OUA PLT 120

by Feodor Weissmann

student ID 40899152

Assessment 2: Final Exam (40%)
Due: by 5pm (EST) Friday of Week 13

Part A: 10 short answer questions (50%)
Part B: 1 compulsory essay question (50%)
PLT 120 Examination questions
Part A. (50%)
Ten short answers. Answer each in not more than 150 words.

Is globalisation changing world politics?

Of course, there are a lot of angles how globalization changes world politics. Key element of globalization is information sharing and we were all witnesses just a month ago how Burma military crackdown on Buddhist monks sparked protests around the world forced liberal governments into some kind of political action. Economical inter dependents with for instance China however prevented any tougher action against Burma. Globalization changes an internal political agenda of states and tends to reduce the risk of armed conflicts between major players. It is also changes the balance of power between the state and it`s citizens or state and capital holders. State need to project stability and reduce taxation in order to keep or attract resources and they must act accordingly in the international arena.

How does neo-liberalism build on classical liberalism?

neo-liberalism is build on classical liberalism in a way that it embraces the liberal main claim that stability can be reached if ethics is introduced to the international politics. However it is more realistic and I see it in a way as “liberalism with a plan”. Not joust promotion of idealistic ideas but a solid roadmap with institutions, tactics and safeguards. It is in a way a hybrid of neorealist and liberalism political ideas. PROPERTY ISSUES

Is 'National Interest' a useful concept for understanding the actions of
states?

We live in a period of nation states. Even then the state is multi national, it promotes an idea of bounding nation identity that overrides ethical or tribal identity. Such states act according to a “National Interest”. Definition of “National Interest” is a goal that state pursues to maximize what is selfishly best for the state. I’ve come to another definition in Chinese Tsinghua University “national interest as the common material and spiritual need of all the people of a nation state. In material terms a nation needs security and development. In spiritual terms, a nation needs respect and recognition from the international community.” Such a definition from a totalitarian state with state’s approval of stuffy program fortifies the realism approach to global politics. Basically we can explain each state action through rhetoric of those 2 definitions alone.

What are the key causes of war?

key cause of was is an existence of the army, the bigger the army – most likely state will be engaged in a military conflict. It could be argued that it is an other way around but once armies exist they are being used. Depending on level of analysis we can see that periods of war and peace are cyclic, tend to have national or religious rhetoric and supported by people as long as “fog of war” is in place. But I would argue that the key reason is very simple, states (or other entities) are in a sense living critters and as such they must grow to survive and they grow to places occupied by other states. Simples and most accessible way of growing is physical capture of territory by military means.

Is terrorism best described as 'a tactic of the powerless against the
powerful' (Kegley and Wittkopf)?

Without a hesitation terrorism is the cheapest way to achieve military gains. It is best used in surrounding with developed informational infrastructure and highest possible personal income level. The more people have to loose the bigger terror impact is. Terror attack is also very useful in military sense in areas you can not physically garrison for one reason or the other. Those characteristics make terrorism effective weapon for small mobile forces fighting overwhelmingly stronger opponent. Military I must agree with the statement but there are different forms of resistance and conflicts so I feel that the statement is incomplete, glorifying and technically missing cultural connections.

In what ways do 'non-state actors' represent a challenge to the state
system?

None state actors are institutions derived from globalization and challenge they present to the state system is mainly based on process of globalization itself. We can take for example UN and EU (or its predecessor) – those institutions established by the states themselves came into seventy conflict with their creators. Even widest and most powerful UN can not achieve sovereignty over states and in present condition can not execute any policy. EU integration and expansion process appears to being stack over issues of sovereignty and control of EU itself. Again we see that none state actors are active only as far as “national interests” of the major global players. At least for now it appears that those institutions are more like instruments of major nation states expansion over smaller states. It is more or less the same with WB and IMF. WTO acts a bit differently since the interest lobbied there is less national and more of multi national corporations and they have their own agendas.

What is the best explanation for the persistence of the income and power
gulf between the 'Global North' and the Global South'?

In my opinion persistence of the income and power gulf between the 'Global North' and the Global South' exist due to lack of developed infrastructure in the Global South'. I’m using the infrastructure at it’s full meaning and include political, economical, cultural and educational derivatives. You can add arguably religious differences since it is clear that Christian states are more advanced in terms of income then their Muslim or Hindu counterparts even in the same areas. Some states shown “Asian tigers” or Israel for example clearly shown us what needs to be addressed for a leap forward I terms of economical wealth, however such changes require either strong dictatorship or strong cultural foundations or combination of both to succeed.

Why is 'human security' in tension with 'national security' (Kegley and
Wittkopf)?

'Human security' is in tension with 'national security' since they both compete for the same resources. Individual property, a basics of “human security” is taxed by a state in order to provide national security to it’s citizens. National security is too often viewed by a state as military or police spending in occurrence with realism theory views dominating the governments. If those resources are invested in military, arguably they are simply wasted and not invested into a society lowering wealth level of general population and decreasing it’s ‘human security” level. So there is a balance that tend to be shifted by a state to protect it`s short time interest over long term investments in the “human security”. Those shifts general occur after a stressful events such as military confrontations of credible threats.

How does the metaphor of the commons explain the global ecological
situation?

Why is it so difficult to measure power in international relations?

