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Why is the world divided up into states?

Why is the world divided up into states?. Some definitional review: What are “nations,” “nation states,” “civilizations,” and globalizations?

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Why is the world divided up into states?

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  1. Why is the world divided up into states? • Some definitional review: What are “nations,” “nation states,” “civilizations,” and globalizations? • What are states?:“A relatively small number of relatively large political units that are considered to be independent, recognizing no binding, higher political authority” • What is sovereignty and where did it come from? (Three key ideas): • Domestic autonomy • Intl. recognition regardless of regime type • What about “popular sovereignty” and self-determination • Strong, weak, and stateless states: The US as an example

  2. WHERE DID STATES COME FROM? When did they become the norm?: • Some nation states have been around for a long time: Persia (Iran) and China • Mainland Europe: States developed mainly between 1400 and 1600, rising from semi-independent kingdoms, principalities, and duchies (Germany, for example, in the 1870s) Why did modern states develop? • The commercial revolution (1200’s +); the state as a provider of public goods • States as collective security and instruments of public aggression: Gunpowder, standing armies (1400s) • Important developments that made big states possible: The printing press, bureaucracy, taxes, and international shipping (15th C) • The invention and triumph of the nation state: France under Napoleon

  3. ARE INTL. ORGANIZATIONS GOING TO REPLACE THE STATE? What do IOs do? Where do the supplement states? • Above all else, they serve the interests of powerful states in most cases—either because of formal rules or resources • Why would strong states support IOs in any form? They give powerful states a venue and procedures to deal with one another • Ios can help with burden sharing (e.g., peacekeeping); dealing with important, but non-regional issues; and providing the veneer of neutrality. • They are helpful for recurring issues that impact different places (i.e., they help set up SOPs). Example: Refugees, disaster relief, voting crisis, coups, and fraudulent elections. • They are venues for weaker countries—especially belligerent ones—to keep them in the game • They help to establish norms and institutions that facilitate all kinds of international coordination (but that means that they undermine the need for hegemons)

  4. ARE INTL. ORGANIZATIONS GOING TO REPLACE THE STATE? • Do we have anything like world government now? No. The closest that we have to that is the European Union. • Intl. finance organizationsare designed to prevent communism, mass poverty & war: • Bretton Woods (1947), the World Bank, the UN, the IMF, and GATT/WTO • Intl. security organizations: • The UN/the Security Council (Great power systems) versus NATO (collective security systems) • Intl. laws and norms are developing that guarantee protections for failed states even when states can’t protect themselves… We’re also seeing some limited support for R2P (responsibility to protect). One fairly bright spot: the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

  5. IS GLOBALIZATION MAKING STATES LESS RELEVANT? • Thomas Friedman: “The world is flat,” meaning that space and intl. boundaries don’t matter much anymore • 7 big areas of change that allow globalization: Interdependence, a new transportation infrastructure, miniaturization, the information revolution, the free flow of ideas, intl. corporations, & democratization • How has globalization impacted the developed and developing world so far? The win-win thesis: Comparative advantage, catch up opportunities, snowball effects, decreasing war… The bottom line: 1 billion people out of poverty since 1990. • The race to the bottom thesis: Why can’t states do what they want (tax, spend, and protect their populations) anymore? • Which problems have becom too big for states? Crime, terrorism, proliferation, & protecting the environment • What can we do about the proliferation of micro states, “stateless societies,” and groups that have almost state-like status? What are the advantages to some groups of staying “stateless”?

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