the interests of the leading class into harmony with those of subordinate classes and incorporates these other interests into an ideology expressed in universal terms o Movement towards hegemony is a passage from the specific interests of a group/class to the building of institutions and elaborate ideologies o If they reflect a hegemony, these institutions and ideologies will be universal in form i.e. they will not appear as those of a particular class, and will give some satisfaction to the subordinate groups while not undermining the leadership or vital interests of the hegemonic class

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: War of Position vs. War of Movement

o War of Position: slowly builds up the strength of the social foundations of a new state. In WE, war on civil society, had to be won before war on state could be successful o War of Movement: premature attack on the state. In WE would reveal weakness of opposition, and lead to bourgeois dominance on civil society institutions being reasserted. o He examined why Russia differed from Europe, why Bolshevik Rev. failed o The difference is the strength in state and civil society. Much more developed civil society in W. Europe under bourgeois hegemony o In Russia, the state was everything, while civil society was underdeveloped o In the West, there was proper relations between the two, and when the state trembled, the strong structure of civil society was revealed o War of movement (used in Russia) wouldn't be successful in Europe o Problem with this: to build up an alt. state and society based on the leadership of the working class means the creation of counterhegemony (and creations of alt. institutions and resources) within the existing society ♣ While resisting falling back into the structure of the bourgeois hegemony for small gains

Economic Structuralism: Economic Taproot of Imperialism: The Prospects for Counter-hegemony

o World orders are grounded in social relations o Change in world order is likely to come from fundamental change in social relations and national political orders. This would come about with the emergence of a new historic bloc o Only a war of position can bring structural change, and this involves building up sociopolitical base for change through creation of new historic blocs o HBs can only be founded nationally o Task of changing world order begins with laborious task of building new historic blocs within national boundaries

Constructivism: 2 more tenants of constructivism:

o idealism (?)- take the roles of ideas seriously in world politics o holism- the world is irreducibly social, what we believe and think if a factor in the beliefs of society as a whole ♣ society is always in interaction

The English School: Does Order Exist in World Politics - Hedley Bull

• Argues that there is order in international relations, and modern states have formed an international society. • Describes the three main competing traditions of an international society or inter-national system; realist, Kantian and Grotian traditions, and what the difference between the 3 is. o For realists, states are constantly in conflict with each other, and international politics is a zero-sum game. Furthermore, law and morality exist only within states. o For Kantians (also referred to as revolutionists), transnational social bonds connect all individuals. People are citizens of states, but the world community is based on the relationship among individuals. World politics is a completely cooperative non-zero sum game, and there are moral imperatives that exist be-yond community of states. o The Grotian tradition is somewhere in between. Grotians believes in an international society of states. States come into conflict with one another but, are limited by agreed upon rules and institutions. They agree with realists that states are the key international actors. However, states have neither a complete conflict or harmony of interests, world politics is a partly distributive game. o Furthermore, state relationships are governed by self-interest, as well as imperatives of law and morality, but neither one is more important than the other. Author concludes that their are elements of all three in the modern international society. This reading is important for our understanding

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Realism and Rhetoric in International Relations Beer and Hariman: Realist narrative structure Critiques

• Criticism: o This piece then moves into a post-realist criticism of realism based on the narrative it sets o Recent worldly events have caused theorists to reconsider realist discourse o it is because of this new exploration of realism that it can be identified that realists believe they are the ONLY story of world politics, post-realists believe they are one story among many o post-realists also note how realist discourse replicates the dynamics of state legitimation ♣ just as the state defines itself as the sole vehicle for the political process, so too does the realist define power politics as an autonomous realism: separated from the obligations of law, religion, custom etc. o most importantly in my opinion, post-realists challenge realist history ♣ they hold that important theorists in the realist canon were not realists as the realists describe them • One main example is Thucydides o Post-realists believe they read him selectively, ignoring the relationship of the parts of the text to the whole of the text, or the context of composition and reception o They believe he can be seen as using realism as a discourse among many and that he presents realism as a mode of inquiry o The main point is that Thucydides understands and explains realism as the CAUSE of Athenian defeat. Making him likely not truly realist o The authors are making the point that post-realists are not denying the importance of Thucydides but rather suggesting how realist appropriation has been used to invent a tradition to legitimate contemporary forms of authority o Finally, post-realists also offer a range of criticisms of realism's scientific status

