Essay question: Is state sovereignty the most effective way to maintain order in the international
system?

Is state sovereignty the most effective way to maintain order in the international system?

Statehood

own territory, own people, legitimacy by the people/ones who are governed, acknowledged by international system + international system

a nation or territory considered as an organised political community under one government

State sovereignty (Westphalian system)
-Principle in international law that each state has sovereignty of own territory

Questions that may arise

Provides an identity for the majority of people living in territory

Result in nationalism

Minorities might be disprioritqzed

  • What is non western countries views on state sovereignty

It should not be a question about wether it is efficient or not, but if it is morally right or not.

Territory is protected from intervension

International recognition

"International" recognition means recognised by western systems

Western actors such as Uk, US, France, WHO, UN etc

Organising principle in a complex international system

Imperfections of state

Agents starts and end wars

Difficult to organise smaller communities within state

International actors (UN,EU) are made up of states that has own agendas - realistic theory

legal sovereignty (de jure)

Perks with an international order with states

Organising principle in complex system

Easier to analyse and predict

About order

Pre statehood history

Empires

Catholic church

Could there be a stateless world?

  • Humans look for order and there has always been someone who provides with that
    • people fought w/e/o for resources even in a pre state system

Overlapping actor along with empires

State v church --> struggle of identity and religion as identity

Westphalia

Kings and Emperors used reformation movement to gain more power/ argued for a divine right to rule

Realism in IR: humans are wired to either follow or not follow --> difficult with a stateless world

Not attacked from outside

Political sovereignty (de facto)

Provides with an identity to majority

Discard minority identities

1648 Westphalia

somewhat sovereignty for EUROPEAN countries

Internal sovereignty does not guarantee outside sovereignty

Internal sovereignty may not guarantee outside s

equally sized states: equal

Billiard ball methaphor

Realism

balls represent countries that get affected by external shocks

balls cant get more power than there already exist.

Automatic regulator

What happens when a stae acquire so much power that the others "cant keep up"?

napoleonic France --> France was bigger in territory and people
(internal and external advantages)

  • more beyond the billiard board power metaphor.

Other states around France made alliances and stepped up

  • congress of Vienna --> Balance system, FR got downsized and territories were given to Russia, Prussia + Netherland as new kingdom

Agents: important to restore power distribution

Shape behaviour --> create new norms/regulation and mutual trust

Early foundation of international law in western world. Has there been a set of international laws outside the western world

states cant claim ignorance when punished and this is agreed by states (as long as you yield to western system and abide its norms and rules) or else the west wages a big

State in IR theory

Agent = state

Structure = international system

Power = finite resources

Passed between states/ competition of and between state borders

Realism = analyse, manage challenges, counterpoint to cynicism, uphold norms abt cooperative behavior, debate

how to manage structure

Idealism= reformist, normative approach

BOTH: solve problems, (Robert cox)

  • Fix problem, but not get rid of concept but upgrade system is ok.
  • recognise limitations

Constructivism "Anarchy is what states make of it" it changes over time, power of agency, people and ideas

State is a "Modern Phenomena" and is connected to religion separation, civilizing

Challenges to state

Challenges to sovereignty

Susan strange

  • history as a source
  • see time between academic debate and when it ends up in public speech

Challenge to nature of state:

  • domestic production vs vs capitalism across the borders nature of system is changed

Bipolar system changed to global hegemony --> increased spread of economic system to parts of world that were closed off.

Collapse of soviet union --> more peace, less protection of borders

Russia allowed multinational corporations into their territories, such as MC.

  • symbol of capitalism. change of ideology --> picture of how global market economy works.

External affairs affects sovereignty/ system

  • when external systems favours less sovereignty, many states felt obliged to follow this rule

Globalisation

  • issues are no longer confined to one place --> terrorism and illicit drug activity are dependent on a global system and its poorer countries

Multiple actors/ agents NOT just states.

  • governments cooperate w corporation to increase economic growth --> but states are needed to regulate corporations and their expansion to some exent.

what if there would be a stateless world? There will be no immigrants and everyone has the right to same resources, but will human nature allow this. People has fought with one other about resource since time begun.

Foreign policy has changed

States authority has change

competition on who has the better companies?

UK stock company has probably more effect on the UK economy than its actual government --> government can make decisions without consulting and vice versa

Shared state authority --> system is extentive, anarchy is not gone. More billiard balls on table

Is states in retreat?

no territory can regulate borders bc of wifi for instance --> is wifi an agent? (normal people use it, companies use it to communicate, expand)

people handpick their information so government is not the main news source/ politics source any more. It works as a supplementary choice to governmental news services. weather the state is present or not depends on country.

sovereignty as a provider for identity

not only external challenges for a state, also internal: domestic instability --> state failure --> government of Afghanistan v Taliban.

