The World politics Foundation

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World Politics

• What is World politics and why do we study it?
• Kelly Walker
• Global Systems
• Tallwood High School

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Terms
Political science hat

• Theory a logically consistent set of statements
  that explains a phenomenon of interest.
• Political Scientists analyze events and develop
  criteria for understanding the conditions as to
  why they occur.
• Why did this happen?

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The Framework

• A way of thinking about world politics that will
  build theories that shed light on events.
• Interests What actors want to achieve through
  political action their preferences over the
  outcomes that might result from their political
  choices.
• Business have an interest in maximizing profits
• Interactions The ways in which the choices of
  two or more actors combine to produce political
  outcomes.
• War is the product of an interaction
• Institution a set of rules, known and shared by
  the community, that structure political
  interactions in particular ways.
• United Nations

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Interactions

• Two broad types of interactions
• Bargaining situations in which two or more
  actors try to divide something they both
  want-states bargain over territory
• Cooperation actors have common interests and
  need to act together in order to achieve their
  interests. Governments that want to stop one
  country from invading another may collectively
  set sanctions on the aggressor.

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Levels of Analysis

• Interactions at 3 levels
• International Level (UN, WTO)
• Domestic Level (subnational actors, politicians,
  business and labor groups)
• Transnational Level (MNCs, terrorist
  organizations)

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Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism

• Realism States are dominant actor and world
  politics is characterized by anarchy- War a
  permanent condition as states always wag war when
  it is in their interest to do so.
• Liberalism No single interest dominates and
  wealth is a common goal. Optimistic about
  cooperation in the world. Progress is possible.
• Constructivism Many types of actors are
  important and actors interests are influenced
  by culture, identity, and prevailing ideas.
  Similar to liberals, except they do not believe
  in material sources of interest. Nonmaterial
  factors such as ideas, culture, and norms are
  important. Transformers.

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What Shaped Our World?

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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Cooperation Through History

• 1800s Relative peace and prosperity
• Earlymid-1900s Wars, depression
• Late 1900s Economic globalization
• 2000s Still unknown

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• Explorers and traders discover the New World
• Mercantilism the use of military power to enrich
  imperial governments
• Height of mercantilism was from the 16th to 18th
  Centuries.
• Favor the mother country over both colonies and
  competing empires
• Key mechanisms
• - State monopolies (Spanish mines, Hudsons Bay
  Company)
• - Controls on colonial trade

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• Mercantilism as economic doctrine
• Military and economic power complementary

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• The British imposed mercantilist policies on
  their colonies in North America. For example, the
  tobacco being loaded onto these ships in the
  Virginia Colony could be exported only to
  Britain, where the American producers received a
  lower price for their crops than they would on
  world markets.
• Sought goods to satisfy empire for example, tea,
  cocoa, rubber, gold, and silver.

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815
Controls on Trade An Example - Britain
restricted Virginias commerce. - Virginia
Colony could sell tobacco only to Britain The
British paid Virginia Colony about 49 less for
its tobacco than growers could have earned on
world markets, and paid rice planters of South
Carolina less than half what they could have
gotten on world markets. Britains colonies could
buy goods only from Britain.   Net effect -
Lower price for tobacco and rice (leading to
underproduction) - Higher price for manufactured
goods - Unfavorable terms of trade for colonies
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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• The Thirty Years War, 16181648
• The Peace of WestphaliaThe Thirty Years War
• - Rising imperial competitors emerged
• - Between 1618 and 1648, the French and Dutch
  battled Spain
• - Sealed the decline of Spain
• The Peace of Westphalia
• Effects
• - Stabilized borders
• - Helped resolve religious conflicts
• - Beginning of the modern system of states
  pledge of noninterference
•  

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Sovereignty

• Establishing sovereignty
• - Sovereignty refers to the expectation that
  states have legal and political supremacy within
  their boundaries, and control over their own
  policies and political processes such as the
  maintenance of domestic order and provision of
  governance.
• In practice, intervention still occurs for
  example, when the U.S. government demanded that
  Saddam Hussein step down from power in Iraq.
  Sovereignty is presumed but not always respected.
  This topic will come up again when we talk about
  humanitarian intervention, and when we consider
  the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
• Early understandings of sovereignty emphasized
  ethical obligations, and later understandings
  emphasize
• 1. territorial integrity,
• 2. border inviolability
• 3. supremacy of the state
• 4. the sovereign as supreme lawmaking
  authority within its jurisdiction

