Theorizing the social, political and security dimensions of globalisation
Stuart Robinson

Hovedfag seminar in international politics, spring 2002

TIME AND PLACE: Tuesdays, 10.15-1400 (starting 22nd January), C 1003.



COURSE CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES

The course highlights some of the theoretical debates about international (and/or world) politics that have the greatest relevance at the beginning of the 21st century. The approach is to analyse different aspects of that phenomenon commonly dubbed
‘globalisation’ in the light of different theoretical perspectives. First and foremost, students will be asked to relate: (a) such cultural phenomena as
‘postmodernism’ and the ‘cult of security’ to theoretical perspectives on the mutability of world politics; (b) the practices and dilemmas of foreign intervention to theories of international ethics. The aim is to enhance students' abilities to express themselves theoretically and critically about important issues in the everyday practice of world politics.



SEMINAR PLAN

01 Introduction: Globalisation as Concept and Phenomenon

What is globalisation? Is it anything new?
What are the main aspects of globalisation?
What are the conditions (or causes) of globalisation?
What are its most important consequences?
Is globalisation un/desirable, unavoidable?
What are globalisation’s implications for international political theory.

David Held and Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), “Introduction”, 1-31.
Jan Nederveen Pieterse, 'Globalisation as Hybridisation', International Sociology 9:2 (1994), 161-184.


(I) Theoretical Contention

02 Structural realism

What are the main features of the international system and its consequences, according to Waltz?
What is the system’s most important variable?
Compare Waltz’s perspective with so-called ‘classical realism’.

What are the implications of Waltz’s account of the distribution of power for a comparison of bipolar and multipolar international systems?
How does the balance of power function, according to Waltz?
What is Waltz’s view of change–empirically and normatively?
Is Waltz’s approach to change reasonable?

Kenneth Waltz, ‘Political Structures’ and ‘Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power’, in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 70-130.
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), ch. 7: ‘Structural Causes and Economic Effects’, Part I (pp. 129-138); ch. 8: ‘Structural Causes and Military Effects’, Parts I-III (161-176).


03 Structural revision: (i) Neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism

How do transnational relations lead to complex interdependence, according to Keohane and Nye?
What are the foundations of international institution-alisation, according to Axelrod and Keohane? Compare and contrast the views of the international system and system change provided by Waltz, Keohane and Nye, and Axelrod. What do some or all of the authors have in common in terms of their essential understandings of international politics and human nature? How effective is the neoliberal critique of realism, and what other lines of criticism are to be found?

Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1977), ch. 1, 3-22.
Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane, 'Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions', World Politics 38 (1985), 226-254.


04 (ii) Constructivism

Does/should morality play an important role in international politics? Why or why not?
What is the meaning and significance of the idea of an international society, and its connection, if any, to morality?
Discuss the relationship between identity, morality and politics.
Compare and contrast Wendt and Waltz’s views of structure and its role in international relations.
Compare and contrast Bull and Wendt’s approaches to international politics.

Hedley Bull, 'Society and Anarchy in International Relations', in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966), 35-50.
Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics', International Organization 46:2 (1992), 391-425.


(II) Social change

05 Globalisation: Economic and social dimensions

What is economic globalisation and its most direct consequences?
What is the difference, according to Cox, between ‘problem-solving’ theory and critical theory.
What is the nature of the relationship between ideas, institutions and coercion, according to Cox?
How does Cox differ from such writers as Keohane and Nye and Waltz, in his conception of international politics? Whose conception is more persuasive and why?
What ideas or assumptions do Realists and neo-Marxists or critical theorists share/not share?
Compare and contrast their respective views of ‘structure’.
Discuss the social roots and consequences of globalisation.


Frances Stewart and Albert Berry, ‘Globalization, Liberalization, and Inequality: Expectations and Experience’, in Andrew Hurrell and Ngaire Woods (eds.), Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 150-186.
Robert Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium 10:2 (1981), 126-155.
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), Part 2. (16 pp.)


06 Historical Analogies and Intellectual Roots

What distinguishes the ‘modern’ era and its international relations from the ‘medieval’?
How and why did the transition occur from feudal society to the modern system of states?
What are Ruggie’s key dimensions of social change and how un/evenly does change occur?
What, if any, parallels are there with our contemporary experience?
What are postmodernism’s roots and central ideas?
What, if anything, does postmodernism have to do with structure?
What are the most important problems, according to Østerud, with postmodernism as an intellectual movement within the social sciences?

John Gerrard Ruggie, 'Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations', International Organization 47:1 (1993), 39-174.
Øyvind Østerud, 'Antinomies of Postmodernism in International Studies', Journal of Peace Research 33:4 (1996), 385-390.
James Der Derian, ‘The Boundaries of Knowledge and Power in International Relations’, in James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1989), 3-10.
Michael J. Shapiro, ‘Textualizing Global Politics’, i James Der Derian og Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1989), 11-22.

07 Cultural globalisation: The Postmodern

What, according to Jarvis, are the three distinct types of postmodernism?
Discuss the idea of a ‘postmodern era’ and what, if anything, this has to do with globalisation.
What kind (and how desirable) is the role which postmodernism plays within ‘our field’?
What kind of connection is there between postmodernism and feminism?