Economic Structuralism: Dependency Theorists - Domestic Forces

• Dependency theorists examine external and internal factors that constrain development ♣ External: (foreign states, multinational corporations, international banks, multilateral lending institutions, foreign control of technology, and an international bourgeoisie). ♣ Internal: (patterns of land tenure, social structures, class alliances, and the role of the state). • These internal factors tend to reinforce instruments of foreign domination. The inability to break out of a dependent situation is often strengthened by citizens of a Latin American country who accrue selfish benefits at the expense of the country as a whole. • This so-called comprador class, or national bourgeoisie, aids in the exploitation of its own society. Allied with foreign capitalists, this class and its self-serving policies encourage the expansion of social and economic inequality, which may take the form of an ever-widening rural-urban gap. Although limited development may occur in a few urban centers, the countryside stagnates and is viewed only as a provider of cheap labor and raw materials. These exploiters, therefore, have more in common with the elites of the center countries than they do with their fellow citizens of the periphery. • Dependency theorists don't claim that economic stagnation in LDCs is always and inevitably the norm. They argue that development benefits some at the expense of others, increases social inequalities, and leads to greater foreign control over Third World economies.

The English School: Inventing International Society - Tim Dunne

• Explains the history behind the formation of the English. The English School separated itself from traditional realists once a group of scholars began enquiry into the morality of states, the practices of states, and the values of civilizations. • With these concepts paired with realism, Wight, an English School scholar, invented rationalism, a middle path between realism and ide-alism. The author argues that the English School also uses constructivism to explain international relations. • For example; an English School researcher might say sovereignty is a constructed concept, based on ideas and practices of the international society. The author concludes that the English School has much more in common with constructivism than other IR images. • This article shows again, how there are so many different views within the English School.

Economic Structuralism: Change and Globalization

• For economic structuralists, changes within the world-system appear to fall into three categories. ♣ There are changes in the actors' positions within the capitalist world economy. The Dutch empire of the seventeenth century, for example, gave way to British domination, and eventually the United States rose to prominence in the twentieth century. Despite different core powers, however, the hierarchical nature of the system remains the same. ♣ Some scholars identify phases or cycles of capitalist growth and con- traction that affect all societies. A period of relative social stability and economic stagnation precedes twenty or thirty years of rapid economic growth. This is then followed by another two or three decades of economic decline, followed again by expansion. Overproduction, a key factor discussed by Hobson, is central to the interplay of economic, social, and political forces. ♣ There is what has been termed a structural transformation of the sys- tem. This term refers to the historical and geographical expansion of the capitalist world-system, incorporating new areas of the globe and nonintegrated sectors of the world economy. The economic-structuralist view of the capitalist world-system is hardly static. The world-system is dynamic, reflecting a myriad of activities and changes.

The English School: The Law of Nations on War, Peace and Freedom of the Seas - Hugo Grotius

• Grotius gives his argument for why international relations should be governed by law. Grotius believes the basis of domestic law is people's natural inclination to obligate themselves to one another through pacts. • The reason people do this is because it is beneficial to them to do so. In the same way municipal law is based on obligation amongst individuals within a state, international law is based on obligation between states, within an international society. States create these laws for the same reason individuals do, because it leaves them better off. These are important ideas to the English School because they are the foundation of the concept of international society. Also influences English School idea of rationalism where states create rules because it is in their rational interest to establish some order

Economic Structuralism: Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

• The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) departed from more hardline, Marxist-Leninist formulations • A key concept in his work that influences some present-day economic-structuralist scholarship is the historical and ideological bloc, which may well be a bloc or obstacle to social change, thus maintaining a pattern of dominance in society or even on a global scale. We note that such blocs are social constructions that serve dominant class interests. The historic bloc (blocco storico) is an instrument of hegemony. To Gramsci, it is decisive, composed as it is of both structures and superstructures, the objective and the subjective, respectively. • Of particular importance is his argument that this hegemonic position relies mainly on consent rather than mere coercion. Dominant classes provide a social vision that supposedly is in the interests of all. This vision can be articulated and reflected in popular culture, education, literature, and political parties. If subordinate social groups buy into this vision, then the ruling classes will not have to rely on coercion to stay in power. Gramsci's hope was that this dominant ideology or social vision could be challenged by elements of civil society by articulating a counterhegemonic vision that would open the way for a post-capitalist future. • Gramsci's influence is apparent in Robert Cox's (born 1926) extensive work on social forces and hegemony, relating as he does ideas to global economic and political structures with the goal of avoiding the limitations of state-centric IR theory. For Cox, realism and liberalism underestimate the powerful and expansive nature of what he terms world hegemony. At the international or systems level, hegemony is not merely an order among states. It is rather an order within a world economy with a dominant mode of production that penetrates all countries. • Hegemony is also evident in the complex of social and political relations that connect the social classes of these different countries. World hegemony, therefore, is a combination of social structure, economic structure, and political structure. This world hegemony is expressed in universal norms, institutions, and other mechanisms that constitute general rules of behavior for states as well as transnational, civil-society actors. Ultimately these rules support the dominant capitalist mode of production. In contrast to the liberal view, international organizations are a mechanism through which universal norms of world hegemony are expressed.