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• Fight for Hegemony
• Anglo-French Rivalry
• Seven Years War
• Napoleonic Wars (Waterloo)

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The Mercantilist Era,14921815

• Interests
• Security through power
• Control of markets and resources
• Interactions
• Zero-sum bargaining among states
• Institutions
• Few international institutions beyond the norm of
  sovereignty

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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The Pax Britannica, 18151914

• The Hundred Years Peace
• Sources of Cooperation

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The Pax Britannica, 18151914
Figure 1.1 GDP per Capita, 1500-2008
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The Pax Britannica, 18151914

• Industrial revolution altered interests
• Exchange replaces mercantilism
• Economic integration increases
• Mechanisms
• migration
• free trade
• gold standard

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The Pax Britannica, 18151914

• The Gold Standard
• Gold becomes the major monetary system,
  promoting stability and predictability.

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The Pax Britannica, 18151914

• The Colonial Empires, 1914

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The Pax Britannica, 18151914

• Interests
• Economic wealth through trade and investment
• Interactions
• Informal diplomacy state cooperation in security
  and economic affairs
• Institutions
• British hegemony and the Concert of Europe

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• Europe divides into two camps
• Central Powers
• Allied Powers

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945
Map 1.2 Europe, 1914
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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• Map 1.3 Europe after World War I, 1920

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• The Treaty of Versailles

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945
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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• The Great Depression of 1929
• Countries turn inward

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• World War II
• Axis Powers
• Allied Powers

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The Thirty Years Crisis,19141945

• Interests
• Security through alliances, expansion, and
  economic self-sufficiency
• Interactions
• World Wars I and II
• Institutions
• The League of Nations

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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The Cold War, 19451990

• Map 1.4 The Cold War and Its Alliances, 1980

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The Cold War, 19451990

• The Eastern Bloc Command Economy, centralized
  government with few civil liberties
• The Western Bloc Free enterprise economy,
  democracies, protect civil liberties

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The Cold War, 19451990

• Conflicts, crises, and coups
• Rise of the Third World
• NATO forms to combat USSR hegemony (Warsaw Pact)
• Bretton Woods lowered trade barriers among
  member states

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The Cold War, 19451990

• GATT- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
  (WTO)
• IMF-US tied to gold and all other currencies
  were tied to the - Go US
• World Bank-Fostered development in developing
  nations.
• Created an integrated international economy
  Peace

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The Cold War, 19451990

• Warsaw Pact- military alliance formed by the USSR
  to include its satellite states
• Comecon-(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance)
  Economic alliance formed by the USSR and its
  satellite states

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The Cold War, 19451990

• Interests
• Superpowers and allies sought to maximize global
  influence
• All countries sought gains in wealth
• Interactions
• Bipolar structure turned more pluralistic
• Coercive diplomacy slowly yielded to bargaining
• Brinkmanship- Berlin Airlift/ Cuban Missile
  Crisis
• Decolonization
• Institutions
• U.S.-supported institutions survived
• Soviet institutions lacked legitimacy

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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PostCold War, 1991Present
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PostCold War, 1991Present

• Collapse of the USSR
• Cooperation
• Economic Developments
• Regional Trade Agreements
• EU growsEuro
• Free Trade Agreements NAFTA

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PostCold War, 1991Present

• Diplomatic Challenges
• Ethnic and regional conflict
• Non-state actors
• Transnational issues (environment, human
  trafficking, narcoterrorism)
• Who is the enemy????

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PostCold War, 1991Present

• Interests
• States increasingly focus on wealth gains through
  trade and investment
• Rise of non-state actors with diverse goals
• Interactions
• Complex interdependence
• Weak states often bargain with global
  institutions
• Institutions
• UN and global financial and trade institutions
• NGOs participate

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What Shaped Our World?

1. Cooperation Through History
2. The Mercantilist Era, 14921815
3. The Pax Britannica, 18151914
4. The Thirty Years Crisis, 19141945
5. The Cold War, 19451990
6. PostCold War, 1991Present
7. Future Trends and Challenges

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Future Trends and Challenges

• Predominance of the United States
• Globalization

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Future Trends and Challenges

• US political Challenges in the 21st century
• Military, political and ethnic conflicts
• Environmental costs
• Nuclear proliferation
• Financial crises
• Power shifts

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