MODULE 1

INTRODUCING INTERNATIONAL RELATION

(Weeks 1-3)
Week 1- Key Concepts & Actors in International Relation

A. Introduction
International relations, as it is presented in the flow of daily news, concerns a large
number of disparate events: leaders are meeting, negotiations are concluded, wars are started,
acts of terror committed, and so on. In order to make sense of all this information we need to
know a lot about the contemporary world and its history; we need to understand how all the
disparate events hang together.
This module will bring students awareness to the selected key concepts and actors in
International Relation.

B. Learning Objectives
At the end of this module, you are expected to do the following at least 75 percent precision:
1. Understand the selected key concepts of International Relation;
2. Identify the key actors in International Relation;
3. Discuss the origins of modern international system.

C. Learning Activities

Learning Activity 1: Key Concepts

Read the selected key concepts of International Relation below and try to understand
each concept.

ARMS CONTROL
One way of dealing with the proliferation of weapons is through negotiated arms control
agreements, which have a long history in international relations. The Athenians, for example,
entered into a range of arms control measures with the Spartans almost 2,500 years ago.
Arms control is different from disarmament. Advocates of the latter argue that the only
way to ensure peaceful international relations is to eliminate weapons from the calculations of
states. In contrast, the purpose of arms control is purely regulatory. Its goal is not to construct a
new world order, but to manage the existing one.
Controlling the proliferation of weapons can be accomplished in a number of ways, and
different treaties embody different strategies. These include:
1 limiting the number and kinds of weapons that can legally be used in war;
2 limiting the potential for destruction after war has broken out by reducing the size of
arsenals;

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 3 reducing the overall number of weapons;
4 banning technologies which may have a destabilising effect on the balance of power;
5 developing confidence-building measures.

ARMS RACE
A competitive struggle between two or more states seeking to improve their security
relative to each other by building up their military strength. The logic behind arms races is
sometimes referred to as an action–reaction phenomenon. If state A embarks on an aggressive
military acquisitions programme, a neighbouring state B may assume the worst, i.e. that state A
is preparing for war. Prudence, and the fact that international relations occur in a „self-help‟
environment, suggests that state B should also increase its military spending to match that of
state A. Failure to do so would leave it open to the possibility of attack. But the attempt to restore
the balance of power by state B may not be successful. State A may interpret B‟s reaction as a
hostile act and „upthe-ante‟ even further. The result is an increase in the level of hostility
between the two sides, an escalation in the quality and/or quantity of the weapons available to
them, and a decrease in the security of both. Two examples illustrate the point.

BIODIVERSITY

Conserving our planet‟s biodiversity and the enormous variety of life forms developed over
millions of years has come to be recognised as one of the most crucial tasks of our time. Loss of
species means depletion of a biological heritage having incalculable moral, practical and
scientific value to future generations. There are three general kinds of biodiversity: habitat
diversity, genetic diversity, and species diversity. The survival of each is linked to the health of
the other two, and together they comprise the health of ecosystems.

CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

Samuel Huntington‟s article „The clash of civilizations?‟ was published in the journal Foreign
Affairs in 1993 and resulted in a heated academic and public debate. Three years later the book
with the same title, now without the question mark, appeared. The appeal of Huntington‟s theory
is his attempt to develop an all-encompassing construct that explains not only the conflicts of the
present and future, but also the key features of the international political system. Since it also
touches upon intrastate conflicts, its implications reach beyond international relations. There
have been a number of „world images‟ of international politics predicted for the twenty-first
century. On the one hand, some of the more optimistic students of globalisation and the alleged
spread of democracy see the world‟s peoples coming closer together in economic, political, and
cultural terms. On the other hand, more pessimistic analyses have focused on the gap between
„zones of peace and war‟ and clashes between emerging great powers in a multipolar era.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY

The basic principle behind this concept can be summed up in the phrase „one for all and
all for one‟. As a means of maintaining peace between states, the legal and diplomatic
organisation of collective security can be located midway between the two extremes of an
unregulated balance of power and a world government. Although the idea of a single world

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government is sometimes entertained as a solution to the problem of war, it is extremely unlikely
to be brought about by conscious design. The idea of collective security is attractive because it
seeks to bring about some of the alleged benefits of a world government without altering the
essential features of an anarchical states system. In formal terms, collective security refers to a
set of legally established mechanisms designed to prevent or suppress aggression by any state
against any other state.
The purpose of a collective security system is to maintain peace among the members of
the system, not between the system and outsiders. For example, NATO is not a collective
security system. It is an alliance, or perhaps it could be called a collective defense system.

