History of international relations
Introduction
History of international relations: Why?
Why is it useful for social scientists to study history?
- It is useful to know what we have been through the years, to be
where we are right now
- Current conflicts started somewhere and for a reason. (example.
War in Gaza did not start previous October but it started years ago)
o Studying the past to understand the decisions made in the
future
o Studying the past to solve problems
- Rules were instituted for a reason in a certain situation that needed
those rules. (argument from conservative political institution)
- Institutions were created for a reason in a certain situation (its
historical background)
o Example. Security council has five veto players (US, France,
Russia, China, UK)
o Example. United Nations
- You study the past to understand the way the world hangs together
- 1. Historical legacies
o present behaviour, international relations are informed by the
past
o E.g. ‘post-communist societies’: Poland, East-Germany = a
society that has left communism behind
o E.g. ‘post-imperial societies chronological explanation
o It suggests that it isn’t easy to shake off the past
o You have positive and negative historical legacies
- 2. The politics of historical memories
o E.g. Kiev and Russian foreign policy claims
o No direct influence but mediated
o Example. In Bulgaria, they remembered the past in different
ways
o ≠ objective = subjective
o Political memories
Propagated by ‘memory activists’
Based on ‘selection and exclusion’ = manipulative
Depends on the ‘efficiency of political pedagogy’
1
, you need to make an effort to make a change or
maintain something
Show a high degree of ‘homogeneity’
Relies on symbols and rites that ‘enhance emotions of
empathy and identification’
o Difference past and history:
Past = everything that has happened until now
History = a particular story of the past
- 3. The contingency of moral ideas and social arrangements
o Something isn’t natural
Does not mean it’s easy or desirable to change
o E.g. ‘gender equality’ or ‘natural slavery’ or ‘sovereignty’
Natural slavery: “some people are meant to dominate or
are meant to serve”
Sovereignty: “states are sovereign” false
Historical way of thinking about states
- 4. (lessons from history)
o It might make you a better political leader
o Sceptical about this idea
o Example. Appeasement of Hitler ”let’s not repeat his
mistake”
History of international relations: What?
What do you expect to learn about in this class? What people, events,
concepts or processes do you expect to learn (more) about?
- People:
o Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 32th president of the US
(democratic)
o Woodrow Wilson: 28th president of the US
o Leopold II: second Belgian King, know for his invasion of the
Republic of Congo
o Mao Zedong: communist dictator of China
o Deng Xiaoping: successful Chinese leader who reached an
economic growth but also a bigger difference between poor
and rich
o Ho Chi Minh: Vietnamese revolutionary and politician
o Ashoka: Indian king
o Marco Polo: Italian adventurer
- Events:
2
, o Cuban missile crisis (1962): 13-day confrontation between the
US and the Soviet Union, marking the closest point the Cold
War came to escalating into nuclear conflict
o Arab spring (2011): series of pro-democracy anti-government
protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across
much of the Arab World.
o The Congress of Vienna (1815): internation diplomatic
meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of
the European political and constitutional order after the
downfall of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
o Perry expedition (1852-1853 and 1854-1855): US expedition
to Japan
o Creation of the United Nations (1945)
o French revolution (1789-1799): period of political and social
upheaval in France that fundamentally transformed the nation
and influenced the course of world history
o Fall of Constantinople (1453): marked the end of the Byzantine
Empire and a significant turning point in world history, as the
city was captured by the Ottoman Empire under Sultan
Mehmed II
o Reconquista (1492): period of 780 years in the Middle ages
wherein some Christion kingdoms on the Iberian Island were
thriving to scare away the Islams with harm
o Division of Germany (1945-1990): division of Germany in four
zones
o Yalta conference (1945): world war II meeting of heads of
government of the US, the UK and the Soviet Union to discuss
the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe
- Concepts/processes:
o Confucianism: Chinese ethical and philosophic system
o Decolonization
o Polis Polity = group of people with a collective identity
o Feminism (19th century)
o Balance of powers
o Peace negotiations WWII
o European federalism (1944)
o Pan-Arabism
o Middle-east (1960)
overall our list: 19th century and beyond, 75% western
o International relations as a scholarly discipline is ‘presentist’
Past events that can explain the present time
3
, o International Relations as a scholarly discipline is ‘eurocentric’
(bias)
Is it a problem that International relations as a discipline betrays a
‘presentist’ and a ‘eurocentric bias’?
