TyroCity: International Relations

Meaning, nature and scope of IR

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

The definition of International Relations (IR) varies from a layperson to scholars. It means one thing to individuals inhabiting at the power centers of the World (the West) and means other thing to the impoverished peoples of the South. It is a complex tapestry of conceptions that is palatable to one and vulgar to the others. The definitions are also either narrow or broad. It is either state-centric, or society-centric or anthropocentric in connotations. It is defined in a way that suits those who govern and those who are governed. A striking balance is therefore required to satisfy the interpreters of IR especially for the people who dislike inevitability of power politics qua realpolitik.

IR encompasses or covers all facets and dimensions of relations amongst nations. It includes political, economic, social, cultural and ideological spheres of a state which interface that with the others. Specific to the influences on the state and its citizens we can say that IR is the study of respective spheres of (inter)actions at different levels – either above or below a state and with different actors – either state or non-state. However a universal acceptance of a definition is still elusive. It suggests that there is no single viewpoint on understanding and explaining IR.

The traditional scope of IR is associated much either with state-centric notions of our existence or with forces international in nature that shape our private lives. Whereas today it is identified more with job prospects and career in IR. We sometimes pursue our study according to the conditions of job markets or scope of the subject in securing employment. The important aspect of after education is to explore avenues on your own to expand the scope of the received knowledge in a society. Without internship or voluntarism in non-government sectors one can not augment experiences of real world situations. It also emphasize on interpersonal and communication skills as well as working on a multicultural environment in diverse situations. MNCs play a prominent role in current international relations and international business diplomacy is one area where management students would be suitable to undertake the profession.

Some put forward a limited list and others exhaustive list but it can not be forthrightly said that scope is fully decided because the international environment as well as this discipline is in a state of flux. Even then its scope and main areas of study have been distinctly demarcated viz. study of the state system, relations in conflict and cooperation, general and diplomatic history, power, international law, international organizations, international systems, integration and community approach, geopolitics, conflict management and conflict resolution, war and peace, ideologies, nationalism, colonialism and imperialism, foreign policy, national interest, policy-making, national character, psychological factors, military-strategic factors, alliances and groupings, arms control and disarmament, demographic factors, economic factors and area and regional studies.

Purpose and Importance of IR

IR is both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative as it both seeks to analyze as well as formulate foreign policy. Apart from political science, IR draws upon such diverse fields making it cross and inter-disciplinary study. It involves a diverse range of issues, from globalization and its impacts on societies and state sovereignty to ecological sustainability, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, economic development, terrorism, organized crime, human security and human rights.

The course on IR will attract interest from young students all over the country and abroad as Nepal is at the centre of Asia touching two giant countries – India and China. It is to realize the importance of this country and its people in bridging between two vast economies by becoming a transit state and, in total, maintaining harmony among them for the development, solidarity and unity of Asia. Therefore it is felt that there is a need for an academic discipline of this type in Nepal at the threshold of 21st century and in the context of globalized world.

To fulfill the desires and aspirations of men and women who would like to pursue academic life in International Relations. To open avenue to critically examine at every level of analysis – individual, local, national, regional and global which would illuminate and enlighten in understanding and analyzing complexities of today’s world. The demands of budding talents of Nepal in this regard, it has become extremely necessary to introduce this inter-disciplinary course.

The aims of this course is to familiarize students with the central concerns of IR – foreign policy analysis, international organization, strategic studies, diplomacy, globalization, international political economy (IPE), international law and IR theory. It will provide students with tools for the critical interpretation of both secondary and primary texts, equip them with an in depth knowledge of international history and politics during the mid 20th century to the present, equip students with the skills and opportunity to conduct autonomous supervised research projects including assignments, seminars, a long essay and dissertation and develop their competency at communicating their ideas.

It therefore aims to cater students wishing to develop their specialist knowledge in international affairs/politics and diplomacy. It prepares students for exciting careers in the diplomatic service, inter-governmental agencies, national and international non-governmental organizations and international media. Also they will go on to high-caliber jobs and will be accepted into prestigious university programmes and secure research positions around the world. The purpose is to lure the best and brightest students of Nepal to do an inter-disciplinary academic exercise.

By the time one finishes studies in IR, he/she will have developed high levels of initiative, self-discipline and creativity. It will enhance employment prospects and will give them a tremendous sense of personal achievement. The course is stimulating, challenging and ultimately rewarding – intellectually, and in whichever direction students choose their careers their horizon will expand and worlds of possibility will open up as a result of advanced course in IR.

