Today we talk about the role of ideas in international relations.

-when ideas are strong enough to motivate people and get them to act in certain ways
 

-most important such idea, for IR, is nationalism
 

I. Nations and Nationalism

A. 3 factors that make a group of people a nation

1. group must share similarities

-race

- religion

- language
 

2. feeling of community

- we share something in common with Canada, but we do not feel the same sense of community
 

3. desire to be separate

- this is what differentiates say Italian-Americans (who share numbers 1 & 2) from a nation--> they do not want to be separate

- this makes the decade-long struggle in the former Yugoslavia very much a struggle between nations
 

B. Application difficulties

1) nationalism defined: the political force that propels a nation to want a separate state, a separate government
 

2) is Puerto Rican a separate nation ?

-at least for those who want a separate Puerto Rico, they would say it is

-but the vast majority of Puerto Ricans do not want to separate

3) Quebecois

-almost nationalism, but ebbs and flows
 

C. What is the basis of nationalism?

1) nationalism based on legitimacy of democracy

-people decide for themselves what they want and who will rule them

-but in history, nationalism has not always meant democracy--> in fact, dictators have been very effective at exploiting nationalism
 
 
 

II. Nationalism in Historical Perspective

A. Ancient history

1) tribalism: essentially similar to nationalism only on a smaller scale

-so in Biblical times it began as families, expanded to tribes, and then gradually to nations, as the numbers of people increased

2) Israel became a nation made up of 12 tribes
 

3) Roman empire: started as a tribe, then they unified latinate provinces, then spread to conquer other tribes and other nations
 

4) but with the collapse of the Roman empire (476 in the West, 500 years later in Constantinople), the system reverted back to an almost tribal period

-i.e. the state structure was smaller than nations, or at least did not follow national lines
 

B. Early Modern

1) as we have discussed several times before, nation-state (and so nationalism) in the modern period began with Peace of Westphalia in 1648
 

2) US and French revolutions folded in the idea of sovereignty resting with the people: "republic" res publica
 
 
 

C. 19th century: contradictory impulses

1) pro-nationalism:

* from a European perspective, this was a time of great resurgence of nationalism

* Italy: all the many little principalities and city states that had traded hands in wars for 500 years began to bind together in a single nation

-father of modern italy, Giueseppi Garibaldi

-music played a big role in forging a national consensus

* Germany: even more important for world events

-Prussia, most powerful German state, began under Bismarck to bring all the other German states under its control

-writings of Hegel, Goethe, music of Wagner, etc. praising Germanic values

-1866 war against Austria

-1870 Franco-Prussian war, Germany grabs Alsace-Lorraine

(a) deep root cause of the major conflicts of the 20th century

* rising tide of nationalism in Balkans starts to break down the great multi-national empires of Europe

-Austro-Hungary

-Ottoman Empire

-Russian

2) anti-nationalism: imperialism

-from a global perspective: the view is more mixed

-European nationalism balanced by the great imperial race in Africa

* dividing up the African continent and the Far East among the European powers

* paid no attention to local/regional nations and tribes. Drew the maps in Europe

-these two things (growth of nationalism in Europe and a growth of imperialism in the rest of the world) were linked, as we shall see in greater detail later in the course

D. World War I

1) great triumph of nationalism, at least in Europe

-confirms the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and Ottoman empire

2) creates all the tiny Eastern European states that disappeared during the Cold War and are only now coming back

3) however, did not do much for nationalism in the rest of the world
 

E. World War II

1) contradictory impulse #1: people blamed the horrible carnage of two world wars on virulent nationalism

- especially German nationalism--> Hitler wanted to unite all the Germanic peoples under one state, unfortunately for Austria/Poland/Czechoslovakia etc. the Germans were living in other countries

* solution, invade and join them

- thought the world was coming to see that what was needed was something greater than nationalism, supra-national authority

- hence, the UN would overcome the pettiness of nationalist competition that had led to war

- ergo mild anti-nationalism
 

2) contradictory impulse #2: WWII breaks the back of colonialism and frees up all the old French, Belgian, British, German, etc. colonies

-waves of wars of national liberation

* most famous--> Vietnam

* also Malaysia, Algeria, Congo, etc.

-all these new countries embark on "nation-building"-->forging a national consensus

-they showed little interest in supra-nationalism

-rather wanted to forge a nation, even when they were very artificially created

* eg. Uganda has had nearly continual civil war between the various tribes
 

F. End of the Cold War

1) again contradictory impulse #1:

-some people saying nationalism is on the way out

-cite growth of European Union, many nations uniting under a common supranational authority
 

2) contradictory impulse #2:

-suppressed nationalism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is finally being expressed

- real fear that this would replicate the virulent nationalism of the late 19th and early 20th century

* centuries old disputes being raked up
 
 
 

III. Nationalism in Analytical perspective
 

* nationalism is a major force in stimulating a country to act in one way or another
 

B. Nationalism as a constraint

1) let me put a different spin on it--> nationalism as a constraint in international relations
 

2) it is a force but it is a force that is greater than and somewhat separate from individual states

3) it works within a state when it causes their break up:

-multinational states--> eg. Soviet Union, Canada

4) it works across states when:

-multi-state nationalities--> eg. the growth of German nationalism with Germans scattered over a variety of states

- hot new example: ethnic Russians scattered throughout the republics of the former Soviet Union--> major source of instability

-Pan-Arabism, largely ineffectual
 

5) it works between states when it frames part of the national interest--> i.e. the goals that the nation will pursue
 

6) but maybe it is correct also to think of it as working almost independent of states

* it is a force that leaders must reckon with when they try to craft foreign policy or negotiate with their enemies and allies

-nationalism destroyed the careful system that had evolved in the 19th century to regulate conflict between the Great Powers in Europe

as we shall see in a few lectures

-it narrows, constrains, options for the leaders
 

7) are there other forces like nationalism that work this way in international relations? yes

-religion

-ideologies

IV. Isms as constraints

A. Religion

1) not discussing "ethics" or morals.

