St.

Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

WEEK 4: GLOBAL INTERSTATE SYSTEM

History of Global Politics: Creating an International Order Governance
- The world is composed of many countries or states, all of them having different forms of government.
- Some scholars of politics are interested in individual states and examine the internal politics of these
countries. Other scholars are more interested in the interactions between states rather than their
internal politics.
Internalization
- Exploring the deepening of interactions between states.

The Attributes of Today’s Global System

1. There are countries or states that are independent and govern themselves.
2. These countries interact with each other through diplomacy.
3. There are international organizations like United Nations (UN) that facilitate these interactions.
4. Beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international organizations also take on lives of
their own.
Origin of the System

STATE NATION
➢ Refers to a country and its government. ➢ Imagine community
➢ Often limit themselves to people who have
Four Attributes imbibed a particular culture, speak a
1. It exercises authority over a specific common language, and live in a specific
population called Citizens. territory.
2. It governs specific territory.
3. Has a structure of government that crafts
various rules that people/ society follow.
4. The state has sovereignty over its territory.
Sovereignty refers to the internal and
external authority.

The Interstate Systems

Treaty of Westphalia
- set of agreements signed in 1648 to end the Thirty Years’ War between the major continental powers of
Europe.
- designed by Spain, France, Sweden, and Dutch Republic, that would avert wars in the future by recognizing
that the treaty signers exercise complete control over their domestic affairs and swear not to meddle in each
other’s affairs.
- provided stability for the nations of Europe.
 St. Anthony’s College
San Jose, Antique
High School Department

The Concrete of Europe / Metternich System

- alliance of “great powers” (United Kingdom, Austria, Russia, Prussia) that sought to restore the world of
monarchical, heredity, and religious privileges of that time before the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
- alliance that restore the sovereignty of states.
- Klemens Von Metternich, the architect of this alliance.
- Concert’s power and Authority lasted from 1815-1914, at the dawn of World War 1.

Internationalism
- the desire for greater cooperation and unity among states and peoples.

LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM
➢ The major thinker of this form is Immanuel Kant.
➢ Kant linked states in global system to people living in a given territory.
➢ He argued that without a form of world government the international system would be chaotic
➢ Therefore, the states, like citizens of countries, must give up some freedoms and establish a
continuously growing state consisting of various nations which will ultimately include the nations of the
world.

Jeremy Bentham
- a British philosopher who coined the word “INTERNATIONAL”, advocated the creation of “international law”
that would govern the inter-state relations.
- he believed that objective global legislators should aim to propose legislation that would create “the greatest
happiness of all nations taken together.”

Giuseppe Mazzini
- the first thinker to reconcile nationalism with liberal internationalism.
- he was both an advocate of the unification of the various Italian-speaking mini-states and a major critic of the
Metternich system.
- he believed that in a Republican government should proposed a system of free nations that cooperated with
each other to create an international system.
- for him, free, independent states would be the basis of an equally free, cooperative international system.

Woodrow Wilson
- President of United States (1913-1921), who forwarded the principle of self-determination, the belief that the
world’s nations had a right to a free, and sovereign government.
- notable for the creation of League of Nations, he pushed to transform the league into a venue for conciliation
and arbitration to prevent another war.
- he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.

SOCIALIST INTERNALISM
Karl Marx
- a internationalist but not a believer in nationalism.
- he did not divide the world into countries, but into class
CAPITALIST CLASS PROLETARIAT CLASS
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San Jose, Antique
High School Department

➢ Owners of factories, companies, and other ➢ Included those who did not own the means
“means of production.” of production, but instead, worked for the
capitalists.
- he died in 1883, but his followers sought to make his vision concrete by establishing their international
organization The Socialist International (SI), which is a union of European socialist and labor parties established
in Paris in 1889.
- SI’s achievements included the declaration of May 1 as Labor Day and the creation of an International
Women’s Day. It also initiated the successful campaign for an 8-hour workday.

Vladimir Lenin
- leader of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics/ Bolshevik Party.
- Bolshevik did not believe in obtaining power for the working class through elections, rather, they exhorted the
revolutionary “vanguard” parties to lead the revolutions across the world, using methods of terror if necessary
(Communist Parties).
- established the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919, which served as the central body for directing
Communist parties all over the world. This International was less democratic because it followed closely the top-
down governance of the Bolsheviks.
- after the war, Stalin re-established the Comintern as the Communist Information Bereau (Cominform)

WEEK 4: THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Global Governance
- Is a movement towards political cooperation among transnational actors, aimed at negotiating
responses to problems that affect more than one state or regions.
- refers to the various intersecting processes that create international orders.
- There are many sources of global governance where states sign treaties and form organizations, in the
process legislating public international laws.
International Organization
- Financial institutions that have been established by more than one country that offers assistance to low
countries to boost one’s economy.
- The term is commonly used to refer to international organizations or groups that are primarily made up
of member-states.
Powers of International Organizations
1. Power of classification
- They can invent and apply categories; they create powerful global standards.
2. Power to fix meanings.
- Various terms like “security” or “development” need to be well-defined, because states,
organizations, and individuals view IO’s as legitimate sources of information.
3. Power to diffuse norms.
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San Jose, Antique
High School Department

- Norms are the accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict law, but nevertheless produce
regularity in behavior.
- Spread ideas across the world, thereby establishing global standards.

Example:
World Bank economists come to be regarded as experts in development and thus carry some form
of authority, therefore, they can create norms regarding the implementation and conceptualization
of development projects.
The United Nations
- Created in 1945, after the fall of The League of Nations.
- Maintain International peace, security, and cooperation.
- It is a bureaucracy of the UN serving as kind of international civil service.
5 ACIVE ORGANS OF UN
1. The General Assembly (GA)
➢ UN’s main deliberate policymaking and representative organ.
➢ Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members, and
budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the GA.
➢ Elects GA president annually.
➢ Carlos P. Romulo was the first Filipino elected as GA president from 1949-1950.

2. Security Council (SC)

➢ Most powerful organ of UN.
➢ Consists of 15 member states to which countries of China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United
States are permanent five (P5) members of this organ that cannot be replaced through election.
➢ Takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or an act of aggression.
➢ It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle the act by peaceful means of settlement.

3. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

➢ The principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue, and recommendations on social and
environmental issues, as well as the implementation of internationally agreed development goals.
➢ It has 54 members elected for 3 years term.

4. International Court of Justice (ICJ)

➢ its task is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to its states and to give
advisory opinions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.
➢ The major cases of the court consist of disputes between states that voluntarily submit themselves to
the court for arbitration.

5. The Secretariat
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San Jose, Antique
High School Department

➢ Consists of Secretary-General and tens of thousands of international UN staff members who carry out
the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the organization’s other
principal organs.
➢ Members of the secretariat serve in their capacity as UN employees and not as state representatives.

The Challenges of the United Nations

1. Limits placed upon its various organs and programs by the need to respect state sovereignty.
2. The UN is not a world government, and it functions primarily because of voluntary cooperation from
states. So, if states refuse to cooperate, the influence of the UN can be severely circumscribed.
3. The biggest challenge of the UN is related to issues of security.