Britain and Brexit --> destabilizing the border and peace agreement between the two Irelands (good friday agreement) + England v Scotland.

Hard to protect statehood if there are domestic instability --> statehood is dynamic --> changes.

Hypocracy of Westphalian system

allow forced/ humanitarian interventions, sanctions in some way

  • war as a regulating tool --> cold war (but real war outside the west)

International laws that every state can abide by

Cold war maintained order and nuclear weapons was a deterrent against nuclear war.

Are these arguments tailored to western thinking?

Nationalism in ir theory

Challenges state sovereignty and the international system

challenges assumptions of IRs primary goal

Power: Emass, preserve, conquer or stabilise it for the sake of order. --> similar to the theory of survival of the fittest in a competitive world

rational way of thinking?

  • power and a rational actor goes hand in hand because it is a state's motivation (classical realism)

The people: agency and ideas. states are not billiard balls, but the people are. people are not predictable. humans are an agency who do what they want

Generate ideas, feel, imagines

neorealism: there are little room for concepts such as feeling, but they are important. Ideology and identity, hand in hand, with feelings. --> feeling of belonging and sense of community

Most "successful" of all the ideologies (imperialism, liberalism, marxism, environmentalism, anti colonialism, feminism, fascism etc

Main rhetoric is appealing to feelings

French nationalism

Loyalty to same laws

Napoleon

Revolutionary

Awareness of national identity/ historic and territorial aspect --> heritage. Ppl should have the same heritage in the same territory. us vs them.

To belong --> human nature?

sentiment, cultural, territorial, primordeal

The state is not necessary attached to ideology, it is rather a pragmatic entity for order

although there are certain believes about territory that people are attached to + community and same history.

disorder in state system

what if state fits the state boundary? (congruent with already existing borders?

myth of 1648: s was still under threat after that age, did not start a new era because there was high competition, still eurocentric

euro centrism

state, stateness, exclusion

  • who grants protection to stateless people? peoples right to be treated humanely are often tied tied to a state. norms and laws are upheld by state and they often overlook rights from non citizens. Yes, there might be a law but implemention is another thing. No state=no refugees.

Rights are veaponized by state, sovereignty does not necessary give protection.

excluded for citizenship

Jews, palestinians, african refugees --> not regarded as people in some states.

statehood/sovereignty as a source of oppression

Acknowledge eurocentrism

"white savior"

"we would like to make your country better, but by doing so you need to abide by OUR rules and if you don't there will be sanctions"

western politics claim to be international as a"norm"

alternative organised hypocrisy

  • humans are naturally biased against own history
  • deny some communities form while provide someone other with it.

who gave some states the power to intervene and exclude?

  • international community

separate people into races. whites vs non whites

Find patterns: societies separated by colour lines, unfair trade systems in post colonialized countries

empire v state

justification for colonialism

  • cooperative international system applied only for western states
  • Napoleonic France had to retreat because they harmed states FROM, WITHIN THE WESTPHALIAN SYSTEM, nothing was said ab imperialism
  • billiard system is faulty: when Europeans could not conquer Europeans, they simply looked outside Europe. norms of sovereignty applied only to the west.
  • liberalism and hierarcy
    .

countries that sat with different opinions was seen as a threat (US intervensions in the middle east) to the western orders

Kant, mill made arguments of how the colonization of india is necessary to help them progress "indians were an infant state and they need to mature"

care about colonization history

postcolonial theory

  • who is speaking, writing and producing knowledge?

is the global market a recent phenomenon?

  • long history of imperial trade
  • trade was often connected to race, a hierarchy
  • transatlantic slave trade and anglo American wealth --> facilitated slave trade in sugar/ cotton

Are non state actors new agents in system?

  • east india company
  • dutch east india company

intervension and colonialism as a norm

sovereignty as a norm + cultivate western norms outside europe/us

international politics was inspired by imperialism

  • mill: liberty, what he witnessed as a colonial officer in india
  • Hume: idea of realism were based on colonial hierarchy
  • Kant: laws on hospitality were created bc of the inhospitality ny European voyagers in colonies

denial of sovereignty

the thought that newly colonised countries should mimick the west + implement consequences if that didnt happen (ties to former colonies)

wrong kind of sovereignty: non recognition of former colonised states for instance + debts and dependency on said former colony owners

Anti colonial sovereignty

Sovereignty as a freedom. s is not not necessary a bad thing even though the practice of s has been contradictory

see how western history is interpreted from non western actors.

irony that western countries were upholding sovereignty and laws WHILE INTERVIENING IN OTHER COUNTRIES while non western countries were reflecting on freedom & sovereignty from colonisers

ask week 2 lecturer of IR literature made by "foreign authors"

a lot of anti colonial literature inspired movements such as the suffragette + anti colonial activists

click to edit

why statehood is still important

  • legacy for many people in for instance norway, britain + a goal for people longing for sovereignty