IR 501 Lecture Notes (7) Post Cold War, Globalization & IR Theory Dr. Bezen Balamir Coşkun...

IR 501 Lecture Notes (7)Post Cold War,

Globalization & IR Theory

Dr. Bezen Balamir Coş[email protected]

Text

Globalisation & the Post-Cold War

OrderElements of discontinuity between cold war and post-cold war orders

Cold War: Soviet power in Eastern Europe, Bipolar competition, Rival ideologies, Global Security integration, Military security as high politics

Post-cold war: Dissolution of SU, unipolar peacemaking, supremacy of liberal capitalism, greater regional autonomy, national identity as high politics


OrderElements of continuity between cold war and post-cold war orders

•Some security structures ie. NATO

•Economic globalisation

•Human rights

•Reaction against secular state

•Multiple identities

•Environmental agendas

•Poverty in south


OrderA typology of order:

At the one end of the specturum it continues to be state centred and to be concerned with traditional models of order, such as the structure of the balance of power, the polarity of the international system, and the current forms of collective security.


OrderAt the other end is a widening agenda of order that encompasses the relationship between economic and political dimensions, new thinking about human security, debates about the consequences of globalisation, the role of human rights, the impact of environmentalism and strategies for human emancipation.

These competing conceptions of order are in work.


OrderTypologies of order:

Order - units - characteristics

Globalised - Global System - End of national policies, societies & economies

International - States - Concern with agenda of sovereignty & stability

world - humanity - concern with agenda of rights, needs, and justice

Globalised international - Globalised states - Agenda of managing relations between states penetrated by global system

The elements of contemporary

order• The social-state system

• Identity & nation state

• Polarity & collectivisation of security

• the organisation of production & change

• multilateral management

• regionalism

• North-South divide

Social State System

• contemporary state system is social in the sense that states over the past century have performed a range of social functions that distinguish them from states in earlier phases of the state system.

Identity & Nation-State

• the multiplicity of issues about identity have become prevalent since the 1990s. The state is both challenged and reinforced by crises of identity, ie. new forms of political community driven by ethnic separatism, regional identities, transnational projects, social movements etc.

Polarity and collectivization of

security• the debates about the present

distribution of power - bipolar, multipolar?

• contemporary trends towards collectivization of security - forms of multilateralism in security, the role of coalitions, the trend of humanitarian intervention

The organisation of production &

exchange • The economic order is partially managed by the elements of governance institutinalised in bodies such as the IMF, the World bank, and the WTO. Such bodies do not determine just the rules for international trade and borrowing, but internationalization of production.

Multilateral management & governance

• A remarkable aspect of the contemporary order is the high dense and complex network of international governance which covers most apects of life including developments in legal , environmental, and economic regimes as well as the core peacekeeping activities of universal organisations like the UN.

Regionalism

• the development of contemporary regionalism is another key to understanding the emerging order. This takes various forms including economic, security and cultural activities. regionalism is regarded as one aspect of globalisation.

Liberal rights order

• the rise of liberal rights, emphasis on human rights

North-South

• gulf within the contemporary order, separating the experience of the industrialized North and from the increasingly marginalized South.

Key points• Globalisation is often portrayed as an

effect of the end of the cold war because this led to its further geographical spread.

• At the same time globalisation had to be understood as one of the factors that caused the end of the cold war.

• Accordingly, globalization is an element of continuity between the cold war and post-cold war orders.

• so how do realism & liberalism assess and evaluates the globalisation?

Liberalism & Globalisation of the World

Liberals tend to see globalisation as the end product of a long-running transformation of world politics. For liberals globalization fundamentally undermines realist accounts of world politics since it shows that states are no longer such central actors as they once were. In their place are numerous actors, of differing importance according to the issue-area concerned.


Liberals are particularly interested in the revolution in technology and communications represented by globalization. This increased interconnectedness between societies which is economically and technologically led results in a very different pattern of world political relations from that which has gone before. States are no longer sealed units, if ever they were, and as a result the world looks more like a cobweb of relations than like the state model of realism.


• See Schema 1

• see Schema 2


Most of the discussion of globalization among neo-liberals falls into 2 categories:

•a free market commercial neo-liberalism that dominates policy circles throughout the world

•academic neo-liberal institutionalism that promotes regimes and institutions as the most effective means of managing globalisation process


The end of the cold war was the end of the Soviet experiment in command economies and it left capitalism and free market ideas with a few challenges in international economic institutions and national governments. Free market liberals believe that governments should not fight globalization. These neo-liberals want minimal interference in the national or global market.