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: The Question of Causality

• The Question of Causality ♣ Some critics question whether dependency creates and sustains underdevelopment (as economic structuralists claim) or whether it is this lesser level of develop- ment that leads to a situation of dependency. In short, there is no agreement on causality—whether dependency is the cause of underdevelopment or whether it is the effect of this condition.

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: Critical Explorations and the Highway of Critical Security Theory (Ken Booth): The Radical International Relations Tradition:

• The Radical International Relations Tradition: o Critical Theory Tradition focuses on questions such as: ♣ What is reliable knowledge? (epistemology) ♣ What should be done? (emancipatory praxis) o Radical IR Tradition focuses on questions such as: ♣ What is real in world politics? (ontology) ♣ What values might inform the praxis of global politics in the human interest? o 'Feeder' roads of Radical IR Tradition are explicitly 'value-laden', normative thrust is progressive (progress has a bad reputation because it is identified with liberalism or totalitarianism - need to reconsider the concept of progress) o Booth's conception of progress: a belief in the importance of having ideals in society and trying to shape law, politics, and institutions accordingly (living the 'examined' life) - need rational ideals to challenge power o 5 main Schools of thought ('feeder roads') in Radical IR Tradition relevant to development of critical theory of security: ♣ Social Idealism ♣ Peace Research and Peace Studies School ♣ World Society/World Order School ♣ Feminists ♣ Historical Sociology

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Two Accompaniments of Passive Revolution

• There are two typical accompaniments to this: o Caesarism: A strong man intervenes to resolve the stalemate between equal and opposite social forces ♣ Progressive Form: when strong rule presides over a more orderly development of a new state (i.e. Napolean I) ♣ Reactionary Form: when strong rule stabilizes existing power (i.e. Napolean III) o Trasformismo: exemplified by Giovanni Giolitti, who tried to bring about the widest possible coalition of interests ♣ Transformismo worked to co-opt potential leaders of subaltern social groups ♣ It can serve as a strategy of assimilating and domesticating potentially dangerous ideas by adjusting them to the policies of the dominant coalition ♣ Can therefore obstruct the formation of class-based organized opposition to established social and political power

Positivism, Critical Theory and Postmodern Understandings: • Three major assumptions of critical theory:

• Three major assumptions of critical theory: 1. Critical theorists believe that the study of international relations should be about emancipatory politics a. Emancipation consists of an essentially negative conception of freedom that emphasizes removing repressive constraints or relations of domination b. Simply put, critical theorists are interested in the relation between power and freedom 2. Critical theorists focus on the relation between knowledge and interest 3. Critical international relations theorists have scrutinized the work of realists and liberals in particular

Economic Structuralism: The Capitalist World-System: Wallerstein and World-System Theory

• Wallerstein = most significant economic structuralism work • he and his followers aspire to no less than a historically based theory of global development, which he terms world-system theory in attempt to understand uneven development • Focuses on emergence of capitalism in Europe, breaks up world into core, periphery, semi-periphery • Class structure varies in each zone depending on how the dominant class relates to the world economy. Contrary to the liberal economic notion of specialization based on comparative advantage, this division of labor requires increases in in- equality between regions. States in the periphery are weak in that they are unable to control their fates, whereas states in the core are economically, politically, and militarily dominant. The basic function of the state is to ensure the continuation of the capitalist mode of production. • The focus is first and fore- most on economic processes and how they in turn influence political and security considerations.

