NOTES EUROPE IN A GLOBAL ORDER
Titularies: Marijn Hoijtink and Michiel Foulon
Exam: essay questions
Contemporary issues (e.g.)/learning objectives
- War in Ukraine
- Rise of China and other emerging powers
- Climate change
- Migration
- Technological sovereignty
LECTURE 1
Focus on EU foreign policy in the post-WWII international order, taking a broad
perspective:
- Multilevel: involving the Member States and common institutions
- Multifaceted: compromising the Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) and the Common Security & Defense Policy (CSDP), but also trade,
development, enlargement, migration, environmental policy
- Building on the EU integration theory, but also moving beyond à Focus on
the EU as a sui generis actor and the distinctive nature of its project
Global order?
International orders = “Regularized practices of exchange among discrete
political units that recognize each other to be independent”
Who shapes this order?
à material: like territory and psychical technological infrastructure à for
example railway stations or 5g cell base stations
à ideational: like norms and culture à for example free trade
Today’s international order
= global international order
• Highly interconnected and interdependence
• Dominance of western ideas for example liberal ideas and institutions
Shifts appear: alternative orders proposed by China, Russia and Hungary
à How does Europe respond to these challenges, pursuing its own conception of
world order?
Europe in a global order
A lens to raise questions and to critically reflect:
• How and by whom is the ‘European interest’ presented?
• What is Europe/the EU’s impact in international relations? Is it effective in
forcing change or consolidation?
• If we consider Europe/the EU to be a global power, what are its sources?
• What alternative order does Europe/the EU represent?
• Is this a legitimate global order?
• How is Europe responding to a shifting global order? (e.g. post-
colonialism)
,LECTURE 2 HOW TO THINK ABOUT ORDER
à purposes of this lecture:
- Consider definitions and theoretical approaches to understand order in
international relations
- Investigate historical origins of the modern international order
- Reflect on consequences of the emergence of a modern international
liberal order
- Explore cases of western and non-western orders
Definitions and theoretical approaches
= interactions (between the political units) make up international orders:
regularized practices of exchange between political units. à all international
orders are made up of multiple political units à one of the most noteworthy
aspect of the contemporary international order, is the dominance of western
ideas. à Lawson
à patterned or structured relationships among units
Historical international orders
à historical origins can be traced back to the period when nomadic groups first
settled and became communities
- Trade between groups
- Put groups in risk of attack
à leaders formed which increasingly interacted with their counterparts in other
groups establishing the modern day diplomacy à in the process these
communities generated regularized practices of exchange between political units
à definition of an international order
The ‘order’ definition depends on its purpose à Bull
à can we speak of order based on how the whole of societal actors operate and
are organized?
• Anarchical/hierarchical orders
• Ordering social actors by their features (for example ordering by size) à
maybe these ordering features do not tell us a lot about power
• Rules, norms, culture that organizes how social actors interact
• International organization: end of NATO is end of order?
à Or by the purpose of an order?
• ‘anarchy’ or ‘hierarchy’ is not deterministic
• “order” is relative to its purpose à what is its purpose, why is it created
etc.
• Whether a whole of social actors is orderly depends on its aim and its
purpose
• Books ordered alphabetically can be very disorderly when you are
searching for a specific topic à so it really depends on a purpose à if you
are looking for the most powerful country it is not useful to order the
countries based on military for example
His definition = a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary
goals of the society of states, or international society à a system of states is
formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them and have
sufficient impact on one another’s decisions to force them to behave.
,The definition: order depends on its purpose:
A purposive order in international necessitates 3 elementary, primary goals à
according to the Bullian approach:
1. Life: security against violence, death and bodily harm
2. Truth: ensure that promises are kept à relates to treaties for example
3. Property: ensure that possession of things will remain stable à free
market opportunities for example
à we don’t look for features of an order, but we look for specific fundamentals
that the order should have.
à This ‘Bullian’ understanding of order does not mean that the 3 goals:
• Should be prioritized or seen as valuable or desirable
• Are rules (through rules may be a mean to achieve these goals)
o Order may be achieved without formal rule
! But the ‘Bullian’ understanding of order means the achievement of other goals
require as a condition the achievement of these basic goals in some degree!
