Samenvatting History of International Relations

Week 1 – Introduction
History of International Relations: Why?
Why is it useful for social scientists to study history?
o To understand what happens now and could eventually influence the future
o To learn from the past and see what went wrong in the past
o See evolution and in this way, you can make historical observations, compare situations
o To create/research general theories
3 arguments:
1. The present is laden with the past (historical legacies)
o If you research particular societies, you will see that some societies appear to be marked by their history.
Their identities/practices/way of handling problems is marked by the past they have been through. If
things have been institutionalized for a very long time it will be extremely difficult to get rid of these
(political) traditions  this claim is expressed in words such as ‘post-colonialism, post-communism
o E.g. ‘post-communist societies’: current situation is explained by the 50 years of communism  because
we had communism for so long, explains how we act today (they still have elements of the past)
o E.g. ‘post-colonial relations’: Belgium and Congo have developed certain attitudes because of colonialism.
structure of colonial relations between colonized and colonizer from the past lingers in the present (feelings of
superiority/ inferiority continue to be reproduced
 it is extremely difficult to identify a historical legacy and to assess the relative weight that
legacy in relation to other historical legacies

2. History serves as a resource for political memories
o E.g. Kiev and Russian foreign policy claims: Russia justifies actions against Ukraine with
references to distant history
o “Kiev used to be the capitol of Russia therefore the war is legitimised”  memory wars
“when we think about a conflict, we have to historicize it properly”
Political memories = ways of remembering the past, aspects of the past being remembered
o Shared by people with different backgrounds who often didn’t experience the memories
o Memories are selective, all memories include an element of forgetting
 Based on ‘selection and exclusion’  usually only the good/heroic ones are remembered
o Propagated by ‘memory activists’: don’t grow naturally, people have to talk about them
 motivated by political projects (groups who support something that is important to them)
 E.g. What about Israel keeping the holocaust 'alive' to justify the state of Israel?  Israel is very clearly
a memory activist at the international level concerning the holocaust. It is not wrong of Israel to be a
memory activist; it is normal that there is competition between memory activists
o Depends on the ‘efficiency of political pedagogy’
 You need access to institutional resources = you will have to institutionalise your understanding of the
past. As long as alternative view is not included in textbooks at schools, universities, there is very little
change the memory activists will succeed.
o Show a high degree of ‘homogeneity’ because of the propaganda
 e.g. wat je het meest leest in handboeken, maar er zullen altijd stemmen zijn die dat tegenspreken. Er
kan dan ook gesteld worden dat de mate waarin een society toelaat om alternatieve benaderingen te
betrekken, des te democratischer de samenleving is.)
o Relies on symbols and rites that ‘enhance emotions of empathy and identification’
3. History reveals the fundamental contingency of contemporary social and political arrangements
You are confronted with other types of ruling other types of ideas that you are not familiar with
o E.g. ‘gender equality’ (isn’t a natural truth) or ‘natural slavery’ (it was a widely shared idea)
o We discover that ways of organising society have developed over the centuries - can
evolve in the future
4. History reveals the context-specificity of scholarly knowledge claims
o E.g. ‘the balance of power’, ‘the democratic peace’
o Some researchers claim to have found a universal law, but history shows us the opposite happens

What is the class of history of international relations about

, • IR as a scholarly discipline is ‘presentist’
o Reduces international history to 20th century, 1648 (and European colonialism)
• IR as a scholarly discipline is ‘Eurocentric’ - European point of view
o History is mostly identified with European history
o Non-European countries are typically colonial countries with “no history” before we came.

Is it a problem that IR as a discipline betrays a ‘presentist’ and a ‘Eurocentric bias’?
o One-sided arguments
o Misunderstandings
 Can help diplomacy to know the other’s historical view
 it is a problem
• Non-Western powers are re-asserting themselves - distribution of power internationally is
changing
o Present laden with the past (it is impossible to study the present without knowing the past) (1)
o Historical memory (2)

• What is the logic of the international system? - some institutions are inevitable, we can’t think them away
o Contingency of present arrangements (3) – (it is different today and it probably will be more different in
the future)
o Context-specificity of knowledge claims (4

What is an ‘international system’?
What is ‘the logic’ of the international system?
= group of political units with a degree of independence, who interact with each other and are
somehow dependent on one another and take each other into account
• Basic unit: state - sovereign state
• Social practices: borders, flags, anthems
• Rules & norms: sovereign equality
• Implications: anarchy, security
dilemma, violence
 this is how we see international
relations, but there is a lot historically
wrong about this map
o Every state looks out for
its own security
· Can’t rely on allies for this
o Security dilemma = improving security scares other states, so they feel
threatened and do the same

! But this is an inadequate portrayal that generalizes too readily from European experience

It shows that a state has to be homogeneous, but there has always been migration…

Comparative international systems
System = made up of units that act independently of each other, at the same time the behaviour of one unit in the
system always depends on the behaviour of all the others, they are part of the same environment.
 The behaviour of one unit in the system always depends on the behaviour of all the others.

What is an international system?
 it is a system which is made up of political entities - we usually call them ‘states’ – which act independently of each
other at the same time as they are forced to consider the actions of all other entities in the system.
 They act on their own, but also always together with, and in relation to, all the others.
 The international system provides an environment which determines, in broad outline, what political entities do
and what they cannot do
 The logic of the international system is expressed in institutions, rules and norms.

