DP1 Students: IA Engagements!

Nature and Extent of Interactions in Global Politics

This is a person wearing a hat made out of aluminium foil, since they believe ridiculous conspiracy theories lololololol

...is there one-world government?

No, and that is not what's meant by "global governance."

Think of global governance as something like... trying to standardize rules and practices across national borders, promoting cooperation and resolving disagreements, etc. Monitoring and protecting human rights falls under global governance. Cooperating for the purpose of development or trade links to global governance. A few examples that are pretty firmly linked to Unit 1 can be found below (and there are other things in Units 2 and 3 that we can also connect to global governance.)

WTO Agreements

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has the mission to "ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible." The WTO and its members set and enforce the rules for international trade; promote more liberal trade policies in member states (lower or no tariffs, fewer restrictions); act as a forum to resolve trade disputes between member nations; and aid developing countries in benefitting from the global trade system.

The WTO is a great example of global governance because it is an institution where members are obliged to follow its rules, while non-members are not. It's an opt-in system, like basically every IGO. It's also got a limited mission: regulate international trade. If it ain't got nothing to do with trade, it ain't got nothing to do with the WTO.

Cooperating on climate issues

Kyoto Protocols

The Kyoto Protocols (1997, but revisted several times since then) are a solid example of global governance as they sought to establish a global system for meeting reduced emissions standards. It established "protocols," which are rules and procedures, for meeting previously agreed-upon climate goals. One of these protocols offers developing states the ability to "skip over" more polluting types of industrial technology and gain access to newer, cleaner tech.

The 2015 Paris Agreement built on the Kyoto Protocols and updated goals to meet a new, more urgent situation. Like the Kyoto Protocol, and other international agreements, it is "legally binding," meaning that member states are obliged to follow the agreement (but non-members can't be forced to do anything.) In addition to setting goals and targets for reduced emisions and carbon reduction, the Paris Agreement also sets up protocols for countries to support one another in meeting the goals (both financially and through the sharing of technology and ideas.) This is what global governance hopes to achieve.

Forms of Cooperation

International cooperation takes a variety of forms...

There is nothing else I can say here, so just move to the stuff below 😇

Treaties

Treaties are basically the building blocks of cooperative international relations, and they can really be about aaaaanything. Trade agreements, security agreements, ending conflicts, statements of shared principles, etc. can all be reflected in treaties.

The key thing that sets treaties apart from something like a "handshake" agreement is that they are ratified, or formally accepted, by states' governments (like, in the US a treaty has to be approved by Congress and signed by the President, like any other bill or law.) This makes them "official" and enforceable; breaking a treaty is seen as a big no-no, and leads to a lot of negative feelings and suspicion towards the state that does the breaking.

Collective Security

The image up above represents agreements between states that led to World War I, where conflict between two of the above states (essentially) drew in all the rest and then Europe had a lot of fun for five years.

Collective security in the modern day has changed, and is best represented by organizations like NATO. In the past, collective security was all about "if somebody tries to mess around with me, y'all come in and have my back" whereas now collective security is a deterrent rather than an insurance policy. NATO is made up of several nuclear powers and their allies, why mess with them? Countries allied with Russia similarly have a big bro looking over their shoulder.

Collective security simultaneously highlights both liberal and realist ideas of global politics (or, from another point of view, shows how realism and liberalism actually dovetail in some ways and are not really all that different in some regards.) Security agreements are about safety and survival, but they also rely on trust and cooperation (a defensive realist would be ok with these things, while an offensive realist would be suspicious. A liberal might approve of a security agreement with the reasoning that it'd help avoid conflict.)

Strategic Alliances

It's easy to get strategic alliances confused with collective security, so let's try to set them apart. They are alliances with some... strategic value. So, China making moves in Africa? Strategic alliances based on an interest in valuable resources and African states' desire for a link to a major economic power. The image up above represents the "Five Eyes" alliance, which is made up of intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the UK, Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand who share intelligence information and look out for one another. The U.S.-Taiwan relationship is a key strategic alliance, where the U.S. tries to project power into Asia and promote democratic ideals (in opposition to Chinese hegemony.)

Strategic alliances represent the intersection between states' power, their interests, how their interests overlap with other states' interests (or how they conflict with them), and formal interactions.

Economic Cooperation

It's worth considering economic cooperation and trade alongside topics like globalization, btw. I'd recommend checking this super cool site out (I'm fairly sure we used it last year but don't 100% remember?): http://globe.cid.harvard.edu/?mode=gridSphere&id=null

Economic interaction can be bilateral (like a trade deal between two states), multilateral (involving more than two states.) It can even go so far as to make economies within a region greatly integrated with one another (a la the European Union.) These interactions are based on capitalism, which encourages free trade, profit-seeking, and a deference to "market forces" when making economic decisions, as well as the ruthless exploitation of the world's poor and working class. Sorry, had a quick hiccup.

Economic cooperation is meant to be mutually beneficial to participants, and can have a range of effects (cf to globalization, development, etc.)

Informal Cooperation

A lot of this is covered in the page on non-state actors, under Informal forums. One thing I'll add here is this, a summary of the G7 summit in the U.K. from last summer (2021): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/13/g7s-carbis-bay-declaration-the-key-pledges

Conflict

Hey, there's a whole unit on this! For the Unit 1 dimension of conflict, we're not looking at the nature of conflict, but rather the way that conflict represents interactions between states (or between groups within a state.)

Interstate War

Interstate war is a (thankfully) fairly uncommon form of interaction between states. A lot of this is covered in the section on types of conflict for Unit 4, but let's think about this in terms of interactions here.

Wars can break out for a number of reasons, and they typically have pretty long lead-up periods (like how Russia-Ukraine has been simmering for at least a decade now.) These conflicts reflect a breakdown in relations between two (or more) states, a conflict of interests, and potentially something interpreted as a threat to a state's survival (realism) or another situation that may require an aggressive response.

Intrastate War (Civil War)

While interstate war is less common (and gets a lot of attention when it happens) intrastate conflict is a lot more frequent, and there are a LOT of conflicts you've probably never heard of before.

Some intrastate conflicts are between different groups within a state, like a government vs a rebel group or violent movement. Other intrastate conflicts are more complex and may involve actors from outside the state. The ongoing civil conflict in Yemen, between the government and Houthi rebels is also a sort-of "proxy war" between Saudi Arabia and Iran over influence in the region.

Terrorism

Terrorism, as a concept, can be hard to nail down. One generally agreed-upon definition is that terrorism is an activity that seeks to instill fear in a population, in order to promote an idea or achieve a goal. By this definition, terrorism is therefore not limited to terrorist organizations; states can use terror against their own citizens or against the citizens of another state.

Strikes/Demonstrations & other forms of protest

Strikes tend to be focused on domestic issues (e.g., low pay, public service workers working without a contract) but they can occasionally be in response to international events. In 2020, Amazon.com workers in Germany went on strike and workers in other countries also went on strike out of solidarity. A general strike in Myanmar after the 2021 coup was successful in drawing international attention to the military takeover and the population's displeasure. Perhaps most significantly, a global climate strike was organized in 2019, with workers in companies and industries around the world symbolically walking out on their jobs to promote climate action.

Demonstrations are quite common in response to global events. Russian embassies around the world were surrounded by protesters after their invasion of Ukraine, and Chinese embassies often saw similar circumstances at the height of the Xinjiang camp controversy. There have also been demonstrations in opposition to WTO meetings and IMF rules, so IGOs can be the target of these protests as well.

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