International relations an der TU München

• Identity–difference relationship & binary oppositions
• Constituting the “inside” and the “outside” dualisms (Walker)
• Sovereignty used to deny various populations of full subjectivity
and rights within the institutions that govern international
relations
• Privileging the category of the “citizen” over the “human”
• National citizens vs. human rights; national security vs. human
security
• Series of other problematic distinctions: reason/rationality,
peace/war, passion/emotion, North/South,
Democracy/Autocracy
• “Boundary-making” & “Othering”

Clausewitz
Multiple causes lead to no consensus and no common explanation
--> categorization helps 

Explanatory: Why did a certain event happen?
Constitutive? How did IR emerge?
Normative: How should a state act?

Women accept language and implicit sexism and adapt to group of decision-makers
As a compensation women go more forward in negotiations

Disposition to assume that the structure of the international system has always been anarchic, that it is the natural and desirable way.

- Anarchy is not automatic (e.g. China and smaller north-east-asian states)
- euro-centric assumption with universal ambition

Ø Relative status vs. relative power
Ø Bandwagoning vs. sovereign equality & balance of power

- historical example: Islamicate Asia: asymmetry in material power & order between Mughal, Safavid & Ottoman Empires

--> As a result, rethinking of hegemony, balancing & hierarchy in Western IR & cases

- collective community enforcing certain norms
HR promotion/R2P, democratization (DPT justifying war to promote democracy (Iraq 2003))
(neoconservatives & liberal interventionists)

1. Historical materialism
(other theories don't consider time and history)
Historical analysis is crucial
Ø production process
Ø Dialectical materialism (Hegel) --> classes with contradicting forces
Ø Changes explained as ‘reflection of the economic development of society’ --> different classes shape society
Ø Specifically, relations between the means of production, social relations & power
Ø Base-Superstructure model: modes &
relations of production shape political sphere
Ø Primacy of economic forces to explain IR --> economic forces drive IR

2. Social classes
Economic factors shape IR
Ø State not the primary unit of analysis
Ø Social classes are main actors
Ø Actions driven by economic interests
Ø State is only executing agent of the capitalist elites
Ø Society prone to conflict (like realists)
Ø Class struggle driving motor of IR
Ø Economic processes ignore state borders --> transnational
Ø Transnational actors significant --> elites of different countries identifiy with each other than with other national goups

3. International capitalist system
How do these dynamics apply to IR?
Ø Influence on the structure of the global system --> class struggle and pursuit of capital system leads to inequalities which influence global system
--> Response to liberal thinking (cooperation among states)
Ø Hierarchical international system as a by-product of imperialism & expansion of economic system beyond Europe --> elites exploit other classes: international level of imperialism
Ø Global distribution (inequality) of means of production drives state behavior
--> Opportunities for some states, constraints for others

Constructivism: Globalization with real changes to create cross-national human rights and social movements also through communication via internet

Understanding of IR:
--> Constitutive theories: how..? (mainstream theories: explanatory: why...?)

-way of using concepts,interpretations, etc. matter in terms of representation
- knowledge is power: Cultural hegemony of US, US-centered understanding of IR, way of being taught is way of perceiving IR
- identity shapes IR understanding
- inside/outside of theory: marginalize and exclude factors

- previous global networks: through trade access to resources, land and slave trade
- monopoly through industrialization and de-industrialization abroad
- evolution of the state
- technological changes
- imperialism and colonialism
- emergence of united international order (interdependence, IOs for standardization)
- exploitation abroad

Yes?
1. Control and governance of large areas
of territory
2. Available tax revenue
3. Police and military force
4. Infrastructure services

No?
1. No UN membership
2. No recognition from other
states
3. Legitimacy?
4. Fluctuating population
5. Limited state capacities

• Horizontal proliferation: spread of nuclear weapons to new countries (limitation through NPT)
• Vertical proliferation: increase in nature and quantity of existing nuclear arsenals