ETIT 102 - WEEK 2

Defining International Relations and Basic

Concepts

What is International Relations(IR) ?

Broad Definition of IR

The study of the political and social

interaction of state, non-state actors,

and individuals.

States Diplomatic – Strategic relations focusing on war-peace & conflict-cooperation ( Conventional Definition)

Non-state actors , IOs , NGOs (i.e.UN, EU, MNCs , Green Peace) cross-border transactions of all kinds

(political, economic, social)

Individual: Global society, social movements, migration…

• Each definition has quite distinct features with siginificant consequences for the rest our study of IR.

• ‘ How we understand and interpret the world is depedent on how we define the world that we are trying to understand and interpret’

• Therefore, any definition we adopt will be controversial.

• This difficulty is shared by the social sciences as a whole.

Universal Consensus on study field in Natural Sciences

No Universal Consensus on study field in Social Sciences

Two inferences for defining IR

1) Our definition will be just for convenience ,

no equivalent of rock

2) Whatever definition we will pick, it will not

be a politically neutral one.

Conventional Definition of IR

• The way diplomats, historians and most

scholars define

• IR as the study of state relations , primarily in

diplomatic, military & strategic terms.

• The relevant unit is the state, not the nation.

State vs. Nation

Nation-State (1)

• Nations and states may seem identical, but they are not.

• States govern people in a territory with boundaries. They have laws, taxes, officials, currencies, postal services, police, and (usually) armies. They wage war, negotiate treaties, put people in prison, and regulate life in thousands of ways. They claim sovereignty within their territory.

Nation-State (2)

• Nations are groups of people claiming common bonds like language, culture, and historical identity.

• Some groups claiming to be nations have a state of their own, like Turks. Others want a state but do not have one: Palestinians.

• Some imagined nations are larger than states or cross state boundaries ( Arabs , Turks, Kurds).

Nation-State (3)

• Diplomatic recognition confers legitimacy on a new state (or on the government of a state such as Palestine , Northern Cyprus, Catalonia , Quebec) but sometimes there is a lack of consensus within the international community.

Nationalism (1)

• Definitions rely either upon objective or subjective criteria, or on some combination of the two.

• The commonality of some particular trait among members of a group. Shared language, religion, ethnicity (common descent), and culture have all been used as criteria for defining nations.

Nationalism (2)

The claim that people belonging to a particular group called a nation should inhabit a particular area and control a state of their own. Such a definition points to nationalism as a method of drawing boundaries among people (i.e. self and other).

Ethnicity

• The word ethnicity is derived from the Greek ethnos (which in turn derived from the word ethnikos), meaning nation.

• In everyday language, the word ethnicity still has a ring of ‘minority issues’ and ‘race relations’.

• In IR, it refers to aspects of relationships between groups that consider themselves, and are regarded by others, as being culturally distinctive.

Class

Sovereignty

Acknowledgement of a central governing

authority within a specified geographical

territory, combined with the recognition of its

status by other states.

Legitimacy

• Legitimacy in international relations generally refers to the right to exercise moral and political authority. Political that play a key role in promoting human rights tend to enjoy a high degree of legitimacy.

• In this sense, legitimacy derives from the perception of the public authority’s right to rule and exercise jurisdiction over an issue and/or territorial boundaries.

Max Weber (1864-1920) – German Sociologist

National Interest

• Of all the concepts, the most vague and therefore

easily used and abused, particularly by politicians

to legitimize their policies.

• The problem of determining the criteria that can

establish a correspondence between the national

interest expressed as a principle and the sorts of

policies by which it is advanced.

Super Power • Implies that there is a hierarchy of power among states. • Plays a crucial leadership role in the international system and

is able to gain the allegiance of other states. • Within its sphere of influence, a superpower can impose its

political will on smaller states with relative impunity. • Not only does a superpower have the capacity to project

effective military power far from its territory, but it also has enormous military resources at its disposal.

• A superpower has special duties with respect to the maintenance of international order and holds a privileged status in international organizations such as the United Nations (UN).

Great Powers

• The most influential states in the international system at any one time.

• The very definition of what constitutes a great power is a matter of some debate. It implies the existence of a club with some rule of membership.

• Great powers were at the front rank in terms of military strength and were recognised to have certain rights and duties regarding international peace and security.

DiplomacyIn a broad sense, diplomacy is the entire process through which states conduct their foreign relations. States communicate, bargain, influence one another, and adjust their differences through diplomacy. In a more narrow sense, diplomacy is the implementation of foreign policy, as distinct from the process of policy formation. Diplomacy has two faces: 1) The vehicle through which a state asserts itself and represents its concerns to the world 2) One of the principal means for conciliating competing national interests.

AnarchyInternational politics is said to be anarchical because no single state or coalition of states has absolute control over the entire system. the absence of a supreme power capable of enforcing order across the entire system means that individual states are in a permanent state of insecurity and must be prepared to do whatever they can to survive in this hostile self-help environment. The relationship between anarchy and war, then, is extremely close.

Is there a problem with this ‘ state-

centric’ scene of IR?

Thanks