IR has both theoretical and practical utility. It can be adapted for use in general education in each community and each country with their worldview and various interpretations giving to its generalizations.

Its practical importance can not be negated with regard to practical assignment of individuals when conduction IR. They include national or international officials, statesmen, politicians, international jurists, international financiers, international propagandists, educators, journalists and activists. It aids in their practical activity to discern situations on the ground reality to be addressed, to obtain relevant information, to frame goals and to make decisions initiating action. IR can be investigated further for research purpose to answer innumerable questions about the future of international relations as well as to find shortcomings in the existing theoretical and political knowledge of the world. Some scholars point out that it teaches the formula to be pursued for human survival and progress, understanding and controlling human problems of global repercussion such as war and conflicts, aims at objectivity, balance and perspective. To others the value and purpose of IR is about understanding the role of subjectivity (meaning nation’s viewpoint and even authors), fostering internationalism along with nationalism and establishing a better world.

Individual and the World
Americans are unconcerned about world event s and issues. Minority of well-educated Americans follow foreign news and most of them have little information about global politics. As we are not mere spectators on the theatre of global drama which is played over and over we are all caught up in the tidal ebb and flow of global happenings. The importance of studying IR is to make one knowledgeable about the world and to try to mould it according to one’s liking as international politics does matter. It does affect one’s economic life, habitat and substantially one’s existence.

Economic condition
As international industrial and financial structures become interestingly intertwined the impact of international economics on an individual continues to expand (ex. job losses in developed countries and petro-states can have effect on remittances of Nepal). The term intermestic symbolizes the merger of international and domestic concerns. The ubiquitous connections briefly explore three aspects of that relationship. How international trade, the flow of international capital, and defense spending all affect finances of individuals we need to deeply understand.

– International trade and your finances

The global flow of goods (tangible items) and services (intangible items such as revenues from tourism, insurance and banking) are important to your financial circumstances. International trade and your job are interrelated. Exports create jobs and jobs are also lost due to rising imports.

– The flow of international capital and your finances

Investment capital whereby foreign investors provide jobs for domestic workers and the product and marketing decisions that they make have a wide impact. The infusion of foreign capital save the companies facing crisis and provide jobs as well. The inflow of foreign investment capital had deeper impacts on economies of India and China.

International financial capital markets allow people to own individual shares, stocks, bonds of mutual fund shares. It has gone up in Nepal as well as in the developed countries. It is not the concern of the rich. Financial aid and tuition waiver at foreign universities and higher education sector provide relief to needy foreign students.

– Defense spending and your finances

Americans paid taxes to buttress America’s involvement in world affairs. In F/Y 2001 the US government spent $ 1.9 trillion foreign aid accounting 1% of the budget. The defense spending was considerably 16.1% which equals about $ 1,100 per American for national defense. Israel has the highest per capita spending on military. With 5% of the world’s populations, the US accounts for 37% of the world’s military spending and make military-industrial complex lucrative.

Habitable world – environmental sustainability of development
There are demographic pressures, ageing population, teeming youth force in Nepal. High population growth rate also affects the pattern of consumption of food, energy creating ecological calamity, environmental disaster and global warming due to emission of green house gases. High food prices in international market with food deficit can result in famine and malnourishment in remote corners of the country.

Interconnected life with a corporeal world
Human resources are utilized in the country and the abroad as human insecurity looms large. Under skilled and knowledgeable work force look greener pasture of the developed countries for job prospects and academic career. They even do menial jobs which are dirty, dangerous and difficult (3Ds). Around thousands leave TIA the only international airport in the country and it is an irony that on average three dead bodies of Nepalese arrives home.

Can we make a difference?

Yes, we can. There are multiple ways but to name a few. Direct voting or referendum on international questions as Danish, Irish, Polish and Czech voted for the Lisbon Treaty. The Swiss are well known for practicing this process. We can vote for suitable candidates who can deliver much on foreign policy fronts especially abrogating the 1950 treaty with India, harnessing of water resources for our benefits. We can also demand from the leaders on the accountability of the use of international aid. We can involve in direct action at local and national level by influencing global relations through activism and entrepreneurial activities.