Darryl Jarvis, ‘Postmodernism: A Critical Typology’, Politics and Society 26:1 (1998), 95-142.
V. S. Peterson and A. S. Runyan, 'The Gender of World Politics', in M.A. Genest (ed.), Conflict and Cooperation (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996), 533-544.
R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), ch. 4: ‘History, Structure, Reification', 81-103.


(III) Political change

08 Post-cold-war security: Rethinking old agendas

Identify elements of continuity and change in post-cold-war security-politics.
Compare and contrast Adler’s emphasis of the role of ‘security-communities’, and Kupchan’s of the role of regional hegemons, in securing more stable and peaceful relationships.
What lessons might be drawn from Kaldor’s interpretation of the cold war for the post-cold-war period and for the ideas of Adler and Kupchan?

Mary Kaldor, 'Rethinking Cold War History', in Ken Booth (ed.), New Thinking about Strategy and International Security (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991), 313-331.
Emanuel Adler, ‘Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective’, in Adler and Michael Barnet (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 3-28.
Charles A. Kupchan, ‘After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity’, International Security 23:2 (Fall 1998), 40-79.
09 New Agendas: Arms, Terrorism, Integration

What are the important new contours of international conflict, according to Huntington?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of his prognosis?
What are some examples which illustrate increased transnational integration and interdependence? What are the major consequences of such developments and how desirable/undesirable are they?
Is the world more or less safe from the dangers of terrorist/un/conventional violence than 20 years ago and why?
Evaluate the general importance of the environment as an issue of international security.
Are there any actual or potential positive effects associated with new threats?

Samuel Huntington, 'The Clash of Civilizations”, Foreign Affairs (1993) 72:3, 22-50.
Walter Laqueur, ‘Postmodern Terrorism’, Foreign Affairs 75:5 (1996), 24-36.
Fred Charles Ikle, ‘The Second Coming of the Nuclear Age’, Foreign Affairs 75:1 (1996), 119-128.
Dennis Pirages, 'Micro-security: Disease Organisms and Human Well-Being', in H.E. Purkitt (ed.), World Politics 1996/7 (Guilford, Conn.: Dushkin, Brown and Benchmark, 1996), pp. 257-263.
Eric K. Stern, 'Bringing the Environment In: The Case for Comprehensive Security', Cooperation and Conflict 30:3 (1995), 211-237.


10 Beyond the state: (i) Privatisation and social mobilisation

What are the most important consequences of globalisation (immediate and long-term) for (i) international relations, and (ii) domestic politics?
Can globalisation really have an impact on time and space and, if so, how?
What are globalisation’s most important social consequences--short and long term?
To what extent and in what respects do such consequences contribute to social (and perhaps political) in/stability
What, if anything, do privatised/gated communities have to do with liberal democracy?
What, if anything, do gated communities have to do with globalisation?

David Harvey, “Time-space Compression and the Postmodern Condition”, in David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds.), The Global Transformations Reader (Oxford: Polity Press, 2000), 82-91.
Leslie Sklair, ‘Social movements and global capitalism’ Sociology 29:3 (1995), 495-512.
Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, ‘Forting Up’, in Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997), 1-28.
* Susan Bickford, ‘Constructing Inequality: City Spaces and the Architecture of Citizenship’, Political Theory 28:3 (June 2000), 355-376. (14 pages)
* Matthew Patterson, ‘Globalisation, Ecology and Resistance’, New Political Economy 4:1 (March 1999), 129-145. (13 pages)


11 (ii) Cosmopolitanism

How is the role played by values and morality in international politics changing and why?
What is the ‘natural law’, and how do its principles apply to individuals and states?
What’s wrong with the natural law tradition, according to Linklater, and what is his ‘solution’?
How convincing is Linklater’s alternative approach to evaluating political conduct?
Discuss Held’s hopes for liberal and democratic initiatives at the international level.

David Held, ‘The Transformation of political community: Rethinking democracy in the context of globalization’ in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón (ed.), Democracy’s edges (Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 1999), 84-111.
Martin Wight, "Western Values in International Relations," in Butterfield and Wight, pp. 89-131.
Andrew Linklater, 'Men and Citizens in International Relations', in H.Williams et al (ed.), A Reader in International Relations and Political Theory (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1993), 309-325.


12 (iii) Interventionism

What is the most appropriate way to define the term ‘intervention’?
Have/are attitudes to military intervention changed/changing? If so, why, and how desirable are such changes?
Why, according to Walzer, is there a moral presumption against the right of foreign intervention in support of human rights?
How is Walzer’s viewpoint connected with notions of international society and state sovereignty?
How can notions of self-determination, secession, civil war, and mutual security, be used to legitimise intervention?
Identify some other political developments with which interventionism is connected.

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, ch. 6, 'Interventions' (New York: Basic Books, 1992), pp. 86-108.
Adam Roberts, 'Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights', International Affairs 69:3 (1993), pp. 429-449.
* Michèle Griffin, ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread: Trends in International Intervention’, Security Dialogue 31:4 (2000), 421-435.
* Sabrina P. Ramet, ‘Kosovo: A Liberal Approach’, Society 36:6 (1999), pp. 1-9.