San Jose City College Realism Liberalism and Marxism Worksheet Fill out the International Relation theory tables for Realism, Liberalism, and Marxism to th

San Jose City College Realism Liberalism and Marxism Worksheet Fill out the International Relation theory tables for Realism, Liberalism, and Marxism to the best of your abilities. (No citations needed)You will notice that each box asks for something particular – thinker, unit of analysis, reason, state, economics, ideas, and what is missing. For ‘thinker,’ list the authors from our class that discuss the theory (who have we read that is a realist, or liberal?). For’ unit,’ place in the box what you think is the main actor, or subject of the theory. For reason, briefly describe how each theory discusses logic or how actors reason through decisions. For the state, how does each theory deal with the state? And for economics and ideas, its the same – how do Realists discuss ideas? How do liberals? Lastly, what do you think is missing from each theory? Please write inside of the table ? … the continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz)
? What does this mean?
? Continuum, tactics, politics = war, collective struggle
And contest/conflict
? “Old wars were fought by the regular arm ed forces of states. New wars are fought by
varying com binations of networks of state and non-state actors – regular armed
forces, private security contractors, mercenaries, jihadists, warlords, paramilitaries, etc”
? “Old wars were fought for geopolitical interests or for ideology (democracy or
socialism). New wars are fought in the name of identity (ethnic, religious or tribal).”
? “In old wars, battle was the decisive encounter…In new wars, battles are rare and
territory is captured through political m eans, through control of the population.”
? Also, very destructive and unlimited
? – The virtual disappearance of wars between states
? – The decline of all high intensity wars, involving more than a thousand battle
deaths
? – The decline in the deadliness of war measured in terms of battle deaths
? – The increase in the duration and/or recurrence of wars
? – The risk factor of proximity to other wars.
? https://ucdp.uu.se/
? Check this site out
? The last time the US declared war was in World War 2. Vietnam, yes, is called a war.
But officially, the US government never declared war on North Vietnam. In fact, the
Vietnam ‘conflict’ has been called a ‘police action’ instead of an actual war.
? This is an ongoing debate in US politics – congress has the authority to declare war,
according to the Constitution.
? What is the key actor for Realism?
? The State
? What is this state?
? Black box, after survival/relative gains, anarchy, material power and stuff…
? Terrorism
? Guerrilla warfare
? Low-intensity
? Asymmetrical
? What do you think? New era, or just same as old?
Realism, the State, and
War
Realism and War
Realism and the State
• State: institutions that claim to be the sole, central authority, as well as to
have the legitimate claim to use violence over a population and
throughout a territory (Weber)
Those pictures?
• Taxation is something that states do – they extract revenue from a
population. Other entities, like corporations, tend not to tax people.
States also maintain a military. Again, other actors, such as social
movements, do not maintain a professional trained fighting force. States
also declare certain areas as parks, limiting access to certain spaces.
Environmental governance (yes, conservation is not the only way to think
of this) is certain to how states manage territory.
What’s in this definition of the state, what is not?
• Form of government? (democracy, monarchy…)
• Nation? (language, customs, tradition)
• Economic stuff (GDP, Corporations)
• These things are NOT in the standard definition of the state
Realism and War
• Video, selection from ‘Doctor Who’ (its on Ilearn)
• Imagine that the monster and the guy are states – what are they
concerned with? What are their goals? How are they discussing their
priorities?
We live in a world of states, like it or not
Early theory of the modern state – Hobbes:
Leviathan, 1648
What’s in that picture?
• Check it out – he is holding a staff and a sword. The sword is a metaphor
for force. The staff is a metaphor for magic. Why those two things?
Hobbes believes that state leaders rule with those two qualities – through
using force and through using ideas. Also, what’s inside the king in that
picture? A bunch of tiny people!
Compare these two pictures
Oh no!
• Hobbes got in trouble in his day for saying that the king was all powerful,
that the state held the staff and not the other way around. Or rather, that
religious authorities were not more powerful than the state. This really
made the Pope mad!
• The picture on the right side is of the ‘great chain of being.’ Such
drawings were common to Medieval Europe. The point is that, unlike
Hobbes’ rendering, God sits at the top and people do not.
Context for where the Modern State Emerges
• Treaty of Westphalia 1648
• Leviathan 1651, English Civil War
What’s important about this treaty?