, It is no longer possible using contemporary data when doing a comparative study of international systems, since
today the only international system the European one is.
 And through colonialism other international systems were destroyed
 therefore, it must be a historical study for it to be comparative

Institutions, rules and norms
 The state is the basic unit and is the subject of international politics
 From the 17th century, states have been thought of as ‘sovereign’
 Sovereignty is a basic institution of the European international system
o Implies a number of social practices and administrative arrangements
o Sovereign state = a state which exercises supreme authority within a given territory.
o Such as border to guard and control, passports to be issued, and flags and national anthems
 Rules: all states have the same status as members of the same (international) system (equal to each other)
 Norms: sovereignty must be respected  states should not interfere in each other’s domestic affairs.
 There is no common authority  anarchy
 The European international system is an anarchical international system
o States are permanently insecure
o War is a constant threat
o The European international system has been extraordinary violent

In non-European international systems, borders and territory have been defined differently and have a different
meaning, since land was abundant, possessing a particular piece of land was not a crucial concern
o Where a border should be drawn between 2 countries may matter far less than the relationship which both of
them have towards a powerful state in the center of the system

In the European system too, there are not only states but many other political entities, and here also empires have
often played a prominent role

Stateless societies
Stateless societies = nomads were constantly on the move and thus it was difficult for political authorities to exercise
control over them  That is why, as a result, hunters and gatherers lived in ‘stateless’ societies
 Because of the introduction of farming states have appeared. Before that, humans (hunters and gatherers) moved
around in response to the seasonal variations in the availability of food.
 Only temporary buildings
 More varied diet
 Since the buildings they constructed were only temporary there are very few ruins. It is therefore said
they have no history (yet = 95% of human history)

Around 3000 years BCE the transition to agriculture and the rise of the state started a great improvement on the
nomadic condition of statelessness.
 this led to the human acquirement of a culture and that human history began
 Pastoralists were people (nomadic) who kept animals such as sheep, cow and horses. Their animals graze
the land, and when they ran out of food in one place, their owners moved in order to find new grassland.
 This made them difficult to tax and they have little respect for borders
 Farmers were far easier to subdue and exploit
o Because they live in a particular place and cultivate a piece of land.
o After harvest  tax collectors dispatched by king show up and demand their due.
o This is how first states were established in the valleys of the great rives Tigris, Nile (Around 3000
years BCE)

Walls and bridges
Sedentary people: the opposite of nomadic people, people who stay/live at the same place
 Nomadic peoples that periodically swept into China, India and Europe looted, killed and destroyed
 One thing in particular they destroyed: fences
 To pastoralists, fences that farmers build around their plot (perceel) were offensive as they prevented
grazing animals from moving around.
 Notorious destroyers of culture

, o When Genghis Khan entered Bukhara (1220)
 Rounded up all inhabitants in city’s main mosque
 Informed them that he was punishment sent by God
 Killed them all
o Mongols in Baghdad (1258)
 Destroyed libraries
 Killed scholars, poets and artists
 Put an end to era to be remembered as “the Arab Golden Age”
o Yet, it might be unfair to call Mongols and other nomadic tribes “barbarian”  better perhaps:
they have a “different outlook on life”
Compare it to: The close connection between culture and agriculture:
 “Culture” refers to cultivation
o = the tilling of the land
o To cultivate a plant is to care for it and make it grow
o We drive stakes into the ground and build fences that separate what is ours from that which belongs
to others + to protect
 Cultures, we believe, must be nurtured and protected in the same fashion
 A culture is always our culture
o It belongs to people like us and to the place where we live
o The walls that surround us protect our way of life and allow us to continue to be who we are

# kinds of international systems
Some international systems have been surrounded by walls
 Actual and metaphorical  interaction with rest of the world = limited
 International system isolated from external influences
o Independent and self sufficient
o Example: the international system of the Americas (also China for periods)
 In which different societies had some contact with each other, but developed in complete
isolation from the rest of the world.

But there are also opposite kind of international systems:
 Some international systems are outward-looking and expansive
o Seek to connect different parts of the world with each other
o Examples:
 The Mongol Khanates (13th century)
 Arabs (7th century)
o An international system can be outward-looking and expansive without being violent!
 For example: the international systems that have existed around the Indian Ocean
People here have interacted with each other from the earliest times This is how civilization spreads (religion
spreads, goods, ideas) “Indianization”
 When our society is connected to other societies, we are connected to other people, and we can
suddenly compare things and judge them in relation to each other.
Civilization = the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that’s considered most advanced.
 Society is connected to other societies – people are connected to other people
 Choice between better and cheaper options, we can pick new things because we compare
 Depends on circulation of goods, people, ideas, faiths, and ways of life
 Civilization provides us with a means of escape (exchange is the enemy of culture)
 When presented with alternatives  we give up our old ways
 Civilization undermines and destroys culture – contradictory effects
o Muslim in Andalus: origins of Flamenco + translation movement


Europeans were not that interested in trade, but with the rise of the sovereign state around 1500, this changed
 little by little they acquired colonies overseas. In the 13th century, the books of the Great
Library in Cordoba were translated and became available in Latin for the first time.
 Europeans later referred to this as the “Renaissance”
 destroyed the culture of the Middle Ages, but it civilized Europe (better educated, health,