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism: Gramsci, Hegemony, and International Relations

• Within the international system, exists a "historic bloc", which Gramsci believes contains "structures and superstructures". Within this bloc, there exists a "juxtaposition and reciprocal relationships of the political, ethical, and ideological spheres of activity with the economic sphere", this bloc is then used as a tool for hegemonic theory. Hegemony permeates all aspects of the international system, and is not simply dictated by states. It can also be applied to "the world economy exhibiting a dominant mode of production that penetrates all countries. It also consists of complex social relations, connecting classes among different countries. • World hegemony, therefore, consists of mutually reinforcing social, political, and economic structures." An example of hegemony is said to be the existence of International Organizations. • Gramsci's points centered upon the state, the relationship of civil society to the state, the relationship of pols, ethics, and ideology to production.

Economic Structuralism: The Economic Taproot of Imperialism:

• case for imperialism by explaining that a high rate of savings and the power of production outstrip consumption. Industrialists and manufacturers therefore seek foreign sources of investment and markets in colonies or developing countries to solve these problems. • Lenin took this idea, highly critical of imperialism as advanced stage of capitalism • The case for imperialism: We must have markets for our growing manufactures, we must have new outlets for the investment of our surplus capital and for the energies of the adventurous sur- plus of our population: such expansion is a necessity of life to a nation with our great and growing powers of production. An ever-larger share of our population is devoted to the manufactures and commerce of towns, and is thus dependent for life and work upon food and raw materials from foreign lands. • In order to buy and pay for these things we must sell our goods abroad. • During the 19th C. we did this easily by expanding our commerce globally with the use of colonies • Imperialism wasn't necessary when English had a global market monopoly, but once countries such as Germany, Belgium, etc. rapidly advanced, their encroachments on our markets forced the discovery of new markets to monopolize, which were other underdeveloped countries • As each industrialized country annexed underdeveloped ones, they were closed to the trade of others • It was this sudden demand for foreign markets for manufactures and for investment which was avowedly responsible for the adoption of Imperialism as a political policy and practice • It is this economic condition of affairs that forms the taproot of Imperialism. If the consuming public in this country raised its standard of consumption to keep pace with every rise of productive powers, there could be no excess of goods or capital clamorous to use Imperialism in order to find markets: foreign trade would exist, but there would be no difficulty in exchanging a small surplus of our manufacturers for the food and raw material we annually absorbed, and all the savings that we made could find employment, if we chose, in home industries...

Constructivism: Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention Finnemore

− Argues that the realist and liberal theories have no provided a good explanation for the increase in humanitarian intervention since the end of the Cold War by states to protect citizens other than their own − New cases of military actions whose primary goal is not territorial or strategic, but is humanitarian o E.g. Somalia − The pattern of intervention cannot be understood apart from the changing normative context in which it occurs o Shapes conceptions of interest − Shifts in intervention behaviour correspond with changes in normative standards articulated by states concerning appropriate means and ends of military intervention − Realists and Liberals don't investigate interests, they assume them − A constructivist approach does not deny that power and interest are important. They are. Rather, it asks a different and prior set of questions; it asks what interests are, and it investigates the ends to which and the means by which power will be used. − When trying to justify their interventions, state draw on and articulate shared values and expectations held by other decision makers and other publics in other states

Constructivism: The Lockean Culture Wendt: Bull's Anarchical Society Generates These Tendencies:

− Bull's anarchical society generates four tendencies: 1. Warfare is simultaneously accepted and constrained ♣ This suggests that the standard definition of war In IR of 1000 battle deaths conflates two different kinds of war: constitutive wars and configurative wars ♣ Constitutive wars= the type and existence of units is at stake ♣ Configurative wars= the units are accepted by the parties, who are fighting over territory and strategic advantage instead 2. The system has a relatively stable membership or low death rate over time ♣ Membership- sovereignty recognized 3. States balance power ♣ An effect of mutual recognition of sovereignty 4. Neutrality of non-alignment becomes a recognized status − These tendencies suggest that the anarchy portrayed by Waltz is actually a Lockean rather than Hobbesian system

Constructivism: Constructing International Politics Wendt: Assumptions:

− Constructivists think structure is made of a distribution of material capabilities AND also social relationships − Social structures have three elements: shared knowledge, material resources and practices − Social structures are defined by shared understandings, expectations or knowledge − A security dilemma, for example, is a social structure composed of intersubjective under- standings in which states are so distrustful that they make worst-case assumptions about each other's intentions, and as a result define their interests in self-help terms. A security community is a different social structure, one composed of shared knowledge in which states trust one another to resolve disputes without war. − Social structures include material resources like gold and tanks − Social structures exist, not in actors' heads nor in material capabilities, but in practices Constructivists have a normative interest in promoting social change, but they pursue this by trying to explain how seemingly natural social structures, like self- help or the Cold War, are effects of practice (this is the "critical" side of critical theory)

Constructivism: Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention: Finnemore's analysis

− Her analysis proceeds in 5 parts: o The first shows that realist and liberal approaches to international politics do not explain humanitarian intervention as a practice, much less change in that practice over time, because of their exogenous and static treatment of interests. A constructivist approach that attends to the role of international norms can remedy this by allowing us to problematize interests and their change over time. o The next section examines humanitarian action in the nineteenth century. It shows that humanitarian action and even intervention on behalf of Christians being threatened or mistreated by the Ottoman Turks were carried out occasionally throughout the nineteenth century. o The third section investigates the expansion of this definition of "humanity" by examining efforts to abolish slavery, the slave trade, and colonization. o The fourth section briefly reviews humanitarian intervention as a state practice since 1945, paying particular attention to the multilateral and institutional requirements that have evolved for humanitarian intervention. o The essay concludes by outlining questions about the role and origins of norms that are not treated here but could be addressed in future research.

Constructivism: 2 types of logic:

− Logic of consequences is consequence-based action o When you engage in consequence based action, you consider the cost and benefits of certain actions o i.e. if we forego nuclear program, what are the costs and benefits? − Logic of appropriateness is rule-based action o Considers how actors follow rules THESE ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

Constructivism: Constructing International Politics Wendt: Objectivity:

− Mearsheimer suggests that critical theorists do not believe that there is an objective world − 2 main issues: ontological, epistemological

Constructivism: What does it reject?

− Rejects the realist idea that states are driven by motivation − Rejects the other realist idea that IP is driven by maximizing gains o Rejects realism and idea of material interests (materiality hypothesis, physical structures/constraints) defined by power, rejects that international politics is shaped by rational choice (maximize gains, minimize losses) because humans act irrationally often (i.e. committing crimes, overeating when trying to lose weight, thinking you can write a paper in a weekend etc.) − Rejects materiality thesis (everything we do is based on our material strengths) o Looking at things through only material capabilities o Instead, constructivists see structures made up of social relationships o Social relationships are constructed by 3 things: 1. material resources 2. practices 3. shared knowledge − constructivist rejects unity of science thesis: o idea that we can use the scientific method to understand the social world o rejected by constructivism o natural world and social world and completely different o the main major way they are different is that the subject in the social world knows himself

Constructivism: The Lockean Culture Wendt: Three Possibilities for Wide-Spread Compliance:

− Three possibilities for wide-spread compliance: coercion, self-interest, legitimacy 1. First degree- coercion: ♣ States comply with sovereignty norms because they are forced to by the superior power of others ♣ Realist explanation 2. Second degree- self-interest: ♣ When states comply w sovereignty norms, they do so because they think it will advance some exogenously given interest, like security or trade ♣ Neo-liberal or rationalist explanation 3. Third degree- legitimacy: ♣ Obey the law because we accept its claims on us as legitimate Constructivist explanation − The third degree (legitimacy) is the basis for what we today take to be "common sense" about international politics" that a certain type of state is the main actor in the system, that these actors are self-interested individualists, that the International system is therefore in part of a self-help system, but that states also recognize each other's sovereignty and so are rivals rather than enemies

Constructivism: The Lockean Culture Wendt

− a Lockean culture is the one that governs the international system o there is a shared expectation that states will not try to take away each other's life and liberty o states have constructed rules that bind them, which are part of an international culture that constitutes and regulates states o the Westphalian society is a Lockean culture in which states do tend to comply w these norms and come to each other's aid when in jeopardy o compliance w these norms is in part a function of the degree of acceptance these norms and rules may have o states effectively internalize the Lockean culture of which they are a part, out of a sense of loyalty and obligation to the group culture − in the past, it seems that world politics have often been Hobbesian − current system: death rate of states is almost nil, small states are thriving, inter-state war is more rare, territorial boundaries have limited − because states are rivals in Lockean culture- states recognize each other's sovereignty as a right, thus making sovereignty nit only a property of individual states, but as an institution shared by many states − the core of this institution if the shared expectation that states will not try to take away each other's life and liberty − international law governs the system and this belief is formalized in IL