Conceptualising the World into theories

Every statement that is intended to describe or explain anything that happens in IR is a theoretical statement. It is naïve and superficial to try to discuss IR solely on the basis of ‘the facts’. This is because whatever facts are selected – any at all – are literally abstract. The serious student of IR needs to consider afresh the problem of how to picture IR as a whole. The problem of theorist is to simplify the complexity without distorting it. That task, in turn, requires attention to the procedures of theory-building.

Theory-building

‘Theory’ is not a static body of knowledge rather it is a ‘tool on the road to knowledge’ in the same way that ‘facts are not knowledge but only the raw materials’ that have to be transformed via ‘theorising activity’ into propositions that can be ‘tested in the process of empirical research.’

Theory consists of both analysis and synthesis. To analyse is to unravel, to separate the strands, or to take to pieces. To synthesize is to reassemble, to piece together the parts in such a way as to compose a whole that makes sense.

According to Robert Cox, “Theory is always for someone for some purpose”.

As a development of Marxist thought, critical theory seeks to unmask the global domination of the rich North over the South. It views knowledge as inherently political; social scientists and social science as instruments of power.

Generally speaking IR scholars derive three schools of thought on it viz. realism, liberalism and Marxism. They should be strictly designated as ‘paradigms’ but they are also more casually termed perspectives, approaches, world views, frameworks or general theories. The voices from the margins as called by advocates of critical theory and post-modernism are making presence felt in the current discourse of IR. Infact IR is impervious to a growing awareness of feminist approaches to it. The political has become the personal. Gender issues, ethnicity and more traditional concepts of nation-states, nationalism, culture and religion reflect new emphasis in IR on identity studies.

There are five basic values of state system – security, freedom, order, justice and welfare. Each of them is generalized respectively by realist theories, liberal theories, International Society theories, International Political Economy (IPE) theories of IR.

For realists, IR is a system of ‘billiard-ball’ states in intermittent collisions. For pluralists, it is a ‘cobweb’, a network of numerous crisscrossing relationships. For structuralists, it is a ‘multi-headed octopus’, with powerful tentacles constantly sucking wealth from the weakened peripheries towards the powerful centers.

Popular schools of thought – realism and idealism
At least for five centuries or more we have followed a path that has been characterized by self-interested states struggling to secure their self-interests in a largely anarchistic international system. The alternative path not undertaken argued that states need to abandon the pursuit of short-term self-interest and take a more cooperative globalist approach. They favour a decline in the central role played by states in the international system, a rise of global institutions such as the UN and regional supranational organizations like EU. The world needs to find a new way to govern itself from the perspective of the advent of nuclear weapons, the deterioration of the global environment and other looming problems.

Two approaches are not an ‘either-or’ choice. Realism, realpolitik, balance of power, nationalist, conservative and state-centred (state-centric, state-based) on the one hand and the other idealism (idealist), globalism, (new) world order, liberal, liberal institutionalism and internationalist. Besides these there are number of related orientations – feminism, political economy and constructivism. Realists are pessimists and idealists are optimists about the existing world.

Politics according to the doctrine of realism and idealism
Both disagree over the nature of Homo Politicus (political humankind) and their respective views govern their approaches to domestic as well as to international politics. Realists portray politics in somber hues and believe that political struggle among humans is probably inevitable because people have an inherent dark side. Some scholars trace their intellectual roots all the way back to Thucydides, the chronicler of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides argued that the casus belli between the Athenians and the Spartans around 420 BC was an increase in Athenian military power and the security dilemma it posed to Melians of the Spartan League. He is said to have begun one of the main traditions of thinking about international relations. Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes and Max Weber are also regarded as seminal thinkers without getting designation of being realists. The realist doctrines may have germinated in the writings of these early thinkers but its recent formulations as a theoretical approach to the study of IR began in the later 1930s and early 1940s.

E.H. Carr and Hans J. Morgenthau are pioneers in that development. They were among the first scholars to use the term ‘realism’ and to elaborate its fundamental assumptions by contrast with the allegedly idealistic study of IR that prevailed during the interwar period. They claimed to delineate hard realities of international life and unmasked the reality of politics challenging romanticism and utopianism. Idealists with its belief in peace and emphasis on free trade in effect were blind to accumulation of power by states and the perpetuation of status quo. There are three basic tenets of realist philosophy derived from Machiavelli:

History is a sequence of cause and effect – a synchronization involving hard power (political or military) or high politics of security and survival. It outweighs rationality, an intellectual effort over “imagination”, a utopian believe.
Theory does not as utopians assume create practice but practice makes theory.
Politics are not as utopians pretend a function of ethics but ethics of politics. Morality is the product of power.

