Ch 52. International Relations

Human Rights Treaties, Humanitarian Intervention & Political Mindsets

Let's review what we've learned. Human rights are pretty much universally agreed upon rights to which all humans are entitled. These human rights are outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document, along with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, constitute the International Bill of Human Rights. The enforcement of human rights in international relations is complicated by the fact that states are considered sovereign, which means they have the right to manage their own internal affairs without interference from outsiders. However, if a state has executed a treaty on human rights, it is legally bound to the treaty. A violation of the treaty provides a legal basis for other states and international organizations, like the United Nations, to pursue humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention into a sovereign state to correct human rights violations can be military or non-military in nature. However, it must be pursued with caution, as oftentimes intervention hurts those it seeks to help more than the perpetrators of the violations.

How Nationalism Impacts World Politics

Let's review what we've learned. Nationalism is a person's identification and loyalty to one's nation. A nation is simply a group of people with a shared identity that is usually based on a common language, culture and history. A state consisting of a nation is called a nation-state. Nationalism can have both positive and negative impacts on states and the international community. Nationalism can take a diverse group of people from different social classes, religions, ethnicities and educational backgrounds to create a sense of common goals and interests, which allows the development of a stable nation-state. On the other hand, extreme nationalism can create a sense of superiority and lead to aggression, violence and even genocide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are examples of international relations? There are multiple types of international relations. They include trade agreement, war, human rights organization actions that operate in multiple states, multinational corporations, and other types. What is international relations and its importance? International relations is the study of the policies that states have regarding interactions with each other. By evaluating international relations, researchers can make recommendations to state leaders regarding what decisions they should make. For example, they could predict the actions of an autocratic state according to realist theory. What do international relations majors do? International relations majors examine the interactions between different states in relation to their power and influence. They also analyze the motivations states have behind their international policy actions.

Imperialism vs. Colonialism | Overview & Differences

In the International system, nations are related to each other. Some play a more dominant role and others are less-developed nations that are susceptible to being overpowered in a military, political, economic, or cultural way. There are many paths of domination over other nations. Imperialism is a political doctrine in which a nation is dominated by the various powers of another superior nation. This domination can be achieved by military force or by other means like economic and cultural influence. Imperialism has evolved into neoimperialism, a different way of exerting political, economic, and cultural influence over other nations without using military force. Colonialism is a situation in which a country dominates and creates a settlement in foreign territory. After WWII, colonialism evolved into neocolonialism, the practice that some colonial powers exert on other colonized economies to control them by economic dependence. When contrasting imperialism vs. colonialism some differences stand out. Colonialism uses military force and controls nations, establishing a government to take total control of them. In imperialism, control of other countries can be achieved by military force or other indirect strategies like economic and cultural influence. Also, colonialists impose their culture and customs on the colonized countries, while imperialists respect the autonomy of the nations, as long as they are accountable. In a few words, colonialism is a strategy that imperialist nations can follow to dominate other nations, but not necessarily the only one.

International Relations Definition, Importance & Topics

International relations is the study of interactions and relationships between two states or a state and an organization. The combination of all states in the world is referred to as the international system. This system is acknowledged because relationships between two countries will necessarily affect the relationships of these states with other states. Thus, all international relations affect the global community. The process of making policy decisions regarding other countries or states is referred to as international politics. There are five main types of theories that international relations majors and international relations experts utilize when analyzing international relations. The first is liberalism. This school of thought postulates that in order to design situations for their own self-interest when conducting affairs with other nations, states will cooperate with others. In other words, states will abstain from operating in total anarchy to benefit their own situation. Realism, another prominent theory, suggests that states will always act to preserve their own power at the expense of all other entities. International relations use the above theories, as well as multiple levels of policy and entity analysis, to examine different topics that affect the international system. For example, the topics of international ethics are concerned with examining human rights, ethnic conflict, genocide, and other political and social issues. International law, on the other hand, is related to the international customs, rules, and procedures that states recognize as legitimate. By examining policies, systems, and entities through the lens of international relations, researchers can determine how to improve the international system.