à when the elementary goals of social coexistence are consistently upheld, then
regular patterns of behavior become known à without these conditions it is not
really possible to understand order.
à an international order can by definition exist without a leader, common values
or religious heritage even though many people at that time saw international
society as a product of western European and Christian history
à so international order is a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or
primary goals of the society of states, or international society
So,
Which components constitute this understanding of order?
- Social groups/political units à like states for example
- system of states: 2 or more states with sufficient contact and mutual
impact that makes them part of a whole
- world order:
o patterns of human activity that support the elementary, primary
goals
o modern international order: since ca. 2-3 centuries, more global re.
economy, system of states, ideas circulation
à declining role of Europe and the West
= “can an international society exist without Western dominance?”
Bull’s response:
à contemporaneous accounts saw ’international society’ as product of Western
European and Christian history, including spread of European (liberal) ideas,
imperialism, Western-led international organisations, etc
à ! but, an international order can exist without (European) leader/hegemon; a
sovereign; (formal) rules; or common values, cultural, or religious heritage
= international order is “a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or
primary goals of the society of states, or international society”
, Anarchical international orders:
When did modern international order emerge?
= orders in some form exist since political actors regularly interact
• Through trade, communication, conflict etc
• Regional orders since millennia
• But a more modern international order in recent centuries, but precisely
when?
1. Starting point: peace of Westphalia in 1648
à peace of Westphalia ended thirty years’ war
à States assumed sovereignty: claim to political authority over a geographical
space
à seen as end of reason why states could wage wars and intervene
Is the narrative of Westphalia as a starting point a myth?
à it was a European affair à in the European and western context
à sovereignty was not throughout Europe, but more local to reward victors and
stabilize roman empire
à new loyalty to empire
à restriction to sovereignty, because religions and particular units were fixed
and could not be challenged anymore.
à yes, sovereignty was emphasized in Peace of Westphalia, non-intervention
was not à sovereignty still widely breached (wars, colonialism, etc)
à hard to argue that Westphalia could actually be a starting point
2. Starting point mid-19th century
à a global transformation that linked regional orders in a more global order
à with a more global economy, global system of states and global circulation of
ideas à we will see later that even by using the word global it is the start of a
discussion
Titularies: Marijn Hoijtink and Michiel Foulon
Exam: essay questions
Contemporary issues (e.g.)/learning objectives
- War in Ukraine
- Rise of China and other emerging powers
- Climate change
- Migration
- Technological sovereignty
LECTURE 1
Focus on EU foreign policy in the post-WWII international order, taking a broad
perspective:
- Multilevel: involving the Member States and common institutions
- Multifaceted: compromising the Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) and the Common Security & Defense Policy (CSDP), but also trade,
development, enlargement, migration, environmental policy
- Building on the EU integration theory, but also moving beyond à Focus on
the EU as a sui generis actor and the distinctive nature of its project
Global order?
International orders = “Regularized practices of exchange among discrete
political units that recognize each other to be independent”
Who shapes this order?
à material: like territory and psychical technological infrastructure à for
example railway stations or 5g cell base stations
à ideational: like norms and culture à for example free trade
Today’s international order
= global international order
• Highly interconnected and interdependence
• Dominance of western ideas for example liberal ideas and institutions
Shifts appear: alternative orders proposed by China, Russia and Hungary
à How does Europe respond to these challenges, pursuing its own conception of
world order?
Europe in a global order
A lens to raise questions and to critically reflect:
• How and by whom is the ‘European interest’ presented?
• What is Europe/the EU’s impact in international relations? Is it effective in
forcing change or consolidation?
• If we consider Europe/the EU to be a global power, what are its sources?
• What alternative order does Europe/the EU represent?
• Is this a legitimate global order?
• How is Europe responding to a shifting global order? (e.g. post-
colonialism)
,LECTURE 2 HOW TO THINK ABOUT ORDER
à purposes of this lecture:
- Consider definitions and theoretical approaches to understand order in
international relations
- Investigate historical origins of the modern international order
- Reflect on consequences of the emergence of a modern international
liberal order
- Explore cases of western and non-western orders
Definitions and theoretical approaches
= interactions (between the political units) make up international orders:
regularized practices of exchange between political units. à all international
orders are made up of multiple political units à one of the most noteworthy
aspect of the contemporary international order, is the dominance of western
ideas. à Lawson
à patterned or structured relationships among units
Historical international orders
à historical origins can be traced back to the period when nomadic groups first
settled and became communities
- Trade between groups
- Put groups in risk of attack
à leaders formed which increasingly interacted with their counterparts in other
groups establishing the modern day diplomacy à in the process these
communities generated regularized practices of exchange between political units
à definition of an international order
The ‘order’ definition depends on its purpose à Bull
à can we speak of order based on how the whole of societal actors operate and
are organized?