Thomas Hobbes envisaged anarchical society wherein humans possess an inherent urge to dominate, animus dominandi.

Morgenthau extrapolates relations between individuals on a wider scale in not essentially different in relations amongst nations. He said “politics is governed by objective laws which have their roots in human nature”. It is reflected in a rational theory of politics and international relations. He mentioned about six principles of realism wherein human nature and ethics of state are dealt with.

Therefore with negative view of human actions and desires liberal thinkers profoundly misread the facts of history and misunderstood the nature of international relations. There are profound conflicts of interest both between countries and between people according to Carr. Thus IR is far more about conflict than about cooperation. Morgenthau was preoccupied with human nature at the base of international relations no less than any other human relations. And humans were self-interested and power seeking and that culminates easily in aggression. The second major element of the realist view concerns the nature of international relations – an international anarchy. The third component is a cyclical view of history. In contrast to the liberal view that qualitative change for the better is possible, realism stresses continuity and repetition. They hold a notion of power politics between states which exist in an international anarchy.

A relatively more recent variation on realism is neorealism which focuses on the anarchic nature of a world system based on competition among sovereign states while classical realists stress human nature as decisive in shaping world politics. They both doubt that there is an escape from conflict. Anarchy/hierarchy is the nature of the international system based on sovereign actors (states). They answer to no higher authority, overarching authority providing security and order. It is a self-help system with each state relies on its resources to survive and prosper. Classical realists believe human nature is immutable and neorealists are skeptical about utility of international organizations or the ability of interdependent nature of relations to promote cooperation. National policy of a state is formulated on national interests.

Idealism and the Nature of Politics:

Idealism refute that all or most humans are inherently political predators. They believe in over of cooperation and less conflictual relations. Basic liberal assumptions are: 1. a positive view of human nature, 2. a conviction of cooperative rather than conflictual state of international relations, 3. a belief in progress. They believe in human reason applying rational principles in international affairs. The human reason can triumph over human fear and the lust for power. The core concern of idealism is the happiness and contentment of individual human beings. The classical realism focused on freedom, cooperation, peace, progress.

Early thinkers are John Locke (constitutional states and toleration), Jeremy Bentham (international law and reciprocity) and Kant (progress and perpetual peace). The basic tenets of liberalism are intertwining of human progress, human reason and cooperation which results in the process of modernization towards the development of the modern state. Idealists trace their intellectual lineage to Jean-Jacques Rousseau who understood the human potential to come together to build a cooperative and peaceful global society.

Utopian liberalism as the early study of IR has traits of Wilsonial idealism. It is the conviction that through a rationally and intelligently designed international organization. It should be possible to put an end to war and to achieve more or less permanent peace. Norman Angell, a contemporary liberal of Wilson, is a forerunner of later liberal thinking about modernization and economic interdependence. It involves a process of change and progress which renders war and the use of force increasingly obsolete.

Idealists as critics say are out of tough with current thinking; they put moral principles before practical or prudential considerations and are naïve about the world around them. They are futurists who seek a perfect world. The self-proclaimed realists had coined the term to describe liberal internationalism of the interwar years and such a labeling deserves debatable. Recent research indicates that the idealist thinkers of the period were not as ‘other worldly’ as many realists suggested. Idealism surfaced in reaction to the carnage of the 1st World War. Most intellectuals and policymakers of the day pointed the blame on the Realpolitik of the European great powers and resolved the task of abolishing war as an instrument of statecraft. Philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie, Ford and Rockfeller devoted some portion of their wealth to educate people about benefits of developing internationalist orientation. Indeed the birth of IR as a separate discipline coincided with these developments. Wilson’s 14 Point at the Versailles Peace Conference in December 1918 not only provided an outline for the settlement of the 1st World War but also served as the basis for the establishment of the League of Nations. Idealists shared a belief in progress and were of the view that deliberations under the rule of law and the procedures of parliamentary democracy could be firmly established in international diplomacy. That’s why they placed so much importance on the League of Nations and on strengthening international law.

A fundamental belief of idealism is that what unites human beings is more important than what divides them. The idealists rejected communitarian and realist arguments that the state is itself a source of moral value for human beings. Instead, they defended a cosmopolitan ethics and sought to educate individuals about the need to reform the international system. Interwar idealism was as much a political movement as an intellectual one.