- We should have a broader view of the world
- Non-Western powers are re-asserting themselves (Ex. China)
o Historical legacies
o Historical memory
=>Political useful
- What is an ‘international system’? What is the logic of the
international system?
=>Scientifically useful
o Contingency of present arrangements
o Basic unit: state, sovereign state
o Social practices: borders, flags, anthems
o Rules & norms: sovereign equality: institutions of IR, even
Balance of power
o Implications: anarchy, security dilemma, violence
o Teaching with a comparative view on the world
But this is an inadequate portrayal that generalizes too readily
from European experience
- “IR = separate countries, clear borders,...”
Wrong representation of the world
History of international relations: how?
Evaluation/course information:
- We are allowed to take a dictionary
- Year dates are important in this course as well as the impact certain
persons or events had on the world
4
, - Essay question is a really big one (2 page answer)
o Example: what are the causes of peace in IR. Has there been
any change?
o We should be able to bring together all information from
different lessons
- Not to study: Chapter 7
- There are more correct answers
- Don’t sum up your answer in dots
China and East Asia
Introduction: what is China?
What is China?
- Today: a country situated in Asia, Han ethnicity is dominant there
these days but it is a multi-etnic and -lingual country
o = nation state –> population identify themselves as Chinese
(shared identity)
Historically it was not a nation state : China did not
historically referred itself as China
- Imperial dynasties with pretence of being the ‘middle kingdom’
(Zhong guo)
- A civilizational zone sharing in a set of ritual practices: common
practice of ancestor worships, joint use of characters (writing
system), shared ritual system, shared rhetorical tropes (How to
organize polities)
o L> rulers ruled with a mandate of heaven (name = Sons of
Heaven did not mean that he could not be replaced
What does it mean to identify a ‘Chinese’ international system?
- Polities around the Yangtze river (development of small
communities)
- International systems don’t consist of one polity
expanding from surrounding polities (independence)
o The first polity was a hierarchy
o China was the central polity
What does it not mean to identify a Chinese international system:
encompassing (it should not be assumed that it discovered the whole of
5
,Asia), unchanging (there was no Chinese essence), unquestionably
Confucian
- Overland system: organized system with polities to the North and
West
- Tribute system: organized system with polities to the East and South
both organized in a different way
The ‘warring states period’
- 475-251 BCE (before common era)
- Multiple polities, each of them claimed independence, had their own
king, ruler, army,...
- Intense competition between each other, including military
competition
no single polity was able to re-assert themselves as the middle
kingdom for 200 years
- Qin appear to achieve dominance, other ‘polities ‘ must respond
6
, - Sunzi, the art of war (book)
- Underlines the important of intelligence, subterfuge and
dissimulation
- Explains how to fight a war successfully and how to arrange a polity
successfully
- Inspired the Japanese when they fought the Russians, and the
Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh
- ‘you can not reduce the warring states period as constant
competition’
these states were economically thriving
The warring states period was a period of intense and often violent
political-military competition, and yet it was a period in which China
flourished. How is this possible?
- Our thoughts: War = total war
o Before the 19th century total war was uncommon
o So how is this possible? When there’s no total war
- Political competition spurred economic development
o technological innovations: “how to defeat an enemy?” by
attacking them with new materials
o collect more taxes you develop functioning government
apparats (state of bureaucracy) and you need to have a
thriving economy
o coins were minted to boost trades
- Political competition spurred intellectual creativity
o Governments that competed with each other are eager to
come up with new ideas: “how to organize the state better?”