• At this time, states recognize one another’s territorial claims (within Europe,
and in its colonies)
• This recognition meant that rulers controlled certain set areas and the
people who resided there.
• Before Westphalia, territorial markers were not as defined and authority
not as demarcated
State
• Sovereignty (sole authority, claim to legitimate force)
• European (Origins)
• Historical
• There are many forms of human community (tribe, empire, etc.) The state is
just one form of organizing people’s relationship to territory
Realism’s State
• “Black box:” don’t need to look inside to understand it
• Material power, relative gains: military stuff matters over all else, states compete with one another all the
time to preserve power inequalities relative to one another
• Anarchy: NOT chaos, the idea is that there is no one universal state that controls the world
• Survival and self-help: States want to survive and at the end of the day, only have themselves to rely upon
• States are rational, make cost benefit calculations to preserve or gain more power vis-av-vis other states
Realism(s)
Mearsheimer, Offensive Realism
• Hegemony
• Power = relative gains, that “survival mandates aggressive behavior”
• War, politics
“War is…
• … the continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz)
• What does this mean?
• Continuum, tactics, politics = war, collective struggle
And contest/conflict
Mearsheimer, etc
• Great powers: world politics is done by the biggest, most powerful states.
Everyone else just falls in line
• Realism as science, descriptive and prescriptive; the way that Realists
understand politics is not only accurate, it provides the best path for policy
makers to engage in policy (according to Mearsheimer)
(Uni) (Bi) (Multi)-Polar World(s)
Polar worlds
• Unipolar: One dominant state controls world system
• Bipolar: Two states dominate
• Multipolar: Multiple states vie for power
• Mearsheimer believes that bipolar relations are best, the most stable
Case: North Korea
Nuclear Weapons
What to do about North Korea?
• Walt & Video
• Is MAD the best way to think about security and Korea?
LIBERALISM
This unit
• Liberalism
• Neoliberal Liberalism (yea, redundant)
• Liberalism and IOs, Regimes (more next week)
Realism:
what was its
assumptions
?
• “Black box”
• Material power, relative gains
• Anarchy
• Survival and self-help, interests and preferences
• State form alliances, BOP
Liberalism’s
Critique
• International organizations and governance, they
matter; more than just alliances
• State is not a “black box”
• State and power, yet, but also reason
• Economics matters is its own right, cannot reduce it to
military power (like the Realists want to do)
International
institutions
and anarchy:
remember
this?
• No central, global government
• No global sovereign
• Not total chaos, but states are central actors, balance
one another, form alliances.
• But…
Governance
without
Government
• Liberals agree that anarchy exists, but that it is limited
often by global governance (GG)
• What’s governance?
• Working Definition: Providing order by steering other
actors and exerting power through coordinating decisionmaking actions
• Three ways of thinking GG – (1) way to describe “nonhierarchical steering” (2) order provided by elites
• Yes, governments do the governing, but together,
simultaneously cooperating and limiting one another’s
powers through routine interaction
Ex:
The UN
Why look at
the UN?
• Realists look at the UN and see an international
organization that is dominated by the winners of WW2
(US, Russia, France, Britain, and China). Yes, that’s
important, but also just look at the complexity of the
organization. Look also at the different areas where
the UN is active (nuclear energy, environmental
programs, children’s welfare). Liberals look at this ,
and say that the Realists cannot explain all of these
activities. Realists minimize, reduce not only the UN,
but most other international organizations and
agreements. Liberals pay more attention to them.
Kant,
Perpetual
Peace and
IOs
Perpetual
Peace and
IOs
• Three elements Kant tells us to look at:
• Democracy; norms and accountability
• Trade between countries
• International Organizations, they provide networks for
communications and the means for states to make deals
• They idea is simple: More of these three elements, then
more peace
• Peace is these things, not just the absence of war
Remember
this graph?
• Realists say war declines, perhaps, due to BOP, MAD,
and or the presence of a hegemon.
• What would liberals say?
Check this
graph out
• Liberals look at the number of democracies around the
world as Realists look at hegemons and the BOP.
• What do liberals argue? They would say, as democracy
has spread, so has peace. Its not about hegemony, but
about more countries with elections that hold elites
accountable and more trade relations, which connect
different people together concerning profit-making.
