POL SCI ADDITIONAL NOTES
LIBERLISM
• A focus on
non-state institutions
cooperative logics of institutions
• The Kantian idea
interdependence
global governance
• Unipolarity:
Three different liberal stories about the post-cold war world
• The ‘liberal Greater West’ had triumphed and was bound to increase its global reach:
• Soft power would grow in importance
• Liberal ascendancy
• liberal norms were disseminated through US-dominated institutions
• Neo-Marxists pointed to a de-territorialized global capitalist dynamic, marked by
inequality, instability and new patterns of stratification
• 9/11 challenged existing notions of unilateral power and its usefulness
• Large developing countries increased their diplomatic activism, and began to cooperate to
push their own agendas – and in some cases resist ‘globalization’
• Unipolarity saw large-scale contestation.
• ‘BRICs’ is an acronym that refers to Brazil, Russia, India and China
• These countries have been seen as key emerging market economies because of their rising
share of the world economy
• China and India will arise as principle suppliers of manufactured goods and services, while
Russia and Brazil will be dominant suppliers of raw materials
• Brazil to challenge unipolarity and strive toward more balanced multipolar world
order:
- reassert national autonomy
- form coalitions with other developing states
,- increase bargaining power
Case Study 2: Brazil (I)
• Today Brazil faces deep economic and political challenges
- lack of reforms during boom years (early 2000s)
- structural weakness in the attempt to climb the global power ladder
- unstable and rapidly changing global financial markets (esp. after 2008-crisis)
Case Study 2: Brazil (II)
Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 2nd International Edition
• If power is shifting: where is it shifting to?
Two different perspectives:
i) to major emerging states as part of the on-going dynamic of rise/fall of Great Powers
ii) more general diffusion of power…
- multiplicity of actors who demand to be heard
- diffusion of ideas/values (questions of social, economic and political organization)
• Lists of ‘power resources’ are not enough if we want to understand how different kinds of
power shift from one society to another
• What must be asked is:
Why is the shift in power important?
What/who is it affecting?
How do the countries that power is shifting
towards matter politically/geopolitically?
, CHAPTER 4
NEW GLOBAL ERA
• What is power?
- Essentially contested concept.
• Relational power: capacity to impose your will on others but resist attempts in the reverse
• Institutional power: ability to control the agenda (what is left out of discussions?)
• Structural power: material and discursive conditions for action
• Hard (military) vs. soft (discursive/ economic/ social) power
What is power?
• Globalization has been presented as a threat to Westphalian logics, but…
• The focus on power shifts between different states (rather than to, say, firms), national
security, regional security arrangements and nationalism point to the continuing relevance
of nation states
• Certain collective problems (climate change) have strong post-Westphalian characteristics
• international society is now constituted by a wider range of states and societies with the
capacities to mobilize and express a multiplicity of interests and values.
• powers play within functional institutions that deal with pressing global challenges
(management of the global economy, climate change, nuclear proliferation, etc.)
Opposing Opinions:
Are today’s rising powers powerful enough to affect international order?
Opponents
US dominance will remain uncontested:
• US dominance of military technology will ensure its global hegemony
• US economic strength ensures its ability to remain the most central actor in determining
the agenda of international organizations
• Rising powers (e.g. BRICS) are faced with internal divisions that makes counter-balance to
US hegemony unlikely
LIBERLISM
• A focus on
non-state institutions
cooperative logics of institutions
• The Kantian idea
interdependence
global governance
• Unipolarity:
Three different liberal stories about the post-cold war world
• The ‘liberal Greater West’ had triumphed and was bound to increase its global reach:
• Soft power would grow in importance
• Liberal ascendancy
• liberal norms were disseminated through US-dominated institutions
• Neo-Marxists pointed to a de-territorialized global capitalist dynamic, marked by
inequality, instability and new patterns of stratification
• 9/11 challenged existing notions of unilateral power and its usefulness
• Large developing countries increased their diplomatic activism, and began to cooperate to
push their own agendas – and in some cases resist ‘globalization’
• Unipolarity saw large-scale contestation.
• ‘BRICs’ is an acronym that refers to Brazil, Russia, India and China
• These countries have been seen as key emerging market economies because of their rising
share of the world economy
• China and India will arise as principle suppliers of manufactured goods and services, while
Russia and Brazil will be dominant suppliers of raw materials
• Brazil to challenge unipolarity and strive toward more balanced multipolar world
order:
- reassert national autonomy
- form coalitions with other developing states
,- increase bargaining power
Case Study 2: Brazil (I)
• Today Brazil faces deep economic and political challenges
- lack of reforms during boom years (early 2000s)
- structural weakness in the attempt to climb the global power ladder
- unstable and rapidly changing global financial markets (esp. after 2008-crisis)
Case Study 2: Brazil (II)
Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 2nd International Edition
• If power is shifting: where is it shifting to?
Two different perspectives:
i) to major emerging states as part of the on-going dynamic of rise/fall of Great Powers
ii) more general diffusion of power…
- multiplicity of actors who demand to be heard
- diffusion of ideas/values (questions of social, economic and political organization)
• Lists of ‘power resources’ are not enough if we want to understand how different kinds of
power shift from one society to another
• What must be asked is:
Why is the shift in power important?
What/who is it affecting?
How do the countries that power is shifting
towards matter politically/geopolitically?
, CHAPTER 4
NEW GLOBAL ERA
• What is power?
- Essentially contested concept.
• Relational power: capacity to impose your will on others but resist attempts in the reverse
• Institutional power: ability to control the agenda (what is left out of discussions?)
• Structural power: material and discursive conditions for action
• Hard (military) vs. soft (discursive/ economic/ social) power
What is power?
• Globalization has been presented as a threat to Westphalian logics, but…
• The focus on power shifts between different states (rather than to, say, firms), national
security, regional security arrangements and nationalism point to the continuing relevance
of nation states
• Certain collective problems (climate change) have strong post-Westphalian characteristics
• international society is now constituted by a wider range of states and societies with the
capacities to mobilize and express a multiplicity of interests and values.
• powers play within functional institutions that deal with pressing global challenges
(management of the global economy, climate change, nuclear proliferation, etc.)
Opposing Opinions:
Are today’s rising powers powerful enough to affect international order?
Opponents
US dominance will remain uncontested:
• US dominance of military technology will ensure its global hegemony
• US economic strength ensures its ability to remain the most central actor in determining
the agenda of international organizations
• Rising powers (e.g. BRICS) are faced with internal divisions that makes counter-balance to
US hegemony unlikely
