Summary - Actors in World
Politics
Part 1 - Transnationalism vs IR Theories
Processes:
• Deterritorialization: territory less of a constraint
• Interdependence: force matters less, multilateral relationships
• Time-space compression: relative distances grow smaller
Academic approaches:
• International relations:
• Divided into domestic/international
• States are main actors (others are negligible)
• Globalist:
• World divides are flattened (no “big stakes” in power politics)
• Undifferentiated investment surface (single, big market)
• States less relevant
• Transnational critique: factors that affect state outside of interstate relations
• Non-state actors
• Adapting to transnationalism
• Borders are complex (not either/or)
• More focus on economic issues
• Role of states is debatable (loss of control not certain)
The territorial trap: “nation-state in globalization” debate is problematic
• Sovereignty is relational:
• States do not have exclusive power over territory
• Domestic/foreign not separate
• State boundaries ≠ societal boundaries
• Territorial sovereignty is a recent invention
• Power operates through networks (not homogenous)
• E.g. judicial foreign policy, regulation
• Identities:
• Nation ≠ state
• Globalization reinforces discrepancies
Transnational interactions: interactions across state borders with at least one nongovernmental
actor (not states or IGOs)
World orders:
• New World Order: neoliberalism
• New Medievalism: governance without government
,1. Comment
10 December 2019 at 17:50:06
Rather than disappearance
• Networks, voluntary association, non-state actors, global governance, information technology
• Problem: no power
• Transgovernmental order:
1 • State disaggregation
• Flexible system: compromise for conservatives (more markets) and liberals (more
institutionalisation)
• More citizen control of government
• Less accountable (due to less monitoring?)
Main author’s: Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
Readings:
• The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations (Levitt & Khagram), Chapter 2
, Part 2 - Methodological Nationalism
Definitions:
• State: institution + personnel, political centrality, territorial boundaries, monopoly of coercive
power and law-making
• Nation: population with shared history, culture, economy and legal rights/duties
History of nation-state:
• Transnationalism predates nation-state
• Transnational bourgeoise (e.g. royal families)
• Colonialism
• Easy migration
• Emergence:
• Warfare/protection → taxation → bureaucracy
• Territory: balances economic and military power
• City-states: good at money, bad at armies
• Empires: bad at money, good at armies
• Myth of Westphalia: “birth of sovereignty” - much slower
• Violent territorialisation: homogenisation of nations (e.g. Poland, Germany, France)
• Methodological nationalism: naturalization of nation-state by social sciences
• Brainwash into thinking nation-state has always been
• Erase all traces of violence and transnationalism
• Natural units, society = nation-state, purpose of study is to further national interests?
• Variants:
• Dominance of nationalism ignored: never problematized, blind to rise due to disciplinary
divisions (process of nationalism disaggregated) → container model
• Thinkers like Marx believed that modernization would eventually make it go away (he was
wrong)
• Naturalization: analytical cutoffs, universities linked to state, government monopoly on
information, ignoring v iolent history
• Territorial limitation: ignores foreign influences, domestic/international division
Phases:
• 1 (prewar): ethnicity dominates “peoplehood” → strengthened national character
• Legitimizes colonialism
• Homogenization
• Diaspora concept strengthened - immigrants as ‘outsiders’
• 2 (WWI + WWII): strengthening borders
• End of free moment of labor
• Xenophobia → collapse of globalized world
• Immigrants blur class/identity → security threat
• Nationalism strengthened by war
• Border policing:
• Post-war weariness
• Passports/visas
• Chicago School: advocated for assimilation
• Diasporas disrupted by war
Politics
Part 1 - Transnationalism vs IR Theories
Processes:
• Deterritorialization: territory less of a constraint
• Interdependence: force matters less, multilateral relationships
• Time-space compression: relative distances grow smaller
Academic approaches:
• International relations:
• Divided into domestic/international
• States are main actors (others are negligible)
• Globalist:
• World divides are flattened (no “big stakes” in power politics)
• Undifferentiated investment surface (single, big market)
• States less relevant
• Transnational critique: factors that affect state outside of interstate relations
• Non-state actors
• Adapting to transnationalism
• Borders are complex (not either/or)
• More focus on economic issues
• Role of states is debatable (loss of control not certain)
The territorial trap: “nation-state in globalization” debate is problematic
• Sovereignty is relational:
• States do not have exclusive power over territory
• Domestic/foreign not separate
• State boundaries ≠ societal boundaries
• Territorial sovereignty is a recent invention
• Power operates through networks (not homogenous)
• E.g. judicial foreign policy, regulation
• Identities:
• Nation ≠ state
• Globalization reinforces discrepancies
Transnational interactions: interactions across state borders with at least one nongovernmental
actor (not states or IGOs)
World orders:
• New World Order: neoliberalism
• New Medievalism: governance without government
,1. Comment
10 December 2019 at 17:50:06
Rather than disappearance
• Networks, voluntary association, non-state actors, global governance, information technology
• Problem: no power
• Transgovernmental order:
1 • State disaggregation
• Flexible system: compromise for conservatives (more markets) and liberals (more
institutionalisation)
• More citizen control of government
• Less accountable (due to less monitoring?)
Main author’s: Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
Readings:
• The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations (Levitt & Khagram), Chapter 2
, Part 2 - Methodological Nationalism
Definitions:
• State: institution + personnel, political centrality, territorial boundaries, monopoly of coercive
power and law-making
• Nation: population with shared history, culture, economy and legal rights/duties
History of nation-state:
• Transnationalism predates nation-state
• Transnational bourgeoise (e.g. royal families)
• Colonialism
• Easy migration
• Emergence:
• Warfare/protection → taxation → bureaucracy
• Territory: balances economic and military power
• City-states: good at money, bad at armies
• Empires: bad at money, good at armies
• Myth of Westphalia: “birth of sovereignty” - much slower
• Violent territorialisation: homogenisation of nations (e.g. Poland, Germany, France)
• Methodological nationalism: naturalization of nation-state by social sciences
• Brainwash into thinking nation-state has always been
• Erase all traces of violence and transnationalism
• Natural units, society = nation-state, purpose of study is to further national interests?
• Variants:
• Dominance of nationalism ignored: never problematized, blind to rise due to disciplinary
divisions (process of nationalism disaggregated) → container model
• Thinkers like Marx believed that modernization would eventually make it go away (he was
wrong)
• Naturalization: analytical cutoffs, universities linked to state, government monopoly on
information, ignoring v iolent history
• Territorial limitation: ignores foreign influences, domestic/international division
Phases:
• 1 (prewar): ethnicity dominates “peoplehood” → strengthened national character
• Legitimizes colonialism
• Homogenization
• Diaspora concept strengthened - immigrants as ‘outsiders’
• 2 (WWI + WWII): strengthening borders
• End of free moment of labor
• Xenophobia → collapse of globalized world
• Immigrants blur class/identity → security threat
• Nationalism strengthened by war
• Border policing:
• Post-war weariness
• Passports/visas
• Chicago School: advocated for assimilation
• Diasporas disrupted by war