• Which theory do you think better explains the ‘waning
of war?’
Another example: European Union
“Union”
? “… a family of liberal democratic countries, acting
collectively through an institutionalized system of decisionmaking. When joining the EU, members sign up not only to
a system of treaties, legislation, and norms, but also shared
values, based on democracy, human rights… (Cini: 2007
“European Union Politics”)
? Monetary union, common currency, eliminated tariffs and
flow of people
? Supranational governmental institutions (no military)
? Regional integration, model of the world?
Nice!
Origins:
European
Coal and
Steel
Community
• 1951 (1952), Treaty of Paris
• Coordinate industrial production
between Belgium, France, Italy,
West Germany, Luxemburg,
the Netherlands
‘Coordination’
The EU: Example of Interdependence
? Keohane & Nye (1977)
? “characterized by mu tu al d ep en d en ce, with situations characterized
by reciprocal effects among actors or actors…” “tran saction s are
costly” with “complex in terd ep en d en ce characterized by state
policy goal not arranged in stable h ierarch ies, the existence of
multiple channels of commu n ication between societies, and
irrelevan ce of militaries (Keohane & Nye: 1977).
Liberalism
and Reason
Reason, for
Kant
• “The Foundation of politics is morality”
• Morality is reason – that no one should be treated as a
mean, everyone as an end-in-themselves
• Laws, etc based on morality
• Assumes that people communicate and discuss how
they want to be treated; this turns into institutions,
law, etc
• Reason for Realists, way more restricted (remember
the Doctor Who video)
Remember
our
Realists?
• What would they claim about this stuff?
• Form of govt doesn’t matter
• Peace is deterrence, MAD – that absence of war and
presence of threats is ‘peace’
What
about
Brexit?
Domestic
Factors/Int’l
Effects:
Cuban
Embargo
Embargo
(until
Obama)
• Tourism/Travel restrictions
• No US trade
• No US trade with countries that trade with Cuba
Cold War
(1951ish1989)
Cold War
cont…?
HelmsBurton Act,
1996
Renews,
strengthens
embargo
Why?
Hmmm…
• http://www.pewhispanic.org/2006/08/25/cubans-inthe-united-states/
• Check this out and look for where Cuban emigrees are
located in the US
Answer:
Domestic
Pressure
• Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) 1992 “Cuban Democracy Act”
• CANF
(Cuban
American National Foundation
States and
elections
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidentia
l_election,_1992
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidentia
l_election,_1996
• Check these out to see which states voted for which
President
Hmm…
Why bring
up Cuba?
• The embargo’s origin can be explained by Realists – the
US is scared of Cuba (because of the USSR placing
nukes there in the early 60s) and wants to get rid of
Castro. Liberals however can explain why the embargo
gets strengthened – national security is no longer the
concern, but rather, domestic pressure groups (Cuban
emigrees (people who left Cuba when Castro took
power) want to see regime change on the island, and
they pressure representatives – primarily in Florida and
New Jersey – to support the 1996 revision
• Realists say that the state is a ‘blackbox.’ But liberals
disagree. This example illustrates one way that liberals
can explain something better than realists
MARXISM AND IR THEORY
DAY 2
IMPERIALISM
• What is it?
• Is it the same as colonialism, or different?
• How does it relate to free trade – as way to interpret it, criticize it, or just is it
something different?
• Lenin’s thinking on imperialism – is it outdated?
BUT BEFORE THIS…
• Capitalism is (or was?)…
WHO LOVES SMALL BUSINESS?
BUT…
PROTECT SMALL BUSINESS? NOT A
CHANCE…
Monopolies and trusts emerge FROM small business (Marx says this first, then Lenin notes
this too)
They produce too much, charge too much
Overproduction and underconsumption leads to economic crises
What to do (or where to go?) – they invest abroad to make cheaper stuff and keep making
profits
REMEMBER THIS?: WW1
• Causes?
• Realism and liberals?
What would they claim?