EXERCISE: How do you understand in each of the following concepts below? Your answer
must not be less than two (2) sentences in each concept.
1. Arms Control
2. Arms Race
3. Biodiversity
4. Clash of Civilizations
5. Collective Security

Learning Activity 2: Key actors in IR

It has been widely assumed that international relations consist of the relations between
states. But such a definition of world politics as simply the actions and interactions of states has
been increasingly challenged since the late 1960s and the early 1970s as many other actors have
become more and more involved in the international political process.
Actors in world politics, states and non-state actors, according to Professor Ryo Osiba of
Hitotsubashi University, can be defined as the entities which have the following three features:
(a) They should have the autonomous capacity to determine their own purposes and interests; (b)
They should also have the capability to mobilize human and material resources to achieve these
purposes and interests; (c) Their actions should be significant enough to influence the state-to-
state relations or the behavior of other nonstate actors in the global system.
States remain the main actors in world affairs and today there are less than 200 states
(national governments) in the global system. On the other hand, non-state actors are increasingly
the focus of analysis among scholars as territoriality, the defining feature of the Westphalian
state, has been steadily diminishing in relation to non-territorial, nonstate actors. Exactly, the
most influential of these non-state actors are international business firms often called
transnational corporations (TNCs). According to the World Investment Report 1997 (UNCTAD,
1997 and 1998) there were 44 508 and 53 000 parent TNCs, having 276 659 and 450 000 foreign
affiliates, respectively. Significantly enough, many of these TNCs control more resources than
many states. In 1989, the 26 largest TNCs had an annual sales revenue greater than the GNP of
the United Arab Emirates which ranked 50th among the states. In 1994 the 50 largest TNCs had
an annual sales revenue greater than the GNP of 131 members of the United Nations. The size of
the turnover of TNCs comparable to the GNP of middle-sized states means that depending upon
the issue-area, they are significant players in the international political economy.

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 Equally significant as players in the global system are International Non-Governmental
Organizations (INGOs) which have also grown in number and membership. By the late 1980s,
the UN Yearbook of International Organizations listed over 4500. The growth of INGOs was
explosive, marking 832 in 1952, and 5472 in 1996. The World Wildlife Fund, for example,
increased its membership from about 100 000 in 1983, to over a million by 1991, and its annual
revenues from $9 million to $100 million. Greenpeace membership increased over the same
period from fewer than 1.5 million to 6.75 million, and its revenues increased from $24 million
to $100 million. Ibrahima Fall, head of the UN Center for Human Rights lamented that, though it
is the arm of the UN for human rights, they have less money and fewer resources than Amnesty
International. NGOs today provide ODA larger than the entire UN system (see Human Rights).
They are supporting the role of the state in carrying out ODA and, given such a complimentary
role played by them, ODA needs to be more local and specific to the needs of local residents. All
in all, however, such INGOs today enjoy the authority and legitimacy of popular support and
compete with other state and non-state actors for influence in transnational interactions.
Other than TNCs and INGOs such non-state actors as transnational criminals engaged in
illicit trading in arms and drugs and guerrillas and national liberation movements are attracting
increased attention not only from national governments that are threatened by their activities, but
also from students of international relations. Mexico‟s President Ernesto Zedillo in 1995
described drug trafficking as his country‟s most serious national security threat. Two years later
when US President Bill Clinton visited Mexico, both Clinton and Zedillo signed a 97-page Bi-
National Drug Threat Assessment and pledged to form a new alliance to combat this menace.
According to a 1998 report on global terrorism prepared by the U.S. Department of State, during
1997 there were 304 acts of “international terrorism,” eight more than occurred during 1996. A
total of 221 persons died and 693 were wounded, as compared with 314 dead and 2912 wounded
in 1996. As the same report admits, terrorists are part of a larger phenomenon of “politically
inspired violence,” and the line between the two is often difficult to draw. Some groups manage
to move from the status of “terrorists” to “national liberation movements” or legitimate
transnational guerrilla groups. According to Peter Willetts, their legitimacy is increased by
gaining widespread popular support and/or when the target government is unusually oppressive,
and/or when the violence is aimed at “military targets” without civilian victims. For example, the
African National Congress (ANC) received widespread support for their fight against the South
African apartheid regime. In the mid-1970s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the
West African People‟s Organization (SWAPO) achieved membership of the Non-Aligned
Movement and the Group of 77, along with observer status in the UN General Assembly and at
all UN conferences.
Usually added to these actors are international organizations called International
Governmental Organizations (IGOs). Following Richard Cupitt, Rodney Whitlock and Lynn
Williams Whitlock, IGOs can be defined as organizations created by three or more governments
that are based on a formal agreement and have some permanent secretariat or headquarters. IGOs
encompass not only universal organizations like the United Nations, but also a wide range of
organizations from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). They also play a significant role
and influence what goes on between states. Moreover, transgovernmental coalitions, namely,
networks of government officials, which include at least one actor pursuing his/her own agenda
independent of national decisions, also make state-to-state relations more complicated than
before. For example, in formulating a joint European policy toward the nonproliferation regime,

