CHANGING APPROACHES TO SECURITY: ECONOMIC & ECOLOGICAL
Q: What do we mean by security? What makes you feel secure?
I. Pursuit of national security: Trade vs. Military power
Territorial vs. Trading States (Rosecrance: not in reader)
-- think in terms of a spectrum, not either/or
A. Territorial path = Military-Political World
1. States seek econ., pol. & mil. autonomy; all have same function
(security-maximizers -- realist)
2. Sts. seek territorial objectives, strives to be the leading power
in the system (e.g., colonialism)
3. BoP = means of resistance to threatened hegemony.
B. The trading path
1. Not composed of states ranked by power & territory
2. Instead, differentiated by function (comp. advantage)
a. Each seeks to improve its position, but bec. they supply
different goods, they come to depend upon each other
b. Indus. Rev. demanded energy resources >> harder to be fully
autonomous (oil)
c. Some indus'd countries, like Switzerland & Italy, produce very
high quality goods; others, like Korea or Taiwan, produce
efficient, low-cost/high-volume goods
3. Trading states = primarily W. Europe & Japan
-- forced to by post-war constitutions
States can change: Gorbachev's reforms in USSR
C. Historically, most states have chosen territorial path
1. Early modern pd (16th - 18th C's), close to terr. pole
2. Mid-19th C.: trading pole (at least w/in Europe)
3. WW's I & II: territorial pole
4. Post-1945: superpowers chose territorial option; other indus'd
countries chose trading orientation.
D. Force or trade: Costs & Benefits
1. Mil. "free-riders:" US spent 50% of its postwar R&D budget on
arms; Japan spent less than 1% on mil. R&D
2. Declining utility of force
a. Rising cost of arms makes territorial option less
desirable
b. Late-20th C. battlefield extremely uncertain
c. Popular support for wars declining
3. Much easier to obtain needed access to raw materials & markets
through trade than to try to capture them territorially by force.
In the past, the military world was more efficient.
E. 2 worlds reflect trad'l. realist vs. interdep. models
How you define ntl. security depends upon what paradigm you
subscribe to.
** Show video clip: participants in Global Forum at UNCED
II. Ecological paradigm
Tech. = driving force in world politics; generally ignored by
dominant paradigms
To answer Q. of impact of tech. on IR, ask what might world system
look like without industrial revolution?
1. Little global trade (interdependence)
2. Practices of intl. communication & diplomacy radically
different because of phones, trains, planes, computers,
TV, etc.
3. Modern warfare radically different: airborne weapons,
missiles, radar, "smart bombs", nw's
4. No global environmental crisis
A. Bringing tech. & nature into IR:
Dominant social paradigm = exclusionism
New social paradigm = inclusionism (Pirages)
3 realms:
Q: Where is nature in the paradigms we have studied?
A: Grotians emph. interdependence, but primarily econ.
Ecofeminists? Post-internationalists (envt'l NGOs)
* All IR paradigms are exclusionist.
B. Inclusionist perspective
1. Demographics: 500% increase since indus. revolution
2. Natural resources (EX: feeding a culture in petrie dish)
3. Technologies: sustainable? waste products?
-- toilet assumption
C. Ecological notions of security
1. Preservation of other species; ecological (not just econ.)
interdependence (Antarctica: ecosystemic)
2. Clean water, air impt.
3. Intergenerational notion of security
Long-term human survival requires sustainability.
Q: What is the impact of technology on the state system?
1. Realism: Technology = source of state power; even if the utility
of force is declining, IR is still about sovereign states
competing for power & security
2. Grotians: States less autonomous; more cooperation (especially
in areas of technological interdep.); more non-state actors
(esp. MNCs) but states are still central actors; intl. regimes
proliferate but states are primary actors;
3. Post-internationalism: post-industrial tech. & values challenge
the state in fundamental ways; emergence of a multi-centric
world of non-state actors; citizens become more competent
Q: Is there a tension between econ. & ecological security?