Eager for advance: “how to get out of a difficult
situation?”
7
,- Need of advice Development of a number of philosophical schools
with new ideas and a receptive audience (different ideas but all of
them had Chinese origin)
o Kongzi/Confucianism: proper conduct within hierarchical,
personal relations
Hierarchical relations: as father you should take care of
your young son and as son you should take care of your
father when he becomes old applies to familial
relations but also to political/governmental relations
As a ruler you should focus on cultivating virtue in your
subjects and in yourself rules were less important
Both subjects and rulers are bound by the
demands of virtue
o Daoism: focus on spirituality
Interpreted as source of rebellion
o Fajia/Legalism: ruthless pursuit of state interests; role of law
therein, but ruler above law and rules, certainly in foreign
affairs = conservative
Wants to preserve the authority of the ruler, the stability
of imperial/kingly rule and political community
Downplays the importance of virtue
Upgrades the importance of rules
People have to know what the rules are, and if they fail
to keep themselves on the rules, they will be punished
Difference of Confucian = the ruler can break rules
when the interest of the state demands that the rule
should be broken, he can make new ones
One of the the states, the Qin Shi Huang adopted
legalism and that is when the warring states period ends
8
, Terra Cotta army
The development of the Chinese state
‘China’ was ruled over by a succession of imperial dynasties
- Plenty of struggle and competition
- It was not a harmonious history
- Not every dynasty was of Chinse origin (Yuan Dynasty (Mongol
origin) and Qing dynasty (Manchu origin)
- Yet also myriad elements of continuity
o In cultural terms (Confucianism, writing system, ‘the mandate
of heaven’)
o In terms of political organization
Developed democratic apparatus : one dynasty
succeeds the other dynasty
sense of illegitimacy
To solve a legitimacy problem (= people don’t
accept your authority), you need to rule
Keep the existing institutions and work with them
Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE)
- First dynasty after the Qin dynasty which collapsed quickly
- Establishment of professional administration
o Chinese bureaucracy
o By taxing key commerces
- Adoption of Confucianism as state philosophy
does not mean every individual Chinese should follow this
philosophy
- Organization of society and economy
o Roads, canals, coins
- Monopolize key commodities : salt = equivalent of gold extremely
valuable
o More resources: liquor, alcoholic beverages
- => government acting like a government
- Surrounded by other polities and suffered from security threats
Military engagement with Xiongnu Federation: nomadic polity to
the west wing = alliance of nomadic polities = was successful
- Trade with communities and people outside China through The Silk
road(s)
o Silk Roads = well maintained caravan (=group of merchants)
roads
9
, The merchants travelled together because it was
dangerous
o Luxury goods (elite consumption)
o Goods travel widely but people mostly do not
You needed 10-50 merchants for a product to reach a
certain place
- Alongside goods, ideas were also traded
- Need for a common language
- The Chinese did not create/manage the Silk roads The Sogdians
did (committed to trading)
o “Sogdian letter”
Tang dynasty (618-907 CE)
- Kept and formalized the bureaucracy
- Entrance examinations (meritocracy): knowledge of the Confucian
classics
- China becomes a reference point in the region – a cultural attraction
point
o China spreads its cultural influence
- China shows itself open to foreign influences
o E.g. Xuanzang (Buddhist monk)
Buddhism =Indian religion that entered China but low
knowledge
Xuanzang travelled to India to deepen his knowledge of
Buddhism and collected a huge library of books and
brought it home with him
Study center/library
- Time of practice of Calligraphy
- Technological innovations (paper creation, printing inventions)
Song Dynasty (960-1279)
- Era of major technological achievement
o E.g. gun powder, the compass, paper money
- Increasing urbanised culture
- Era of great military challenges, especially from nomadic polities:
Mongols and Jurchens
Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
- First ruler: Kublai Khan
- Mismanagement
- Of Mongolic origin
Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
10
Introduction
History of international relations: Why?
