Summary of class, 1 September 2004

Here are some of the Big Questions of our time:

1. What's "globalization"?  People offer different answers.  The Big 3 offer different evaluations: Is it qualitatively different, or does it have historical parallels?  Is it significant in itself or just an indicator of other changes?  Is it all-encompassing, or will some regions of the world be left out?  Is it good or bad?  (For you as an individual, for the world as a whole?)

2. Why do we speak of the "post-Westphalian international system" or, equivalently, the "Westphalian system of states"? 

    [B&S says (1) rulers are subject to no higher authority, (2) rulers of other lands have no right to intervene on grounds of religion, (3) practicing the 'balance of power' will prevent any one ruler from becoming so powerful that he or she can dominate the others, and thus contravene points (1) and (2).  The key limitation to these points is that they address only sovereign lands, i.e., states.]

3. Will "globalization" terminate the Westphalian system?  If it does, will that happen gradually (and more or less peacefully) or suddenly (and violently)? 

4. Can we gather clues (or even predictions) about how the Westphalian system can end by looking at the conditions of its birth?  To explore this we read K&R in this course.

5. The Big 3 families of theory

    a. Realism

    b. Liberalism

    c. Marxism

All three families contain several members, that is, several somewhat different sets of claims about how the world works, and about how it should work.  Each family utilizes a distinctive "model of man" (MoM) (but the members of each family also differ somewhat in the details of their models!).

6. Who is your MoM?

7. Suppose that today we did have a quiz.  Further suppose that one of the questions had come "unannounced" from today's assigned reading.  What might it have been?  "What does the author of Chapter 2 mean by international society.  Offer one example of an international society."