Constructivism:

− critical of Liberalism and Realism, is not mutually exclusive with it − A social theory of IR= emphasizes the social construction of world affairs − Nicholas Onuf (American scholar) ♣ first scholar to use term 'constructivism' in relation to IR − States are the same as individuals, living in a world of their own making ('A World of Our Making') − Distinguishes between 2 kinds of facts: 1. Social fact= made by human action (i.e. diplomacy) 2. Brute facts= don't depend on behaviour, phenomenon of the social condition existing independently of us (i.e. gravity) − Constructivism a 'middle ground' theory? − Sphere of interaction (shaped by identities, practices, influenced by changing norms) − based on interaction, which is shaped by actor's identities and changing norms − agents and state/structure are mutually constitutive (both influence each other) − central argument of constructivism is that it is a critique of the nature of social science itself ♣ pits social science against a science that is "social" ♣ science is a social interaction between the observer and what is being observed − our identities and our interests change over time, same with states − states decide through their interactions whether IR are going to be cooperative or conflictual − constructivism is focused on ideas and norms in the IS − their methodology is strictly interpretive − base is sociology (views the mutually constitutive relationship between individuals and the society as a two-way street) 1. how ideas influence world politics 2. how ideas shape the identities of states how ideas determine what counts as legitimate behaviour − social theory is a way to conceptualize social relationships, like the relationship between states and the system or between society and the individual − substantive theory offers specific claims of the patterns of social politics o why democratic states don't go to war with each other ♣ was not originally substantive, now is more ♣ isn't normative

Constructivism: On War and Maintaining the Peace Locke

− difference between the state of nature and the state of war o state of war= state of enmity, malice, violence, mutual destruction o state of nature= stare of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation − "men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature" − "But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war" − to avoid state of war is one great reason of men's putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature: for where there is an authority, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power − the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals to join into and make one society

Constructivism: The Lockean Culture Wendt: Rivals:

− rivalry has at least four implications for foreign policy: 1. most important is that whatever conflicts they may have, states must behave in a status quo fashion toward each other's sovereignty 2. rivalry permits a more relaxed view when making rational decisions, risks are fewer and the future matters more, absolute gains may over way relative losses 3. relative military power is still important because rivals know that others might use force to settle disputes, but its meaning is different than it is for enemies because the institution of sovereignty changes the balance of threat 4. if disputes go to war, rivals will limit their own violence (Just War Doctrine)

Constructivism: Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention Finnemore: What does Finnemore's analysis show?

− the analysis shows that while humanitarian justifications for action have been important for centuries, the content and application of those justifications have changed over time. Specifically, states' perceptions of which human beings merit intervention has changed. I treat this not as a change of identity, but as a change of identification. − To be legitimate, humanitarian intervention must be multilateral. − Multilateral norms create political benefits for conformance and costs for nonconforming action. They create, in part, the structure of incentives facing states. the international normative fabric has become increasingly institutionalized in formal international organizations, particularly the United Nations. As recent action in Iraq suggests, action in concert with others is not enough to confer legitimacy on intervention actions. States also actively seek authorization from the United Nations and restrain their actions to con- form to that authorization (as the U.S. did in not going to Baghdad during the Gulf war).8 International organizations such as the UN play an important role in both arbitrating normative claims and structuring the normative discourse over colonialism, sovereignty, and humanitarian issues

Constructivism: Constructing International Politics Wendt: Explaining War and Peace:

− the descriptive issue between realists and critical theorists is the extent to which states engage in practices of realpolitik (warfare, balancing, relative-gains seeking) vs. accepting the rule of law and institutional constraints on their autonomy − the explanatory issue is why states engage in war or peace To analyze the social construction of international politics is to analyze how processes of interaction pro- duce and reproduce the social structures—cooperative or conflictual—that shape actors' identities and interests and the significance of their material contexts. It is opposed to two rivals: the materialist view, of which neorealism is one expression, that material forces per se determine international life, and the rational choice-theoretic view that interaction does not change identities and interests. Mearsheimer's essay is an important opening to the comparative evaluation of these hypotheses. But neo-realists will contribute nothing further to the debate so long as they think that constructivists are subversive utopians who do not believe in a real world and who expect peace in our time.