Why is it useful for social scientists to study history?
- It is useful to know what we have been through the years, to be
where we are right now
- Current conflicts started somewhere and for a reason. (example.
War in Gaza did not start previous October but it started years ago)
o Studying the past to understand the decisions made in the
future
o Studying the past to solve problems
- Rules were instituted for a reason in a certain situation that needed
those rules. (argument from conservative political institution)
- Institutions were created for a reason in a certain situation (its
historical background)
o Example. Security council has five veto players (US, France,
Russia, China, UK)
o Example. United Nations
- You study the past to understand the way the world hangs together
- 1. Historical legacies
o present behaviour, international relations are informed by the
past
o E.g. ‘post-communist societies’: Poland, East-Germany = a
society that has left communism behind
o E.g. ‘post-imperial societies chronological explanation
o It suggests that it isn’t easy to shake off the past
o You have positive and negative historical legacies
- 2. The politics of historical memories
o E.g. Kiev and Russian foreign policy claims
o No direct influence but mediated
o Example. In Bulgaria, they remembered the past in different
ways
o ≠ objective = subjective
o Political memories
Propagated by ‘memory activists’
Based on ‘selection and exclusion’ = manipulative
Depends on the ‘efficiency of political pedagogy’
1
, you need to make an effort to make a change or
maintain something
Show a high degree of ‘homogeneity’
Relies on symbols and rites that ‘enhance emotions of
empathy and identification’
o Difference past and history:
Past = everything that has happened until now
History = a particular story of the past
- 3. The contingency of moral ideas and social arrangements
o Something isn’t natural
Does not mean it’s easy or desirable to change
o E.g. ‘gender equality’ or ‘natural slavery’ or ‘sovereignty’
Natural slavery: “some people are meant to dominate or
are meant to serve”
Sovereignty: “states are sovereign” false
Historical way of thinking about states
- 4. (lessons from history)
o It might make you a better political leader
o Sceptical about this idea
o Example. Appeasement of Hitler ”let’s not repeat his
mistake”
History of international relations: What?
What do you expect to learn about in this class? What people, events,
concepts or processes do you expect to learn (more) about?
- People:
o Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 32th president of the US
(democratic)
o Woodrow Wilson: 28th president of the US
o Leopold II: second Belgian King, know for his invasion of the
Republic of Congo
o Mao Zedong: communist dictator of China
o Deng Xiaoping: successful Chinese leader who reached an
economic growth but also a bigger difference between poor
and rich
o Ho Chi Minh: Vietnamese revolutionary and politician
o Ashoka: Indian king
o Marco Polo: Italian adventurer
- Events:
2
, o Cuban missile crisis (1962): 13-day confrontation between the
US and the Soviet Union, marking the closest point the Cold
War came to escalating into nuclear conflict
o Arab spring (2011): series of pro-democracy anti-government
protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across
much of the Arab World.
o The Congress of Vienna (1815): internation diplomatic
meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of
the European political and constitutional order after the
downfall of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
o Perry expedition (1852-1853 and 1854-1855): US expedition
to Japan
o Creation of the United Nations (1945)
o French revolution (1789-1799): period of political and social
upheaval in France that fundamentally transformed the nation
and influenced the course of world history
o Fall of Constantinople (1453): marked the end of the Byzantine
Empire and a significant turning point in world history, as the
city was captured by the Ottoman Empire under Sultan
Mehmed II
o Reconquista (1492): period of 780 years in the Middle ages
wherein some Christion kingdoms on the Iberian Island were
thriving to scare away the Islams with harm
o Division of Germany (1945-1990): division of Germany in four
zones
o Yalta conference (1945): world war II meeting of heads of
government of the US, the UK and the Soviet Union to discuss
the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe
- Concepts/processes:
o Confucianism: Chinese ethical and philosophic system
o Decolonization
o Polis Polity = group of people with a collective identity
o Feminism (19th century)
o Balance of powers
o Peace negotiations WWII
o European federalism (1944)
o Pan-Arabism
o Middle-east (1960)
overall our list: 19th century and beyond, 75% western
o International relations as a scholarly discipline is ‘presentist’
Past events that can explain the present time
3
, o International Relations as a scholarly discipline is ‘eurocentric’
(bias)
Is it a problem that International relations as a discipline betrays a
‘presentist’ and a ‘eurocentric bias’?
