introduction

  • https://knowt.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-get-a-7-on-ib-global-politics

  • global politics is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary exploration of rapid social change, while also covering the issues that are dominating the world stage

  • individual and group perspectives

    • it is useful to approach the key political concepts and contemporary political issues discussed, through different perspectives and views

  • globalization creates a diversity in some places, and encourages a similarity in daily life in other places

  • globalization requires us to not only stick to the assumptions, but instead to examine the various possibilities and meanings behind what we observe

  • professional academic organizations have to put more thought into the work they do, and consider the various people the work may harm or benefit (they have to consider the consequences and benefits that will come with the work)

political issues: when we think of politics

  • politics refers to the actions taken in the formation and maintenance of the state or other governing entity

  • politics maintain the power of the state by the inclusion and exclusion of peoples and formations that challenge them (competing formations)

  • the states goal is to produce a stable agreement between ruling entities and the rest of society? the note this came from wasn’t very clear (was pg 7 paragraph 4)

  • due to the many changes our world has undergone, politics is now integrated in our everyday lives

    • politics is especially part of our everyday lives as communities and international bodies compete for resources and labor,

  • a political issue is any question of global interaction that permits, invites, and calls for critical examination

    • for the purposes of this course, political issues show the distribution of power and how it works in a social organization and how people engage in their communities and the bigger world, on matters that affect them

geographic levels and levels of analysis

  • in this course, level refers to a unit of analysis of the world

    • for gp, levels run from the geographic whole of the political world to the smallest area under study, and unit of analysis is the major entity, or the ‘what’ or ‘whom’

    • global system theorist Immanuel Wallerstien (1974) argued that a world system separated the geographic spaces of the world

      • these spaces

        • cores/core economies: the most capital - intensive and powerful countries

        • peripheries: countries that were the least - capital intensive, and were often exploited by the core countries by the extraction of labor, capital and commodities

        • semi - peripheries: developing countries

      • the issue with these units of analysis was that they presumed the peripheries and semi - peripheries were moving in one direction, without considering the possibility that the people in the peripheries and semi - peripheries were actually helping to shape the core

    • while regions that are more powerful and more capital - intensive often rule over local ones, the local areas can still affect the strategies and functioning of the powerful, dominating force

      • for example, until recently, the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe. However, the countries and cultures of Eastern Europe had a strong influence on the economy, culture and politics of the Soviet Union

these are the terms most commonly used as units of analysis of the global system ? im not sure if they are terms used in units of analysis (pg 10)

  • global: a term used to describe the events and trends that have far - reaching and long - term impacts across the world

  • national refers to the geographic boundaries of a certain state.

  • international: represents events and trends that have a smaller/narrower impact than global events and trends. However, they still have implications for various geographic areas

  • local: in the context of global politics, local is the geographic area where social organization is created and where culture is passed on from one generation to the next

    • is the place where cultural practices are defended from external intrusion

    • the geographic region this level represents can be as small as a gated community or as large as a city or region

  • regional: in global politics, it refers to units of analysis that cover specific geographic areas

  • place: in the context of global politics and its analysis, place is the geographic location where action occurs

    • is often the unit of analysis for people fighting for their autonomy against the demands and power of external forces

  • space: space is a social construct

the concept of community

  • the concept of community is one of the most frequently debated concepts in the social sciences

  • a common view on communities was that they must include not only spatial and ecological dimensions, but institutional and emotional ones, or the aspects of social life (such as schools) that carried culture from one generation to the next

  • until the 1980s, it was believed that community was geographically based groups of people who shared common interests, similar backgrounds, etc

    • however, now due to globalization, social scientists have revisited this idea and they have considered the possibility that we can form a community beyond the constraints of territory

      • satellite communication means that people around the world who share the same beliefs, interests, religion, etc can form communities (ex. online chat groups/chat rooms)

  • traditionally, communities have been viewed as long - term. However, whether or not these ‘ communities of taste’ are able to reproduce themselves and maintain their connections over a period of time, is a debate around the definition of community

  • there are people who argue that ‘community’ is too loaded with past definitions and meaning, while others argue that the position of ‘community’ helps with organization, and helps them defend culture and social reproduction?? (idk if that’s what it’s saying, but it page 13 paragraph 3)

PEOPLE, POWER, AND POLITICS - an intro to the study of globalization and politics

  • the colonial period in world history significantly altered the way that civilizations were evolving globally

  • the colonizers travelled the world in search for free labor and resources. Unfortunately, in many colonized places, it was brutal and close to, if not, genocide

  • it is important to remember that the countries that were colonized were societies with their own cultures, rules and ways of