• Anarchical/hierarchical orders
• Ordering social actors by their features (for example ordering by size) à
maybe these ordering features do not tell us a lot about power
• Rules, norms, culture that organizes how social actors interact
• International organization: end of NATO is end of order?
à Or by the purpose of an order?
• ‘anarchy’ or ‘hierarchy’ is not deterministic
• “order” is relative to its purpose à what is its purpose, why is it created
etc.
• Whether a whole of social actors is orderly depends on its aim and its
purpose
• Books ordered alphabetically can be very disorderly when you are
searching for a specific topic à so it really depends on a purpose à if you
are looking for the most powerful country it is not useful to order the
countries based on military for example
His definition = a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary
goals of the society of states, or international society à a system of states is
formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them and have
sufficient impact on one another’s decisions to force them to behave.
,The definition: order depends on its purpose:
A purposive order in international necessitates 3 elementary, primary goals à
according to the Bullian approach:
1. Life: security against violence, death and bodily harm
2. Truth: ensure that promises are kept à relates to treaties for example
3. Property: ensure that possession of things will remain stable à free
market opportunities for example
à we don’t look for features of an order, but we look for specific fundamentals
that the order should have.
à This ‘Bullian’ understanding of order does not mean that the 3 goals:
• Should be prioritized or seen as valuable or desirable
• Are rules (through rules may be a mean to achieve these goals)
o Order may be achieved without formal rule
! But the ‘Bullian’ understanding of order means the achievement of other goals
require as a condition the achievement of these basic goals in some degree!
à when the elementary goals of social coexistence are consistently upheld, then
regular patterns of behavior become known à without these conditions it is not
really possible to understand order.
à an international order can by definition exist without a leader, common values
or religious heritage even though many people at that time saw international
society as a product of western European and Christian history
à so international order is a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or
primary goals of the society of states, or international society
So,
Which components constitute this understanding of order?
- Social groups/political units à like states for example
- system of states: 2 or more states with sufficient contact and mutual
impact that makes them part of a whole
- world order:
o patterns of human activity that support the elementary, primary
goals
o modern international order: since ca. 2-3 centuries, more global re.
economy, system of states, ideas circulation
à declining role of Europe and the West
= “can an international society exist without Western dominance?”
Bull’s response:
à contemporaneous accounts saw ’international society’ as product of Western
European and Christian history, including spread of European (liberal) ideas,
imperialism, Western-led international organisations, etc
à ! but, an international order can exist without (European) leader/hegemon; a
sovereign; (formal) rules; or common values, cultural, or religious heritage
= international order is “a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or
primary goals of the society of states, or international society”
, Anarchical international orders:
When did modern international order emerge?
= orders in some form exist since political actors regularly interact
• Through trade, communication, conflict etc
• Regional orders since millennia
• But a more modern international order in recent centuries, but precisely
when?
1. Starting point: peace of Westphalia in 1648
à peace of Westphalia ended thirty years’ war
à States assumed sovereignty: claim to political authority over a geographical
space
à seen as end of reason why states could wage wars and intervene
Is the narrative of Westphalia as a starting point a myth?
à it was a European affair à in the European and western context
à sovereignty was not throughout Europe, but more local to reward victors and
stabilize roman empire
à new loyalty to empire
à restriction to sovereignty, because religions and particular units were fixed
and could not be challenged anymore.
à yes, sovereignty was emphasized in Peace of Westphalia, non-intervention
was not à sovereignty still widely breached (wars, colonialism, etc)
à hard to argue that Westphalia could actually be a starting point
2. Starting point mid-19th century
à a global transformation that linked regional orders in a more global order
à with a more global economy, global system of states and global circulation of
ideas à we will see later that even by using the word global it is the start of a
discussion
