SECOND LEARNING LOG ENTRY

Racism in the Modern International Order

This learning log entry deals with the analysis of racism as one of the inequality factors

presented into the modern international order. “The “scientific” racism is one concept proposed

after the rise of the modern international order, which claims that it is possible and desirable to

establish a political hierarchy based on biological markers” (Lawson, 2017). Markers as the skin

colour, the bloodline and the ethnics have been considered to establish the hierarchy among

people.

First of all, the concept and situation of racism have begun to be considered into the

international relations studies with the imperialist expansion. This empire conception, also

known as “race subjection” (Vitalis, 2015), was the first situation in which racial affairs affected

the relations between nations-states. The European expansion into Africa and Asia was identified

as the first racial issue in the IR studies.

Moreover, the race subjection seen into the European imperialist expansion leads to a concept

called “the standard of civilization”. This conception was devised and used by the Europeans to

defend their self-declared right of control and colonize non-Europeans territories (Linklater,

2016). Besides the official aim of the standard of civilization, the Europeans sought to improve

the culture of the societies they considered as uncivilized. These societies used to be darker-

skinned, to have different beliefs to Christianism and have lack of “high culture” (Linklater,

2016), demonstrating the racist ideas used by the Europeans to reach their objectives.

Therefore, the European ideas of standard of civilization and the race subjections leads to

mass emigrations to white majority population countries, such as Canada, Russia, UK and so on.
The emigrations created some rules, which saw the white elites as superiors over indigenous and

immigrants, changing not only the populations distribution among the world, but also the laws

and regulations into several nation states (Lawson, 2017).

In conclusion, all the proposals about the biological based hierarchy had important influences

into the international order. By the expansion and the gradual acceptation of these ideas almost

all societies have accepted this idealism, making a change in the international order. The

scientific racism could be consolidated.

During the writing process of this learning log entry, I improved my skills in reading and

comparing three texts, which I chose for reference this learning log. Establishing relationships

and linkages between two or more of the texts I analysed for the writing of this learning log.

Bibliography

Lawson, G. (2017). The rise of modern international order. In J. Baylis, P. Owens, & S. Smith,

The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (pp. 37-

51). Oxford.

Linklater, A. (2016). The "Standard of Civilisation" in Worlds Politics. Michigan Publishing.

Vitalis, R. (2015). A Mongrel American Social Science. In R. Vitalis, White World Order, Black

Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations (pp. 1-23). Cornell

University Press.