- We should have a broader view of the world
- Non-Western powers are re-asserting themselves (Ex. China)
o Historical legacies
o Historical memory
=>Political useful
- What is an ‘international system’? What is the logic of the
international system?
=>Scientifically useful
o Contingency of present arrangements
o Basic unit: state, sovereign state
o Social practices: borders, flags, anthems
o Rules & norms: sovereign equality: institutions of IR, even
Balance of power
o Implications: anarchy, security dilemma, violence
o Teaching with a comparative view on the world
But this is an inadequate portrayal that generalizes too readily
from European experience
- “IR = separate countries, clear borders,...”
Wrong representation of the world
History of international relations: how?
Evaluation/course information:
- We are allowed to take a dictionary
- Year dates are important in this course as well as the impact certain
persons or events had on the world
4
, - Essay question is a really big one (2 page answer)
o Example: what are the causes of peace in IR. Has there been
any change?
o We should be able to bring together all information from
different lessons
- Not to study: Chapter 7
- There are more correct answers
- Don’t sum up your answer in dots
China and East Asia
Introduction: what is China?
What is China?
- Today: a country situated in Asia, Han ethnicity is dominant there
these days but it is a multi-etnic and -lingual country
o = nation state –> population identify themselves as Chinese
(shared identity)
Historically it was not a nation state : China did not
historically referred itself as China
- Imperial dynasties with pretence of being the ‘middle kingdom’
(Zhong guo)
- A civilizational zone sharing in a set of ritual practices: common
practice of ancestor worships, joint use of characters (writing
system), shared ritual system, shared rhetorical tropes (How to
organize polities)
o L> rulers ruled with a mandate of heaven (name = Sons of
Heaven did not mean that he could not be replaced
What does it mean to identify a ‘Chinese’ international system?
- Polities around the Yangtze river (development of small
communities)
- International systems don’t consist of one polity
expanding from surrounding polities (independence)
o The first polity was a hierarchy
o China was the central polity
What does it not mean to identify a Chinese international system:
encompassing (it should not be assumed that it discovered the whole of
5
,Asia), unchanging (there was no Chinese essence), unquestionably
Confucian
- Overland system: organized system with polities to the North and
West
- Tribute system: organized system with polities to the East and South
both organized in a different way
The ‘warring states period’
- 475-251 BCE (before common era)
- Multiple polities, each of them claimed independence, had their own
king, ruler, army,...
- Intense competition between each other, including military
competition
no single polity was able to re-assert themselves as the middle
kingdom for 200 years
- Qin appear to achieve dominance, other ‘polities ‘ must respond
6
, - Sunzi, the art of war (book)
- Underlines the important of intelligence, subterfuge and
dissimulation
- Explains how to fight a war successfully and how to arrange a polity
successfully
- Inspired the Japanese when they fought the Russians, and the
Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh
- ‘you can not reduce the warring states period as constant
competition’
these states were economically thriving
The warring states period was a period of intense and often violent
political-military competition, and yet it was a period in which China
flourished. How is this possible?
- Our thoughts: War = total war
o Before the 19th century total war was uncommon
o So how is this possible? When there’s no total war
- Political competition spurred economic development
o technological innovations: “how to defeat an enemy?” by
attacking them with new materials
o collect more taxes you develop functioning government
apparats (state of bureaucracy) and you need to have a
thriving economy
o coins were minted to boost trades
- Political competition spurred intellectual creativity
o Governments that competed with each other are eager to
come up with new ideas: “how to organize the state better?”
