CRITIQUES OF REALISM: POST-INTERNATIONALISM
*Q: In the realist paradigm, what is the role of technology?
In the realist paradigm, what is the role of individuals?
How do realists account for major changes in the world
political system?
I. Why post-internationalism?
-- Like post-modernism, suggests something new is happening,
but doesn't say what it is
A. Interactions among states no longer the primary form of
transaction across national borders
1. Trade:
Q: How many of you drive foreign cars?
Homework: Go over some of your personal belongings
(clothes, electronic equipment, etc.)
Where do they come from?
2. Finance: computerized banking & stock mkts.,
billions of $/day 40 years ago, foreign exchange cd. be
bought & sold only during business hours. Now, large banks & stock
brokerages can always stay ahead of the setting sun.
(Note: Britain used to say "The sun never sets on the British
empire," which was because of its colonial territories. Now,
sun never sets on global capital, but this is because of info.
technology.)
3. Telecommunications: satellites, media: CNN
>> ideas travel fast, an unprecedented global awareness
-- Global inequalities more visible. There have always
been rich & poor, but global communications revol.
makes such disparities widely known
4. Migration: homeless in the global village (rich & poor)
-- air travel
B. "Erosion" of sovereignty
1. From above: transnational IOs (UN, GATT, EU, NAFTA)
2. From below: NGOs, MNCs, ethnic minorities
-- fragmentation
"The world is simultaneously coming together & falling apart"
3. Boundaries no longer firm;
line between foreign & domestic affairs becoming blurred
C. Turbulence
p. 34 R&D: "when the number, density, interdependencies, & volatility
of the actors occupying the global stage undergo substantial
expansion"
Sources
1. Proliferation of actors:
Population explosion, vast inc. in # of nonstate actors
2. Technology >> interdependence
*Q: Give some examples of how tech. increases interdep.
3. Economic globalization
Capital, production, labor & markets now global
>> states can no longer manage their domestic economies
4. New "post-international" issues:
Ecological, refugees, drug trade, terrorism, AIDS
>> states can't solve these alone
D. Transformation of 3 parameters
1. Macro: structure of world politics
(anarchy vs. bifurcation -- sovereign states vs. SFAs
2. Micro: individuals (levels of competence)
(literacy, access to technology, awareness of world)
Proliferation of NGOs
3. Macro-micro: authority structures, sources of legitimacy
(traditional vs. performance)
Relocation of authority downwards & upwards
TASK: Groups of 4, 2 realists & 2 post-internationalists. How would
realists & post-internationalists explain the end of the Cold War?
How would they differ on what U.S. priorities should be in the
post-Cold War world? Note that how you explain the collapse of
the Soviet Union is related to your policy prescriptions in the
post-Cold War era. (Can sit on desks, stand, some can go in hall
-- be comfortable)
PI'ism
Photocopying, fax machines, modems, intl. science , transntl.
ecological interdep. (Chernobyl), GATT >> glasnost >> collapse
Realism
Superior U.S. strength (Reagan, Star Wars) >> collapse
"We won the Cold War."
DISCUSSION: Jihad vs. McWorld
How do these terms or tendencies relate to post-internationalism?
(Both are elements of PI'ism, but they are the dark sides.
Neither offers much hope for the future of democracy.
But R&D's description is more optimistic. Why?)
**TASK: Fill in "Paradigms of World Politics Compared" together