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: Reliance on Economics:

♣ Critics have argued that some economic structuralists have reduced the opera- tion of the international system down to the process of capital accumulation and related dynamics. What of other, noneconomic explanations of imperialism and relations among states? ♣ The economic variable, critics claim, cannot carry the very great explanatory weight assigned to it. Insights generated from the contemplation of international relations over the centuries should not be ignored. Structural realists, for example, would argue that if anything, it is the international political-security system that largely determines the international economic system, not the other way around.

Economic Structuralism: Critiques of Economic Structuralists: Accounting for Anomalies

♣ Economic structuralists have trouble accounting for Third World countries that have been relatively successful economically despite their ups and downs: Taiwan, Venezuela, Brazil, Singapore, South Korea. ♣ there are the greatest suc- cess stories of any non-European, non-North American country: Japan and now China. What is it about these countries that has allowed them either to escape abject poverty or, at least in the case of China, make such amazing strides forward? Nei- ther are examples of autonomous development. In fact, they seem to have benefited greatly from being enmeshed in the global capitalist system. ♣ Anomalies are okay, ever image has them ♣ Critics comment, however, that economic structuralists such as Wallerstein simply group all anomalies under the concept of the semiperiphery, a theoretically and empirically poorly defined concept. ♣ Such literature is ignored, it is argued, because the economic-structuralist perspective refuses to give due consideration to domestic factors that are not the result of capitalist dynamic

Economic Structuralism: Neostructuralism

♣ In recent years, work has been done under neostructuralism. In keeping with the economic-structuralist emphasis, they're are critical of the realist reliance on the unitary, rational, state-as-actor. While they recognize the importance of earlier dependency and world-system work, their influences also include Fernand Braudel (1902-1985), Karl Polanyi (1886-1964), and Antonio Gramsci. ♣ Neostructuralism is interested in understanding how global processes interact with other processes of state and social transformation occurring at many other levels of analysis of the world-system. The study of international relations, therefore, is not limited to foreign policy or patterns of distributions of capabilities, nor confined to reducing international relations to economic variables. ♣ Given the fact that the focus of analysis is on transformative processes, states as well as economic and social forces have to be taken into account. A web of relations and forces are intricately linked, transcending all levels of analysis. Nevertheless, neostructuralists are consistent with the economic-structuralist tradition in that governments play a secondary role to socioeconomic structures and forces when it comes to explaining world politics.

Economic Structuralism: The Capitalist World-System: The System (Wallerstein)

♣ Says we should examine capitalism as an integrated, historically expanding system that transcends any particular political or geographic boundaries. ♣ Not individual states whose experiences we extrapolate from ♣ To understand social, pol, econ, processes, we have to look at the development of the global system of capitalism ♣ The system is the key, similar to realism, but it's the capitalist system ♣ What is critical for the Wallersteinian economic structuralist is the fact that the key aspect of the system is its capitalist nature, the existence of global class relations, and the various functions states and societies perform in the world economy ♣ It is capitalism that helps to account for a core, a periphery, and a semiperiphery ♣ It's capitalism that creates all the structures - i.e. rises, falls, development, etc.

Economic Structuralism: The Capitalist World-System: The System (Wallerstein): Similarities & Differences between Realism and Econ. Structuralism

♣ Similarities between Realism and Economic Structuralism: 1. Some realists acknowledge that Wallerstein is attempting to develop a systems-level theory, although he emphasizes economic factors over political variables 2. Wallerstein explicitly recognizes the importance of anarchy, a concept of critical importance to many realist writers. Wallerstein notes that "the absence of a single political authority makes it impossible for anyone to legislate the general will of the world-system and hence to curtail the capitalist mode of production." • For the realist, anarchy leads one to examine international political stability, war, and balance-of-power politics involving major states. For the economic structuralist, the economic ramifications of political anarchy are paramount. The political anarchy of the interstate system facilitates the development and expansion of world capitalism because no single state can control the entire world economy. The result is an economic division of labor involving a core, a periphery, and a semi-periphery that is the focal point of economic- structuralist analysis. 3. Wallerstein also addresses the issue of the international distribution of capabilities or power ♣ Differences between Realism and Economic Structuralism: • For Wallerstein, the very existence of a particular distribution of power or capabilities cannot be explained without reference to the underlying economic order. • Realists focus on balance of power, but disregard important econ processes at work that are necessary to analyze the balance of power to start


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