Eager for advance: “how to get out of a difficult
situation?”
7
,- Need of advice Development of a number of philosophical schools
with new ideas and a receptive audience (different ideas but all of
them had Chinese origin)
o Kongzi/Confucianism: proper conduct within hierarchical,
personal relations
Hierarchical relations: as father you should take care of
your young son and as son you should take care of your
father when he becomes old applies to familial
relations but also to political/governmental relations
As a ruler you should focus on cultivating virtue in your
subjects and in yourself rules were less important
Both subjects and rulers are bound by the
demands of virtue
o Daoism: focus on spirituality
Interpreted as source of rebellion
o Fajia/Legalism: ruthless pursuit of state interests; role of law
therein, but ruler above law and rules, certainly in foreign
affairs = conservative
Wants to preserve the authority of the ruler, the stability
of imperial/kingly rule and political community
Downplays the importance of virtue
Upgrades the importance of rules
People have to know what the rules are, and if they fail
to keep themselves on the rules, they will be punished
Difference of Confucian = the ruler can break rules
when the interest of the state demands that the rule
should be broken, he can make new ones
One of the the states, the Qin Shi Huang adopted
legalism and that is when the warring states period ends
8
, Terra Cotta army
The development of the Chinese state
‘China’ was ruled over by a succession of imperial dynasties
- Plenty of struggle and competition
- It was not a harmonious history
- Not every dynasty was of Chinse origin (Yuan Dynasty (Mongol
origin) and Qing dynasty (Manchu origin)
- Yet also myriad elements of continuity
o In cultural terms (Confucianism, writing system, ‘the mandate
of heaven’)
o In terms of political organization
Developed democratic apparatus : one dynasty
succeeds the other dynasty
sense of illegitimacy
To solve a legitimacy problem (= people don’t
accept your authority), you need to rule
Keep the existing institutions and work with them
Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE)
- First dynasty after the Qin dynasty which collapsed quickly
- Establishment of professional administration
o Chinese bureaucracy
o By taxing key commerces
- Adoption of Confucianism as state philosophy
does not mean every individual Chinese should follow this
philosophy
- Organization of society and economy
o Roads, canals, coins
- Monopolize key commodities : salt = equivalent of gold extremely
valuable
o More resources: liquor, alcoholic beverages
- => government acting like a government
- Surrounded by other polities and suffered from security threats
Military engagement with Xiongnu Federation: nomadic polity to
the west wing = alliance of nomadic polities = was successful
- Trade with communities and people outside China through The Silk
road(s)
o Silk Roads = well maintained caravan (=group of merchants)
roads
9
, The merchants travelled together because it was
dangerous
o Luxury goods (elite consumption)
o Goods travel widely but people mostly do not
You needed 10-50 merchants for a product to reach a
certain place
- Alongside goods, ideas were also traded
- Need for a common language
- The Chinese did not create/manage the Silk roads The Sogdians
did (committed to trading)
o “Sogdian letter”
Tang dynasty (618-907 CE)
- Kept and formalized the bureaucracy
- Entrance examinations (meritocracy): knowledge of the Confucian
classics
- China becomes a reference point in the region – a cultural attraction
point
o China spreads its cultural influence
- China shows itself open to foreign influences
o E.g. Xuanzang (Buddhist monk)
Buddhism =Indian religion that entered China but low
knowledge
Xuanzang travelled to India to deepen his knowledge of
Buddhism and collected a huge library of books and
brought it home with him
Study center/library
- Time of practice of Calligraphy
- Technological innovations (paper creation, printing inventions)
Song Dynasty (960-1279)
- Era of major technological achievement
o E.g. gun powder, the compass, paper money
- Increasing urbanised culture
- Era of great military challenges, especially from nomadic polities:
Mongols and Jurchens
Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
- First ruler: Kublai Khan
- Mismanagement
- Of Mongolic origin
Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
10