Less Developed Countries | Overview & Obstacles

Less developed countries are nations with low levels of economic development due to structural challenges. These LDCs are spread across four of seven continents: Africa, Asia, North America, and South America. The World Bank created three indicators, GNI, HAI, and EVI, to determine whether a country qualifies as less developed. GNI is the gross national income per capita, HAI is the human assets index, and EVI is the economic and environmental vulnerability index. Terms of trade represent the value of imports to exports in a country. When this ratio of imports to exports is higher than that of exports to imports, it creates a negative balance of trade which is less than ideal for the country, a prominent factor in most LDCs. One of the factors affecting economic growth in LDCs is the adherence to cultural traditions that promote inequality, affecting human resources, such as the case of highly skilled women out of the workforce. Another strain on LDCs' economic development is overpopulation, which exhausts limited available resources. Lastly, rampant government corruption found in most of these nations affects economic development. Corruption can manifest through disregard for the rule of law, instability in times of political activities, and inefficient policies that undermine the nation's economic needs for the benefit of the few.

Globalization & Politics

Let's review what we've learned. Globalization is the process of the integration of communication, culture, and economics across the world into an overall global system. States that treat the entire world as their sphere of influence are considered to engage in globalism. Four dimensions of globalism include economic globalism, military globalism, environmental globalism, and social and cultural globalism. An important issue in globalization is the North-South gap, which is the great degree of disparity of wealth and development between the States of the Northern Hemisphere and the underdevelopment and abject poverty of the South, where most of the world's population lives.

Power & Polarity in the International System

Let's review what we've learned. Power is a fundamental concept underlying international relations and can be defined as the ability of one to influence another to do or not do something that they would not normally do or not do. Elements of power include tangible factors, such as the size, population, technology and wealth of a state and intangible factors, such as nationalism, political culture and ideology. Power is not distributed equally among nations. Some have tons of it, some have some and some are pretty much powerless. An important concept related to this fact is the balance of power in any system, where countries will form alliances in such a manner as to create equilibrium of power to check the power of others. Power distribution can also be understood in terms of polarities, or centers of power. In a unipolar system, there is only one center of power where one state pretty much can influence and dominate all other international actors. A bipolar system is one where there are two centers of power and all states align with either one or the other center of power, like in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the United States. Finally, in a multipolar system, power is diffused among many different states where all players have fairly equal influence and can act independently.

Sovereignty in World Politics

Let's review what we've learned. Sovereignty is a status conferred on a state that means it is an independent actor in the world, has complete control over its internal affairs and answers to no one else. In reality, complete and absolute sovereignty is a fiction for most, if not all states, as outside pressure from a stronger state, a group of states or international organizations can apply pressure on a sovereign state to alter its internal affairs to conform to international standards of conduct. A failed state is a state that is unable to maintain its sovereignty by projecting authority over its population and protecting its own territorial integrity.

Modernization, Development & Politics

Let's review what we've learned. The level of economic development among the countries of the world varies dramatically. Lesser-developed countries (LDCs), consisting of most of Asia, Latin America and Africa, have large growing populations living in poverty, many without adequate food, water, sanitation and healthcare. Three theories have been developed to explain and guide international development. Modernization theory uses the path of development that the Western developed countries took as a model, including support for free markets, foreign investment and democratic governance. It tends to focus on internal issues as the core cause of LDCs' problems. Dependency theory, on the other hand, believes that the poverty of LDCs are largely created and perpetuated by the developed countries because the developed countries need to exploit LDCs in order to maintain their wealth and power. Unlike modernization theory, dependency theory focuses on external factors that contribute to the poverty of LDCs. Finally, world-systems theory believes that both internal and external factors must be considered in addressing the poverty and slow development of LDCs. Unlike dependency theory, world-systems theory does posit that LDCs have the ability to rise out of poverty and develop -- at least to a certain extent. Under this theory, the world is divided between core countries, semi-periphery countries and periphery countries. Core countries tend to exploit the semi-periphery, while the semi-periphery tends to exploit the periphery.