What Is Global Politics?

From Last Class

Where would you place the following four concepts/ideas on the political spectrum:

Objectives

To be able to understand and explain the difference between "politics", "international relations" and "global politics".

Activating Your Thinking and Prior Learning

All politics is a struggle for power

What Do You Know About Politics?

Lesson Content

What is Politics? 

We have been asking ourselves the same questions for thousands of years. Who among us should have power? For how long? How should that power be transferred? When is a person’s authority legitimate, and how do we respond when it isn’t? Where people are gathered, sooner or later these questions will be asked, because wherever we are, no matter who we’re with, and no matter how long we’re with them, the business of life must be attended to. Decisions need to be made, resources allocated, questions asked and answered. This is true whether we’re talking about the workings of the Roman Empire or a toddler screaming at his babysitter, “No, I will not be going to bed early because you are not my mother, and I don’t have to listen to you.” This is politics, and politics is life. 

For many people, when they think of politics they picture men and women arguing with one another about how a city or even a country should be run. Others may picture protesters with placards in front of a legislative building  demanding that changes be made to the way a government is functioning. In some ways these images may be off-putting but they is also emblematic of what is involved in politics. 

In one way, politics involves debate over how society should be governed. In a local sense this may be something as simple as whether or not an area of the community should be converted to a dog park or be re-zoned to have a new housing development built. Globally, it could involve the extent to which another nation has the right to intervene in the affairs of another country. If the government is supporting a group that is targeting a particular people group, should other nations of the world intervene? Do they have the right to get involved in the affairs of another country? Ultimately, it comes down to the question of who should have the power to make these decisions and, if other members of society disagree with the decisions that are being made, what are the ways in which their power can or should be challenged? This may be why Paul Krugmann once stated, "politics determine who has the power, not who has the truth."

The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, meaning literally ‘city-state’. Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often portrayed as the cradle of democratic government. In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis – in effect, ‘what concerns the polis’. The modern form of this definition is therefore ‘what concerns the state’ . This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do so. It is also a definition that academic political science has helped to perpetuate. 

The word “politics” seems to originate from Aristotle's book Ta Politika or “affairs of the state”, also translated as “affairs of the city” which, given the city-states of Athens and Sparta at the time would have made the terms “city” and “state” somewhat interchangeable.  Aristotle’s book title was translated as "Polettiques" in the mid-15th century which later evolved to become what we know today as "politics"

Let's start looking globally by looking at how are globe is represented

International Relations or Global Politics?

Traditionally, this course studying issues of power, human rights, peace, conflict and developments would be called International Relations. International relations implies relations exclusively between nations - “inter” or between, “nations”. However, politics in the world today is composed of much more than just nations. Instead, there are various actors who are not nations with whom we are also interested so the term “global” or “world” politics seems to be more appropriate.

Even the word “nation” is fraught with ambiguity given that what we might typically refer to as a “nation” is in fact a “state” or what is often referred to as a “country”. We will dig into these distinctions later as part of our discussion on sovereignty.

The term global or world politics is used in this course instead of international relations because our studies go beyond "inter" - "national", that is, relationships between nations. While the prescribed content is reflective of what would typically be studied in an introductory university international relations course, we will explore the impact and interrelationship of many non-state actors including non-governmental organisations like Green Peace and Amnesty International, terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram or multi-national corporations. 

IR and Global Politics

What Is International Relations?

While we have made our way through the nomenclature of global politics and international relations you will nevertheless continue to find many schools that still call their departments "international relations" when they do in fact study politics beyond relationships between nations. 

On the left you will find a short video with professors from the London School of Economics and Politics Science who explain what is studied in our field and why it is studied. 

What the video and respond to these questions:

Checking For Understanding

What is the key difference between the study of international relations and global politics?

For Next Class

Come to class with two "global political issues". Don't worry about how the term is defined, just look through the news and try to pull two GPIs out.