University of the West Indies, Mona

Department of Government

GT12A Introduction to International Relations

Lecturer: Ms. Diana Thorburn

Lecture 8

Topic: IR Actors I – The State

Objectives:

1. Understand the state’s role in international relations

  1. Know some of the ways in which states exercise their power in the international system
  2. Know the main contemporary challenges to the state in IR

ONE.

  • Definition of a state vis-à-vis IR
    • Four essential criteria
    1. A territorial entity with fixed geographical borders
    2. A fixed and stable population
    3. It has a government to which its population pays allegiance (that answers to no higher authority) and which exercises sovereignty to make and enforce laws, collect taxes, etc., over its territory
    4. It is recognized as a sovereign state by other states through diplomatic relations and usually by membership in the United Nations
  • A state is usually comprised of a nation—a people who share some common identity whether religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic or historical
  • Most large states today are nation-states
  • Stability more likely when the nation corresponds with the state
  • US particularly remarkable in having created a stable and unified nation-state despite different nationalities
  • Canada contains two nations, one which constantly aims to break away and become independent (Quebec)
  • Decolonization has produced many states whose borders can be at odds with the nationality of the people who inhabit them
  • In IR the words state, nation, nation-state, and government often used interchangeably
  • In IR, the nation-state is the entity that makes and conducts foreign policy
  • Today there are 189 member nation-states of the UN—the next member should be East Timor once it graduates from UN control
  • In 1945, when UN was established, it had 51 members
  • Some political entities are de facto but not de jure states—"quasi-states"—e.g. Palestine, Taiwan
  • Quasi-states sometimes "observer" status in international organizations such as the UN
  • Other countries remain colonies or possessions—e.g. Puerto Rico and Guam(U.S.), Bermuda, Anguilla, Cayman (U.K.), Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana (France), Netherlands Antilles (Holland)
  • There are "would-be" states—Western Sahara (north-west Africa), Quebec, Kurdistan (now part of Turkey)
  • East Timor was a "would-be" state until late last year
  • A state usually has a capital city—the seat of government from which control over the territory is administered
  • A state usually has an individual head or leader, either prime minister or president depending on political system
  • The three main IR theories view the state differently:

Liberalism

    • Sovereignty does exist, but states are not autonomous actors
    • The role of the state is to look about its citizens’ security and interest at the same time as working towards world peace
    • States are interdependent and one’s actions have effect on others’
    • A state’s actions can be determined by internal forces, especially in a democracy (ideal form of government in liberal theory)
    • The state is the ultimate enactor of foreign policy and of international action, but it is not driven by a sole motive (such as power or economic interests)

Realism

    • States are the most important actors in IR
    • The role of the state is to pursue its national interest given the conditions of the international system
    • National interest largely defined in terms of increasing its power and guarding its security
    • Statist or state-centric view
    • Sovereignty the most important principle in IR
    • States’ actions are provoked or contained by the structural anarchy of the international system
    • States can be classified into three levels:

1.      Superpowers (U.S., anyone else…?)

2.      Major powers—has-been or upcoming major powers (e.g. Britain, China, respectively)

3.      Minor powers—significant only on an as-need basis by the superpowers or major powers (Afghanistan, Jamaica)

Marxism

    • The role of the state is to execute the wishes of the capitalist elite within its borders
    • The state operates within the structure of the international capitalist system
    • State behaviour perpetuates the inequality of the international economy
    • No notion of national interest in terms of protecting the majority of its citizens or seeking a better world for them
    • The state acts in accordance with economic goals, or its position in the international economic system
    • Real sovereignty not possible in the Marxist international system, particularly not for weaker or poorer states

 

TWO. HOW STATES EXERCISE POWER IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

  • The state is, to date, the primary actor in the Westphalian international system
  • Most states’ actions in the international arena have some basis in their desire to preserve or expand their power
    • Revisiting earlier definition of power:

Six criteria for a country to have power in the international system:

1.      Secure geographical boundaries

2.      Large territory and population, relatively free of civil conflict

3.      Self-sufficiency in food, energy and basic services (or at least the ability to be self-sufficient)

4.      Industrial advancement

5.      Strong and modern military capabilities

6.      Access to and level of technological advancement

Plus

7.      An educated population

8.      Natural resources and the ability to use them to a country’s advantage (leadership)

9.      Domestic political stability and public support for the government

10.  Economic stability and a growing economy

Three main ways in which states exercise power

  1. Diplomacy
  • Traditional diplomacy involves nation-states trying to influence each other’s behaviour via negotiation, discussion and perhaps compromise

o        Direct communication with another nation-state about a problem, usually via one’s ambassador

o        Negotiations—seldom is there a Pareto Optimum in international negotiations

o        Threats

o        Bargaining and compromise

o        Reciprocity—exchange of types of support (such as financial aid for military support—e.g. Pakistan and the U.S. today)

o        Withdrawal of a country’s ambassador to signal discontent (e.g. Chile &UK over Pinochet case)

o        Participation in international organizations

  • Less-orthodox types of diplomacy

o        Hiring lobbyists

o        Using informal contacts and working through domestic-level politicians (Jewish lobby)

o        Using the domestic media to gain public support in countries where public opinion influences foreign policy (Jewish lobby, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek)

  • Public diplomacy

o        A country attempts to create a favourable image for itself around the world using a personality or event

o        E.g. China hosting the Olympics Games, Eva Perón

  1. Economic means – trade, sanctions
  • Sanctions generally exercised by more powerful states over less powerful states
  • Sanctions usually threatened or used after negotiations are fruitless
  • Threat of sanctions alone often utilized

o        Allow trading arrangements as with other countries (MFN status)

o        Enter into a trade agreement (NAFTA)

o        Give countries special trading breaks (CBI)

o        Freeze financial assets

o        Blacklist a certain country (OECD and off-shore banking in the Caribbean)

o        Boycott goods and services of target state (sanctions against South Africa helped to bring down apartheid)

o        Sanction one or more products (China’s berets for the U.S. military)

  • Weaker states with valuable natural resources may be able to use them to achieve foreign policy objectives (OPEC)
  1. Military – compellence, war
  • Most extreme use of state power in international relations
  • Threat of military action sometimes sufficient to achieve aims, settle disputes
  • Compellence—undo what you did or we’ll punish you (e.g. Saddam and the Gulf War)
  • Deterrence—if you do x we’ll punish you (U.S., China and Taiwan)
  • Nuclear weapons bring new meaning to compellence and deterrence
  • Much of the Cold War based on deterrence

 

THREE. CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO THE STATE IN IR

  • Contemporary debate: "whither the nation-state", or what is left of sovereign?
  • Debate stems from a number of challenges to the state:
    1. Withdrawal of the state from active participation in the economy
    • State seen as having failed in its attempts to direct the economy in the 1970s
    • Predominant neoliberal economic model advocates state role in economy as facilitator of economic activity and investment
    1. Globalization in general in its particular aspects

a.       Communications technology erodes the significance of physical territorial borders

b.      Increased and rapid trade and financial flows across national borders

c.       Decreased importance of natural resources in a knowledge-based world economy

d.      Decreased importance of geographical location with communications and transportation technology

    1. International organizations have more power over nation-states in post-Cold War era
    2. Multi national corporations can control essential sectors of a country’s economy thus wielding control over the population that the government might have relinquished having privatized those entities
    3. Some contemporary IR problems, such as environmental and refugee problems, do not necessarily correspond to nation-state borders and nation-states on their own cannot control them
    4. World’s problems cannot be solved by nation-states on their own
    5. Move towards regional (integration) blocs—EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, CARICOM in order of level of development

 

Why the nation-state is not going anywhere (for now)

  • State still
    • Signs international treaties whether trade or political
    • The central actors in IR
    • imposes and collects taxes
    • runs the army
    • controls law and order, including laws on multinational corporations and on trade
    • controls the education system and sets the curriculum
    • can control information to some extent
    • has power to influence its citizens in their beliefs
    • not subject to any international jurisdictional body except for some trade issues
  • Nations around the world are still fighting for independent state-hood (Chechnya, Kosovo, East Timor)

 

CONTENDING PERSPECTIVES ON STATE POWER

 

Liberalism

Realism

Marxism

Nature of state power

Multiple sources of power; tangible and intangible sources

Power is key concept in international relations; geography, natural resources, population especially important

"The policy of a state lies in its geography." Napoleon Bonaparte

Economic power organized around classes

Using state power

Broad range of power techniques; preference for noncoercive alternatives

Emphasis on coercive techniques of power; use of force acceptable

Weak states have few instruments of power

Economics and state power

Trade as a means of creating harmonious relations; increased trade = economic growth = prosperity = peace

Sanctions or threat of sanctions effective against weaker states

State’s decisions and actions based on their position in the international economy and their pursuance of domestic capitalist elite’s goals

Table based on table from Karen Mingst, Essentials of International Relations, New York: Norton, 1999.