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an epistemic community, (a group of professionals who form a knowledge-based community
with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within their domain of expertise),
cooperated with a transnational coalition of foreign ministry officials against the European
nuclear industry and economic ministries in various countries. The former coalition prevailed
over the latter in convincing states to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as with
the case of France.
It is not easy to categorize such diverse actors in a single category, but we will follow the
common usage throughout this writing. In other words, actors other than states are called non-
state or transnational actors. They interact with national governments or states and frequently
pursue their own agenda, independently from and sometimes contrary to, the declared policies of
their national governments. Therefore, for a better understanding of global politics, non-state or
transnational actors need to be taken into account as they influence what goes on between states,
and vice versa. The role of states must also be taken into account, as they are the most influential
actors in international relations.

D. Assessment

Instructions: Identify whether the statement is true or false. Write T if it is true and F if false.
1. The purpose of arms control is purely regulatory.
2. States remain the main actors in world affairs and today there are less than 200 states
(national governments) in the global system.
3. Actors other than states are called non-state or transnational actors.
4. The purpose of a collective security system is to maintain peace among the members of
the system, not between the system and outsiders.
5. The basic principle behind this concept can be summed up in the phrase „one for all and
all for one‟.

E. Reflection

Instructions: Reflect on the importance of understanding the key concepts and actors of IR.
What benefit (s) does it give you as a student of political science? Your answer should not be
less than one (1) paragraph.

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 LESSON 2.

Week 2 – Facing Global Challenges

Humanity is facing major global challenges that are transational in nature and
transnational in nature and transinstitutional in solution. This essay confronts fifteen of the
biggest issues, including how to achieve sustainable development, guarantee access to clean
drinking water, foster ethical market economies and fight new as well as re-emerging diseases.
While the panorama may appear pessimistic, humanity is winning more than losing – even if
where we are losing is very serious. But these challenges cannot be addressed by any single
government or institution acting alone. They require collaborative actions among governments,
international organizations, universities, NGOs and creative individual. We need a serious focus
on green growth, falling water tables, rising food/water/energy prices, population growth,
resource depletion, climte change, terrorism, and changing disease patterns, otherwise the results
may well be catastrophic.
The world is getting richer, healthier, better educated, more peaceful, and better
connected and people are living longer, yet half the world is potentially unstable. Protesters
around the world show a growing unwillingness to tolerate unethical decision-making by power
elites. An increasingly educated and Internet-connected generation is rising up against the abuse
of power. Food prices are rising, water tables are falling, corruption and organized crime are
increasing, environmental viability for our life support is diminishing, debt and economic
insecurity are increasing, climate change continues, and the gap between the rich and poor
continues to widen dangerously.
Information and communications systems from simple mobile phones to supercomputers are
augmenting human decision-making. It is reasonable to assume that the accelerating rates of
these changes will eventually connect humanity and technology into new kinds of decision-
making with global real-time feedback.