-save that for later lecture

2) rather when religion substitutes for national identity as a force for group identity
 

3) religion used to be a main driver of war in the international system

-that gradually ebbed with the establishment of the modern nation-state system
 

4) waned with the "Enlightenment" and "Age of Reason" which discredited somewhat the influence of super-rational things like religion
 

5) resurgent in the 1970s with resurgence of radical Islamist movements (first in Iran, later spreading)

-religious divisions in the Middle East as important, if not more important, than national divisions

-radical Islamist movements pose prime challenges to international security

* plays out in a variety of issues:

(a) terrorism, obviously

(b) nuclear proliferation

(c) fate of the Central Asian republics

(d) oil policy
 

6) also, religious right in the US had a significant electoral impact in the 1980s and they helped frame the foreign policy of the Reagan administration
 

B. Ideologies

1) Marxism/Leninism

(a) next to religion, perhaps the single most important ideology for international relations

(b) takes economics as the fundamental force in the human relations

(c) classifies people according to their economic position: eg. working class (proletariat) and middle class (bourgeois)

(d) says that all power structures have been established to exploit the proletariat for the sake of the upper classes

(e) assumes that the common interests of the proletariat and the elites bind them across nationalities and across religions

-i.e. French and German elites have more in common than do French elite and French proletariat

(f) proletariat must rise up in a world revolution to seize power, via the state, and rewrite economic relations

(g) tempting to dismiss it as irrelevant since it has been so thoroughly discredited

-i.e. temptation to think that few people outside of the UWC really buy this anymore

-but this would be a mistake

-communism/Marxism is not dead, indeed former communists regaining a foothold in former Warsaw Pact countries

-two great strengths that may permit it to resurrect:

i. expectations of many former Marxists for capitalism were hopelessly inflated. They were bound to be disappointed and so they are now looking back to Marxism

ii. Marxism-Leninism proved to be the most effective tool of oppression by certain elites. The world is full of absolutely ruthless people who are attracted to the oppressive features of Marxism-Leninism

-active Marxist or quasi-Marxist insurgencies in Colombia and Nepal. In Nepal, especially, Maoists quite likely to win.
 

2) capitalism

-I assume people understand this, will leave for discussion section
 

3) Social Darwinism

- belief in the idea of survival of the fittest

- adaption of Darwin's theories of evolution (that only the fittest of the species survive--so the monkeys that can reason better survive and gradually you get smarter monkeys until you get Tar Heels and then finally Dukies) to IR

- fittest nations survive

- so international relations is a contest among nations--> strong will prevail and gobble up the weak

-also tinged with racism (a different form of ideology but with obvious overlaps)

-major force/constraint in international relations in the late 19th century. lead to imperialism
 

C. How do these other isms work

1) they provide an agenda for action

-they are a major motivating force in international relations

2) they create divisions

-separate the world into us/them

3) they create avenues for conflict

-because they are usually sharply defined, it is easy to see who disagrees with you and disagreements can lead to conflict

-identify who is the enemy and who is your friend

* i.e. who you should conflict with and who you should cooperate with

-thus they frustrate cooperation

4) does this mean that they are necessarily bad and should be stopped

-first of all, that is a bit of a silly question since there is probably no way to stop them, they are an inevitable part of the human condition

-second, they are about real things

* the things which separate Christians and Moslems, Jews and Moslems, Buddhists and Christians, etc.are REAL.

* you may say the differences need not be too great

* but for the devout, the stakes are high--> eternal life is nothing to sneeze at

* the difference between communism and capitalism is real

-do not assume, as you go through the course, that conflict is by definition bad and cooperation is by definition good.

* cooperation with Hitler is not a virtue

* I stress all of this because these constraints tend to be slighted in the study of international relations

-tend to skip them and move to the study of wars and economics

-but they are important and they crop up again and again

-cannot explain some wars without referring to them

* ditto for trade

-obviously, cannot explain September 11 without explaining the virulent ideology that motivated terrorists
 

V. Ethnocentrism and the study of IR

* ethnocentrism: as we use the term, we do not mean a force that motivates international relations. Rather, we are discussing something that afflicts the study of international relations
 

* ethnocentrism goes by many definitions.

* some versions of ethnocentrism are not necessarily bad

-eg. it is ethnocentric to focus on US and European affairs, as we do in this course.

-but that is not so bad since you cannot include everything and US and European politics have dominated international relations

-so some ethnocentrism is inevitable--> perhaps it should be minimized, but it doesn't end the conversation
 

* but some ethnocentrism causes real problems with understanding international relations: TWO EXAMPLES
 

(1) mirror-imaging

-assuming that other countries behave the way you do

-eg. taking explanations based on US domestic politics and assuming that the Soviets are acting for the same reasons and with the same results
 

(2) demonology

-automatically attributing evil intentions, nefarious results to your opponent

-this goes on all the time in international relations

*lefties in Berkeley do this with the US

* the U.S. does this to Saddam

(3) some tend to overcompensate with yet another ethnocentric fallacy: moral equivalence

* so you get silly people saying that there is no moral difference between Saddam and the United States

* eg. Susan Sontag post-9-11 writings