UNIT 1

Learning outcomes

By the end of this unit, and having completed the Essential readings and activities, you should be able to:

define and discuss states, nations, countries, and international orders

What is international relations?

Professor Fred Halliday identifies three types of issues in IR:
1. Relations between states: war, peace, trade, and diplomacy
2. Non-state or ‘transnational’ relations across frontiers
3. Operations of the international system as a whole
e.g. economic, social, and ecological issues

e.g. ‘the USA’ and ‘Egypt’ mediating a ceasefire between ‘Israel’ and ‘the Palestinian Authority’

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with: country, nation, power etc. but is, in fact, a distinct concept

- State as an administrative and bureaucratic machine, with each part playing an important role in the exercise of state sovereignty

States therefore have to deal with at least two priorities:

1. Maintaining order within their borders by means of bureaucrats and police

States have historically been defined as:

Territorially bound units

Possessing sovereignty*

Recognised externally (a formal, legal act)
Responsible for governance

Having the monopoly of the legitimate use of force

Exercising independence from any political or religious superior

Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the
Rights and Duties of States:

1. Govern a permanent population

2. Govern a defined territory

State-centric: a significant portion of IR focuses on relations between states

This identity can be based on:

- common language
- culture
- religion
- history
- citizenship

A nation, however, need not boast all of these qualities

Thus, it is possible for a state to be made up of more than one nation

Kurds, native americans, Sindhis, Aborigines, Koreans

A group’s sense of identity is often cultivated by the government that rules it

Hence nations and states are often closely related

Benedict Anderson: many nations have been created by the states in which they live as a way to unify citizens behind their government

Nation-states typically have a narrow definition of their national identity

They prefer homogeneity to heterogeneity – emphasising aspects of identity that link all of their citizens together

Though states are powerful sources of national identity, they are not the only ones

All states – even nation-states – include groups who do not share the state’s dominant identity

This phenomenon will certainly be familiar to any citizen of a state composed of immigrants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds

This includes multinational states like Canada, where people refer to themselves as French-Canadian, Scottish-Canadian, Indo-Canadian, Chinese- Canadian, and so on

Country

physical environments, geographical space in which states and nations exist

a state refers to a government, a nation refers to a group of people with a shared identity, a country refers to the lines and symbols on a map that represent borders, geographical features, ecosystems and natural resources
USA, Wales, Scotland

A country can refer to the territory ruled by a state

It can also refer to the territory inhabited by a nation

A number of states around the world claim authority over nations and countries that they do not effectively rule, or rule over nations and countries that fall outside their ‘official’ international borders

Countries matter in IR because an actors’ goals and influence are often a product of concrete material factors like geography

geopolitics: studies ways in which geography determines the distribution of in an international order

size alone doesn’t determine a state’s power in IR

Some very large states are also very poor and, therefore, relatively weak

e.g. China in the 1970s or the Democratic Republic of Congo today

- population
- levels of economic development
- technological innovation
- quality of education
- the role of women in society
- political stability
- ‘neighbourhood’ in which the actor happens to be located

The USA, on the other hand, could not have better geographical luck

Not only does it have extraordinary natural resources at its disposal, but its power is enhanced by its location – with relatively weak states north and south and vast protective oceans east and west

International Orders

Consider how do states, nations, countries fit together into a system?

‘the English School’ – an informal group of academics and diplomats based in and around the London School of Economics who describe the world
as an international society

These codes of conduct are often systemised in ‘formal’ treaties

e.g. Charter of the United Nations

treaties that made up the 1648 Peace of Westphalia

primary function of international society – the creation of international order

We live in a world with or without a global government?

Despite the absence of a global government, the international community
has developed a system of global governance – a loose framework of treaties, agreements and regimes that shapes actors’ behaviour on the international stage

This creates patterns of behaviour that bring a degree of regularity to our anarchic international order

Although there is no global judicial system to enforce international society’s rules, most actors follow most of the rules most of the time

Governments that do not accept this rule are not allowed to join the organisations associated with Africa’s regional international order – such as the African Union

...or else

e.g. in East Asia, North Korea has been subjected to sanctions in response to its violation of rules surrounding the development of nuclear weapons

sanctions include severe restrictions on North Korea’s ability to trade into the global economy, limiting
the government’s ability to provide for its citizens’ material needs

Sanctions have historically been an effective way to change state behaviour

South Africa’s dismantling of its apartheid system and Iran’s entry into negotiations regarding its own nuclear programme are two examples of sanctions successfully forcing states back into compliance with an order’s preferred behaviours

In Western Europe, states have voluntarily surrendered some of their independent decision-making to an international organisation (IO) – the European Union (EU) – which has the legal power to compel its members to accept its laws

rules governing international orders vary depending on whether you are studying regional or global IR

On the global scale, international orders are inhabited by a plethora of actors with very different principles and interests

As a result, the global international order is shaped by a ‘thinner’ set of rules than its regional counterparts – leaving it far more vulnerable to disruption