WW1, LENIN’S ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION
• Lenin
WW1 AND IMPERIALISM
• Imperialism: one class through a state to control another state, and/or region for economic
and/or political interests; directed, planned, organized
• Over-production/accumulation led states economic elites to invest in foreign territories
• Finance capitalism; allows capitalists to expand and move
• Divide the world, conflict
LENIN V REALISTS ON WW1
• Realists say WW1 was caused by a change in the BOP. Lenin (and through
imperialism) argues that capitalist states (really the corporations that create state
policy) drives states into territories (colonies) to keep capitalism alive. This leads
them to compete over resources and therefore, engage in violence
• For Lenin (and Marxists), the cause of WW1 and WW2 is imperialism – many do not
event acknowledge the so-called ‘interwar period’ (1919-1939), noting that the
expansion of Nazi Germany and Japan in the 1930 was primarily for resources, ie due
to imperialism
AND THE STATE?
• Banks/capital control states
• State – manages class conflict, repression and social policy
• Lenin (and Marxists in general) do not believe that politics is autonomous from
economics. The questions remains, how much do we need to analyze class relations to
understand politics?
• Is this reductionist? And what about realist/liberal understandings of the state?
AND WAR?
• “National-interest” or economics, profits?
• Class actors and nationalism
• Finance, expansion into other markets that leads to conflicts
OLD WARS, NEW WARS, AND/OR
IMPERIALISM?
• Economic motive to intl conflict?
• Lenin over state the case?
• Or Lenin ‘historical’ – for the moment, not any more?
• International institutions?
Marxism and IR Theory
Marxism, what it is and is not
? Videos
? What do we do with these when understanding Marxism?
Marxism is…
? … a critique of Capitalism, not theory of communism (Lenin…)
? How to critique capitalism?
? Marxism says, look at class, ideology, imperialism, dialectics
? State, not so important (as other theories)
And international anarchy?
? Remember, both realists and liberals see this as constitutive of IR
? Marxists, not so much
? Global capitalism reigns all actors in
Rupert on Marxist theory
? “Viewed from the perspective of Marxist theory, both
liberalism and realism are profoundly limited, and limiting
for each takes as its premise a world of preconstituted
social actors and is therefore unable to understand the
social processes through which these kinds of actors
have been historically constructed, implicitly denying
the possibilities for alternative possible worlds which may
be latent … presuppositions of liberalism and realism
embody political commitments which are profoundly
conservative.” (154)
1. Commodities
? Examples?
? What are they and what do they do?
? Video, zizek
Commodities and Ideology
? Two ways to think of ideology – something that mystifies, so need to get rid
of it, or use it to mobilize people
? “Dominant actors articulate a social vision which claims to serve the
interests of all, and they use selective incentives to recruit junior partners
into their coalition and divide/disable an opposition (Rupert).”
? Consumerism as ideology?
? Zizek’s point in the video is that commodities blind us, compel us to enjoy
and consume, making us unaware that stuff is made by people, by workers!
2. Class, Labor and Process
?
Class is not just high, middle, low income for Marxists
?
Class is about private property ownership and taking surplus
?
Private property for Marxists is something one owns AND has someone else work on – eg, if you
own a computer, that is not private property UNLESS someone else uses it, and then you either
charge that person rent for a period of time, or pay that person by the hour to use it, THEN take
whatever that person did after working on your computer (eg, an app or website).
?
Surplus is profit AND objects – owners take the time of workers and what they make. They then
sell to others, repeating the process over and over
?
What is key for capitalists is that they retain ownership of productive private property, never
ceding it to anyone. And that workers are paid, and return to work – not as owners – but always
as workers.
The Bourgeoisie, a Revolutionary Class
? “The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. The
bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all
feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations.”
? “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and
with them the whole relations of society.”
? “The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a
cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.
To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of
industry the national ground on which it stood.”
The Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
? This is a tendency that Marx sees developing over time, polarization and
greater inequality if capitalism is left to its own devices
? At one time, the Bourgeoisie were revolutionary to him – meaning that they
took down older, pre-capitalist societies
? Now, the Bourgeoisie is depending on the state too much, and so, its
revolutionary period has passed
3. Class Struggle, Dialectics
? “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
(Communist Manifesto)
? “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they
do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances
existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all
dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” (18th
Brumaire)
? Actors and structures – mutually constitutive
Dialectics, cont
? History is not linear
? Dialectics is another word for contradiction; that together workers and
owners make products, but they exist as opposite of one another – one has
property, the other d…
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