Week 1

States, nations, countries and

international order
 IR- 3 Issue Areas
1. relations between states
2. non-state or transnational relations across
frontiers
3. operations of the international system as a
whole

• Fred Halliday
• Collective actors- groups of individuals with
enough centralized decision-making ability to:
• 1. reproduce their groups over time
• 2. be treated as individuals for the purpose of
analysis
 States
• States- political and administrative
organizations that govern territories and
populations
• Skocpol-defines states as a set of
“administrative, policing and military
organizations headed and more or less well-
coordinated by an executive authority”
• Refer to diagram p.11
 Sovereignty
• State’s ability:
• To exercise control over the peoples and territories
it claims to rule
• Defend itself against interference by other states
and foreign actors
• So 2 priorities:
• 1. maintain order within the state- police and
bureaucracy
• 2. maintain independence- diplomats and military
 4 criteria for Sovereignty
1. Govern over a permanent population
2. Govern over a defined territory
3. Govt. capable of exercising authority over people
and territory
4. Receive recognition from other states and
engage in diplomacy with them
e.g. Islamic State (IS)- not recognised by other states
(and so its sovereignty is not recognised) and is
therefore vulnerable to attack.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04axDDRVy_o

• this video link gives a good summary about the Rohingya

crisis. It demonstrates the plight of stateless nations. This
group does not have a state dedicated too their protection,
and are left vulnerable to attack by government forces (in
this case the Myanmar govt.) The large-scale ethnic cleansing
of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar since 2017 has been made
possible by the Rohingya's exclusion from the civic national
identity of Myanmar which denies the citizenship on the
basis of their ethnic and religious identity.
 Nation
• A nation is a group of individuals who think of
themselves as linked by a shared identity.
• Shared identity can be based on: language, culture,
religion to citizenship
• Nations- do not possess sovereignty
• Nations are often associated with states which use
nationalism to create a sense of unity amongst their
population
• When states use nationalism to unify a state’s
population it can lead to the creation of a nation- state
 Nations and States
• All states and even nation-states:
• Can include groups who do not share the state’s dominant identity
• Cultural and linguistic minorities e.g. France- Basques and Bretons consider
themselves distinct from the main French nation
• Also consider multinational states e.g. Canada (e.g. Pakistani-Canadian and
French-Canadian so “Canadian” is the civic identity while “Pakistani” or
“French” is an ethnic identity)
• Human ability to identify with two or more national groups at the same time
• Civic nationalism- civic nations tend to be united by their population’s shared
loyalty towards the state (e.g. the Canadian state)
• Civic identity based on citizenship (e.g. you have Canadian citizenship)
• Ethnic nationalism- nations united by the population’s shared loyalty to a
single ethnic, religious or linguistic group
• Nations can exist within or outside states or be
transnational actors (cross the over one or
more international borders) e.g. Kurdistan
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZB9Hqo
HaaU

• Sub-state actors- exist within a single state’s

jurisdiction E.g. The indigenous First Nations
of Canada
• Is a minority a nation?
• what happens when a nation within a
multinational state decides that it wants to
govern itself
• National self-determination
• Can lead to the collapse of multinational
states
• Lead to birth of new states
 Countries
• Country- Geographical space; refers to the lines and symbols on
a map that represents borders, geographical features, natural
resources and ecosystems
• State-refers to govt.
• Nation- group of people with a shared identity
• So:
• A country can refer to the geographical space/ territory ruled by
a state i.e. the territory over which a state claims jurisdiction.
• A country can also refer to the geographical space/ territory
inhabited by a nation
*jurisdiction- the official power to make legal decisions and judgements.
• A number of states claim authority over nations and
countries that fall outside their “official” international
borders
• E.g. Israel administers territories and populations
beyond its internationally recognized borders.
• A number of states claim authority over nations and
countries that they do not effectively rule or govern
over.
• E.g. govt of Somalia only effectively controls a some
of its territory and populations
• Why do countries matter?
• Actors’ goals and influence are often a
product of concrete material factors.
• Importance of geography to IR
• Geopolitics- politics, especially international
relations, as influenced by geographical factors
(land mass and natural resources).
• E.g. US and China
 Other Factors that Determine Power
• Population
• Economic development
• Technological innovation
• Quality of education
• Role of women in society
• Political stability
• Neighbourhood:
• E.g. Poland surrounded by powerful and hostile states so carved
up btw. Late 18th-mid 20th centuries- “security poor”
• E.g. USA- weak states in North and South and oceans to the East
and West so “security rich”
 International society
• International society- community of international
actors whose relationships are structured by a shared
set of practices and principles
• Influence actors’ behaviour-> established code of
conduct
• Codes of conduct systemized in “formal” treaties
• Treaties vary- sometimes endure (e.g. The Charter of
the United Nations in international law) and
sometimes become “dead letters” (abandoned or
never enforced)
 International Order
• Function of international society to create international order.
• No global govt.
• Every state is sovereign i.e. final legal authority over its own
affairs
• Hence, no international body has the legal right to override
its decisions
• Because no global govt. -> modern international order is
defined by anarchy
• Anarchy- a condition in which there is no central authority
with the power to compel obedience
• Anarchy- doesn’t refer to chaos here
• There is a system of global governance- a loose framework
of treaties, agreements and regimes that shape actors’
behaviour on the international stage
• E.g. human rights, diplomatic immunity (which protects
diplomats from prosecution in foreign courts), rules like the
Geneva Convention, proper handling of prisoners of war to
rules surrounding the transmission of data across the
internet
• States and non-state actors rely on historical examples as
well as treaties and agreements to guide their conduct
• International order can be both predictable and anarchic
• No global judicial system to enforce
• Most members follow the rules most of the time (e.g.
Israel is known to have nuclear weapons, but does not
declare that it does so officially and no sanctions are put
against Israel.)

• Punishments for breaking rules include limited diplomatic

and economic relations, sanctions, all-out war.
• E.g. sanctions on North Korea for testing nuclear weapons