From this perspective institutions should promote rules and norms that keep the market open and discourage states which attempt to interfere with market forces. Other more social democratic neo-liberals support institutions and regimes that manage the economic processes of globalization as a means to prevent the uneven flow of capital and other resources that might widen the gap between rich and poor states.


• Demonstrations against global economic institutions suggest that there are many who feel that the market is anything but fair. The critics of economic globalisation state that governments will have to extent their jurisdictions and intervene more extensively in the market. Given the current neo-liberal thinking this kind of change is unlikely.

Realism & the Globalisation of World

PoliticsRealist Claim: The patterns of international politics, meaning wars interrupted for periods of preparation for future wars, have remained constant over the preceding 25 centuries. Realists argue that the continuities in international relations are more important than changes.


PoliticsThis claim is being increasingly problematic in the age of globalisation.

One variant of the globalisation thesis, propounded by Fukuyama, was the end of the cold war represents the logical victory of liberalism. According to this thesis, Realism was increasingly seen to be an anachronism, a cold war way of thinking.


PoliticsThe fact that structural realists in particular believed the bipolar system would continue well into the 21st century (Waltz 1979;210). Critics of structural realism were right in pointing to its inability to anticipate the great upheavals of 1989-1991. Yet many realists have provided explanations to account for the end of the cold war and do not regard it to be a major anomaly for realism.


PoliticsRealism’s strongest point lies not so much in challenging a liberal interpretation of the end of the cold war as in questioning the extent to which liberals’ optimism in the spread of democracy, in the growth of free trade, and the general pacification of world politics will have traction in the future.


PoliticsThe crucial moment that brought the post cold war era to an end was 9/11 attacks. In the days after after the attack George W. Bush and coalition of leaders declared themselves to be fighting a war against terrorism. The US-led wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, and the general climate of fear and insecurity caused by acts of terror, suggests a serious flaw in the liberal argument that war had declined.


PoliticsThus, leading realist thinkers have fund opportunity to underline that our experience since 9/11 and the cycle of violence predicted by the theory. However, there were some contradictions in the realist account of the conflict.


PoliticsTo begin with, the attacks were committed by a non-state actor. This was a challenge to Westphalian order that presumes wars among states. Moreover, Al-Qaeda was not fighting for territory but ideological supremacy.


PoliticsThe leading states were quick to identify the network with certain territorial states. Rather than identifying the terrorists as transnational criminals and using their police enforcement methods, the USA and its allies defined them as enemies of the state who had targeted and defeated using conventional military means.


PoliticsFor realists such as John Gray and Kenneth Waltz, 9/11 was not the beginning of a new era in world politics so much as a case of business as usual. What matters most as Waltz argues are the continuities in the structural imbalance of power in the system and the distribution of nuclear weapons. Crises are to be expected because the logic of self-help generates periodical crises.


PoliticsTheir analysis is a stark rejoinder to the more idealist defenders of globalization who see a new pacific world order.

In this regard Realism continues to serve as a critical weapon for revealing the interplay of national interests beneath the rhetoric of universal sentiments. The war on terrors is frequently defended in universalist terms. Behind the rhetoric of universal values, the USA has used the war to justify its policy positions that strengthen its economic and military power while undermining multilateralism


PoliticsRealists do not have situate their theory of world politics in opposition to globalisation per se, rather, what they offer is a very different conceptualisation of the process. What is important about a realist view of globalisation is the claim that rudimentary transnational governance is possible but at the same time it is entirely dependent on the distribution of power that the USA holds, given the core values of globalisation espoused by the US.


PoliticsRealist argue that modernity is not, as liberals argue, dissolving the boundaries of difference among the peoples of the world. Realists argue that interdependence is likely to breed mutual vulnerability. While questioning the extent to which world has become any more interdependent in relative terms, realists insist that the state is not going to be sided by global forces operating either below or above the nation-state. Nationalism, as realists believe, remains a potent force in world politics.

IR 501 Lecture Notes (7) Post Cold War, Globalization & IR Theory Dr. Bezen Balamir Coşkun...

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