These global issues identified by the Delphi surveys and interviews in 1996–1997 were:
1. World population is growing; food, water, education, housing, and medical care must
grow apace.
2. Fresh water is becoming scarce in localized areas of the world.
3. The gap in living standards between the rich and poor promises to become more extreme
and divisive.
4. The threat of new and re-emerging diseases and immune micro-organisms is growing.
5. Capacity to decide is diminishing (as issues become more global and complex under
conditions of increasing uncertainty and risk).
6. Terrorism is increasingly destructive, proliferating, and difficult to prevent.
7. Population growth and economic growth are interacting adversely with environmental
quality and natural resources.
8. The status of women is changing.
9. Religious, ethnic, and racial conflicts are increasingly severe.
10. Information technology offers both promise and peril.
11. Organized crime groups are becoming sophisticated global enterprises.
12. Economic growth is bringing both promising and threatening consequences.

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 13. Nuclear power plants around the world are aging.
14. The HIV epidemic will continue to spread.
Work, unemployment, leisure, and underemployment are changing.

EXERCISES
1. Select at least two (2) global issues which you think are the most relevant. Explain.

LESSON 3.

Week 3 – Origins of Modern International System

The Advent of States

As the feudal order was undermined by the advent of trade and of urban centers, a diverse
plurality of social formations evolved: city-states evolved in northern Italy; city leagues emerged
in the German Empire and along the Baltic coast; monarchic states emerged along the Atlantic
rim. In the longer run, no social formation could compete with these Atlantic monarchies in
terms of efficiency and might. They emerged as dominant macro-political actors of the Western
world, and they soon carried their dominance far beyond the West. Stimulated by new economic
dynamics, new means of production, new ways of trade and finance, and by new patterns of
authority and power, the monarchic territorial states established themselves as the most effective
social formations of the new age. It is a much-overlooked fact that when the territorial states
emerged along the northAtlantic rim, they did not really appear one after the other; they appeared
together. The first territorial states of Europe – Portugal, Spain, France and England foremost
among them – evolved hand in hand and soon constituted a unique, interrelated interstate system.
These states all had roots far back in Western history. But their decisive consolidation was
marked by the Italian Wars (ca 1492-1527/56). These wars, in which the royal houses of
Habsburg and Valois fought for dominance over Italy, involved the final destruction of the city-
states system and the emergence of Spain and France as territorial states. They also involved the
emergence of several new, characteristically modern innovations, which gave the territorial
states a leg up on competing social formations. The most significant of these were associated
inventions like the compass, gunpowder and the printing press.
The compass made it possible to navigate across the world oceans out of the sight of
land. The compass, together with other new technologies of navigation, provided decisive
preconditions for the wave of Western expeditions and discoveries of the second half of the
fifteenth century – climaxing in Columbus crossing the Atlantic from Spain to the Americas in
1492. Expeditions of conquest and settlement – such as the Hernán Cortés‟ conquest of the Aztec
empire in 1519, and Francisco Pizarro‟s conquest of the Inca empire followed such discoveries
in 1533. Such expeditions became all the more efficient when Western ships were equipped with
guns and cannons.
During the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, then, international
relations were affected by a complex blend of technological, economic, moral and symbolic
forces. They gave the Western world some of its most characteristic features – most notably a
worldwide web of economic relations centered on a European system of strong territorial states
led by powerful Christian monarchs. Each monarch presided over institutions that maintained

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order in civil society, the population perceiving the king as legitimate through a rich blend of
religious, linguistic, and symbolic factors.
The rise in monarchic power was purchased at the expense of local authorities. Local
princes and land-owning noblemen resisted the centralization of monarchic power with protests,
rebellions and war. The century was littered with local rebellions and civil strife. Yet the
monarchs consolidated their power. By 1600, the states of Europe had evolved a set of distinct
characteristics. First, it was territorial in nature; the state represented a distinct area of the surface
of the earth. Second, its territory supported a distinct population – a population that was
increasingly unified by religion and language and a distinct set of cultural values and symbols,
all of which contributed to their common identity. Third, the population obeyed a common,
central authority – a monarch and his court-based, administrative apparatus.
States had long possessed internal sovereignty – each state had a domestic center of
legitimate authority – as Jean Bodin had tried to explain in his Six Books of the Commonwealth
(1575). However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Western states also developed
a notion of external sovereignty; i.e., they evolved a principle of mutual recognition of the
inviolable nature of each other‟s territory (and thereby of each other‟s internal sovereignty).
development of international relations and or origin.pdf