PLSC 102 - Week 2 Slides

Brief History of IR

Treaties of Westphalia (1648)

“Westphalian system” marked the origins of the sovereign state system

3 key impacts:

1. states gained “sovereignty”

2. centralization of control via militaries and taxation to support them

3. stable capitalistic economic system built with balance of power in Europe

The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith

introducing market capitalism

• wealth derived from free exchange (trade), competition, and increase productivity from division of labor (i.e., specialization)

• “invisible hand” of self-interest: free market independently generates incentives for individuals to act in the public interest, i.e., when individuals purpose their rational (utility maximizing) interests, everyone benefits

key concepts of the American Revolution (1773-83) and French Revolution (1789)

monarch (leaders) derive legitimacy from the consent of the governed

emergence of nationalism: identifying with a common past, language, customs, and territory (e.g., used to mobilize people to defend the French nation)

Napoleonic Wars

• France’s Napoleon Bonaparte v. Austria, Britain, and Prussia

Napoleon rode on nationalist zeal to motivate armies, improved war technology and military organization

Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) —> “Concert of Europe”

• consisted of Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia

• defined the region until 1914

relative peace and stability in the international political system, maintained by ad hoc conferences (“congresses”) among members

What discouraged war?

• elites’ fear of revolution united great powers

• more conflict within rather than between territories

• conflicts elsewhere — dynamics of imperialism and colonialism

imperialism

rooted in “empire”, the policy and practice of extending domination of one state over another through territorial conquest or economic domination (i.e., annexation)

colonialism

expansion of state territory; control of another country or area and exploitation of its people and resources for the purpose of economic gain (new markets and trade routes, raw materials) and/or spread of cultural and religious beliefs; includes settlement of people in those territories

• by the end of the 1800s, 85% of Africa divvied up by European states (Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, part of the “Scramble for Africa”)

“balance of power”

fear of emergence of a dominant state (high risk of defeat when power is “symmetrical” or balanced)
—> alliances to counteract factions

• more fragile than thought (Franco-Prussian War (1870) and Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) )

“self determination”

right to self rule

• stronger call for it facilitated by technological innovation in printing industry

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

ended WWI

• 3 European empires strained and broke (Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire)

• Germany emerged from WWI an even more dissatisfied power

• enforcement of the treaty was given to the League of Nations

• Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points (failed)

League of Nations (1919)

governed treaty enforcement without political weight, legal mechanisms, or legitimacy

• Wilson’s Fourteen Points (foreign policy speech) failed because of LoN’s weak legal authority

Cold War takeaways (1)

• redistribution of power into a “bipolar world” — emergence of two superpowers: United States and the Soviet Union

  • competing ideologies: U.S. liberal (democratic) capitalism vs. Soviet “communism” (dictatorship)

• formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949) vs. Warsaw Pact (1955)

• Collapse of the colonial system beginning with Indian independence in 1947 —> 1960s

  • UN Charter endorsement of national self-determination

Cold War takeaways (2)

• U.S. pursued less aggressive foreign policy via a “containment” strategy via foreign aid programs and/or coercive force (Truman Doctrine of 1947) — mutually assured destruction (MAD)

  • played out indirectly through proxy conflicts/wars globally (Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, other conflicts in the Middle East)

• strains from proxy wars and widespread discontentment within Soviet bloc —> 1989 was the symbolic end of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall, formalized with Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation in 1991 —> multilateral world order