The idealism is a sort of a passé paving the way for mutation into neoidealism (often called neoliberalism) school of thought. Neoidealists subscribe like neorealists much of the world conflict to the anarchic world system based on competition among sovereign states. Like all idealists, neoidealists believe that humans can cooperate in order to achieve mutual benefits. Since the anarchical system hinders cooperation, it is building through effective international organisation can the best path to cooperation achieve. That’s why their prescription and emphasis on institutions make them liberal institutionalists.

Power of Power politics and norms and values of Justice
They are poles apart in describing the two facets of governance, the power and justice. Both as standards of international conduct disagree over their roles. Realists maxim holds that the “might is right” whilst idealists contend that “right makes right”.

Realism and Power Politics

It is an undisputable belief on power that leads state exercise to secure their frequently conflicting interests. This is a salient feature of the main action at international arena. They hold that objectives of politics internationally are to augment power, to keep or retain it or to exhibit it. It is not a novel thought as Indian seer Kautilya had expressed these mantra two millennia ago.

The essence of politics is the struggle for power and foreing policy is based on the tenets for a strategy of survival and struggle for existence. So in an international climate of anarchy of a state ignores or do not follow this dictum then it barely fits in those strategy. Thus the national interest takes into account of enhancing or preserving the state’s security, its influence and its power- military and economic. The sutra of success for a state in international politics lies in the mightiness of these elements. Therefore it is unconscionable or irrational to follow policy based only on ethics or morality. So the morality of the state is national survival but that does not imply realists are amoral. The moral duty of the state in its highest form is to do good for its citizens. More moderately realists prescribe that morality should be weighed prudently against national interests .

Idealism and norms and values

Competition and cooperation – dynamic views
Positivism or what is of reality – an appraisal of divergent theories

Methodology of studying world politics
Some of the most important IR questions are methodological in nature. Such issues became prominent with the ‘behavioural revolution’ in the 1950s and 1960s. Since the end of the Cold War, methodological issues have returned to center stage in a debate between positivist and post-positivist methodologies. In most academic disciplines, including IR, there are two fundamental kinds of controversy. One kind debate involves over substantive issues i.e. questions of fact. The other controversy involves over methodological issues i.e. conceptual and philosophical questions that are involved in the way that we carry out our research.

Political Scientists and world politics – analytical orientations, descriptive (empirical) or prescriptive (normative) – goals and research methods

The concepts of war, order and peace, justice and injustice, anarchy and sovereignty as an intellectual concern were occupied prominent place in a long history of international relations. Political scientists study world politics in order to formulate theories – generalizations – about politics. Thus they would like to unravel the phenomena and patterns that are constant at spatio-temporal realm. There are many methodologies and approaches to arrive at understanding of IR. Nonetheless a political scientist main concern is with theory. Keeping this in mind IR scholars has three subsidiary goals: description, prediction and prescription.

Description is the oldest and most fundamental of these three goals. It focuses on patterns. When researcher studies a single event or case studies or a series of events across time or space the object is not to just describe the event(s). Instead the goal is to relate them to a pattern of other events for e.g. democratic peace, multipolarity, anarchy is what states make of it, etc.

Prediction is even more difficult than description because of complexity of unpredictable human nature. Forecasting is fallible and inaccurate when no one predicted the end of the Cold War except the dissidents and litterateurs. Moreover the rise of Great power can fall in certain period as the history of Roman and British Empires are of any guide.

Prescription is a third goal. Some scholars go beyond their objective studies and come to normative or moral philosophy of IR i.e. what ought to be. They enter into direct policy-making field whereas those who can not make influence indirectly through working in think-tanks, as columnist and public author of influencing books.

Political scientists conduct research or gather evidence to support their hypothesis through three basic methodologies – logic, traditional observation and quantitative analysis. Logic involves applying it in deducing or deriving specific reasoning for particular political observation such as deterrence theory, negotiations or game theory in decision making, foreign policy analysis etc. Traditional observation uses varied techniques to study political phenomena. One method is historical approach – personal interviews, archives and participant observation. History can be prelude to the current problems and underlying conflict can be traced to the past. Quantitative analysis use mathematical modeling for measurable phenomena such as cross border trade, human migrations,

Level of Analysis (international system, state or individual) There are three levels of analysis form which world politics can be investigated. They are system-level analysis, state-level analysis and individual-level analysis and are not mutually exclusive.