State power is a very difficult thing to measure since there are many aspects to measure. It is a combination of Military, diplomatic, economic, human resources, domestic, logistics and state’s potential factors that have thousands of variables. Immediate military might of Israel is bigger then Japan’s, yet other factor suggest that in a military confrontation it would be very hard for Israel to maintain superiority over period of time. Russia has the biggest army in Europe but does it strongest in a political sense? North Korea has or suspected to have atomic weapons but is it even a nation state? We knew two types of hegemony, sea and land with first type controlling more at some stage but much more fragile then the land type, what type is stronger? And nowadays it is even harder to measure since states became so interdependent and much of the new economy and technological advances are extremely hard to measure.

Part B. (50%)
Compulsory Essay (1000-1200 words)
'The rise of US hegemony may in time create a more prosperous and peaceful
world order'. Discuss with reference to geo-political, geo-economic and
cultural forces in world politics.

'The rise of US hegemony may in time create a more prosperous and peaceful
world order'.

US hegemony projected on a world its nature which is relatively peaceful liberal democracy. It is very human nature to look upon someone who is successful and understand that one wants to be like him. Image that

As a liberal democracy US believes in liberal democracy as a best way of governing and something that should be spread across the globe. US had managed to promote such governments in Asia, and South America and preserve them in Europe. Under US umbrella democratic regimes enjoyed open trade, fanatical and military assistance and relative stability in the world. Political and economical weight of those countries grew and continues to grow at present as well. In order to trade and prosper other countries are on a different levels forced to reform themselves and more relations they hold with a liberal block the more changes they undergo.

It is American culture that is the heart of globalization and globalization by itself reminds as that we are as much part of human kind as we part of a nation or a tribe. Globalization culture comes from Hollywood and promoted all other the world via established network of content distributors. We are shown values of American liberal democracy then we are opening a TV, going to see a movie or buy a new album of internationally recognized artist. It is everywhere in our life, bonding, creating a common grounds for shared experience as a human being. American contents is being distributed over the Internet with US still maintaining control of both root DNS (domain name system) and the IEEE (Engineering group responsible for standards of networking). American search engines, blog systems and content providers dominate the Internet media on international levels and almost everywhere on a domestic level as well. Google, Yahoo and MSN create an infrastructure of information sharing difficult to control by totalitarian states. Those companies are based in and upon liberal values, and ever though sometimes they must act according the local lows that they are not agree with sill the overall picture is they are excellent promoter of Western liberal values to the world. American news agency, CNN is the biggest and most watched agency in the world. It tries to adapt it’s content to different areas but still it operates under the rules of Democracy and provides liberal ideas propaganda on a daily bases all around the globe. Basics of the liberal value – “personal security” has made deep roots even in non democratic states such as China or Saudi Arabia.

It is the US that established most of international institutions such as UN, WTO and World Bank. Those institutions provide a new ability to states. United Nations provide a playground for execution of national ambitions without active military confrontations. World trade organization makes sure that trade grows between the states with as least barriers as possible. Strong trade ties serve three purposes, they aid economy growth, increase personal wealth in matter of value for money and establish economical interdependence between trade peers. This network of trade connections aids to the world stability in a lot of ways. It is a fact that wealthier states are much more reluctant to go to war since they have a lot to loose. National capital holders are also interested in continuation of trade and profits so they pressure the governments to proceed with diplomacy rather then military solutions to conflicts.

Global organizations, such as WMF and World Bank finance different operations developments at the “global South” countries. They do that with different level of success but nevertheless they aid in creating necessary infrastructure for prosperity at underdeveloped countries. Those institutions exists and are getting more and more efficient at what they do and arguably what they propose are the real solutions for developing nations.

Military it was able to act as a security guaranty for both balance of power with China and USSR, preventing new full scale armed conflicts to spark between USSR and Europe, China and Japan after the WWII. It was able to act as a focal point for communist aggression in South East Asia with it’s involvement in Korea and Vietnam. Arguably this involvement caused Communist aggression focused in specific places with most of their resources depleted in those conflicts. Although US did lost both conflicts on the ground Communist block was unable to proceed and get other significant gains in the region or perhaps overrunning it completely.

US also provided military guaranties to Taiwan, Israel and South Korea, what would happened to those countries without American support. US is the only active international player that interferes both in economical and active defensive military way.

In resent time US is engaged in controversial conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the prospective again is that in both countries they managed to hold elections, established some form of coalition government. Power of state institutions are now more connected to the actual citizens of these states. I both places there is still ongoing military confrontation, now with different enemy, Moslem extremists, Iranian backed militias and remains of initial regimes. Again like in case of Communist aggression in South East Asia we can see that best of the extreme Moslem elements are killed in Iraq region. Extremists groups can not suffer heavy losses as wide as Communists could in Vietnam and this is one of the reasons we are seeing lately positive changes in Iraq with common life stabilizing and refugees returning from their homes. It is too early to judge what will be the consequences of Iraqi invasion but we must remember that changing the way people live takes a while and sometimes aid is more then sending food rations to needed.

United States also created and promoted regional alliances that are established and provide additional trade and cooperation benefits to their participants. Those institutions together with multi national corporations, NGOs and webbed global trade serve as corner stones of new world order of relative cooperation. At present time US provides liberal democracies with time to grow stronger and spread themselves across the border and as we cold see in Georgia just couple of years ago those opportunities are taken upon.