Peace Keeping Mandate

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Depending on their mandate, peacekeeping operations may be required to:

1.Deploy to prevent the outbreak of conflict or the spill‐over of conflict across borders;

2.Stabilize conflict situations after a ceasefire, to create an environment for the parties to reach a lasting peace agreement.

3.Assist in implementing comprehensive peace agreements;

4.Lead states or territories through a transition to stable government, based on democratic principles, good governance and economic development.

UN Peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:

Consent of the parties
Impartiality
Non‐use of force except in self‐defense and defense of the mandate

PEACE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Introduction
In ancient times, international relations operated very differently. The system of sovereign state that we have today has not always existed. For much of the world’s history, empires dominated relations between various actors. Between empires, there was little notion of independence and non-interference. A notable exception occurred in ancient Greece, where city‐states related to each other in much the same way that sovereign states relate to each other today. The modern state and the modern international system emerged after the Thirty Years’ War with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. With this agreement, the overarching authority of the pope was replaced by the notion of sovereign states. The notion of sovereignty arose in Europe in the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries and spread around the world through the processes of colonization and decolonization when Europeans explored and conquered much of the rest of the world. Prior to the invention of the territorial state, global politics had been dominated by a wide variety of political forms such as empires, tribes, and cities.

Thirty Years’ War in Europe
Thirty Years War is the name given to a series of bloody and devastating wars fought in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Belgium) particularly on German lands between 1618 and 1648. Though several complex causes and motivations fueled these wars, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics over the authority of the Catholic Church and the pope was a central issue. Until 1517, Christianity was synonymous with Catholicism. Protestantism was a movement against the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants eventually tried to free themselves from the authority of the pope and Catholic rulers. The Thirty Years’ War in Europe began as a conflict between Protestants and Catholics but eventually involved political issues. The Protestant churches were destroyed by Catholic bishop. In response, in Prague in 1618, Protestants attacked the Emperor’s palace and threw two of his ministers out of a window and forced out the Catholic King. The governments of Sweden and Denmark, while claiming to be fighting for the ideals of Protestantism, also saw the War as an opportunity to gain land. Protestant rulers within the Holy Roman Empire and beyond (France, Sweden, Denmark, England, and United Provinces) were on one side and the Holy Roman Emperor and the ruling Hapsburg family, the Catholic princes of Germany, and in the end, Spain were on the other side. In the Thirty Years’ War, two‐thirds of the total population had disappeared and five‐sixths of the villages in the empire had been destroyed.

Peace of Westphalia
The horrors of the Thirty Years’ War made it obvious that the Christian community of medieval Europe was fragile indeed and was in need of replacement. The replacement that came out of the Peace of Westphalia was the sovereign state. The European powers gathered in Westphalia (in what is today northwestern Germany) in 1648 to make peace. The term peace of Westphalia refer to the two peace treaties of Osnabruck and Munster signed on May 15 and October 24 of 1648 respectively which ended both the thirty years war in Germany and the eighty years war between Spain and the Netherlands. The treaty of the Pyrenees signed in 1659 that ended the war between France and Spain is often considered part of the overall accord. The Peace of Westphalia was comprised of separate treaties, as the Catholic and Protestant nations refused to meet with each other. The Catholic parties met in 1648 in Munster, a traditionally Catholic city, whereas the Protestants met in the Protestant city of Osnabruck. The chief participants in the negotiations were the allies of Sweden and France; their opponents, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire; and the various parts of the empire. (which had been riven by the war) together with the newly independent Netherlands. England, Poland, Muscovy, and Turkey were the only European powers that were not represented at the two assemblies. Ultimately, 176 representatives of 196 rulers attended the peace negotiations. France wanted to destroy the emperor’s influence by strengthening the autonomy of the individual princes and by replacing the existing imperial institutions with a French‐led federation. However, these plans were unpopular with the German princes, who preferred an emperor with limited authority than the dominance of France and Sweden. Likewise, France wanted Spanish territory and also did not want to see Sweden become too powerful. After the treaty of Westphalia the Holy Roman Empire remained a loosely knit federation. The emperor had to share the power with the
princes. The United Provinces of the Netherlands (Dutch Republic) were declared independent of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Switzerland was also acknowledged as independent of the empire. France and Sweden gained additional territory.

Significance of Peace of Westphalia
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. The Treaty of Westphalia embraced the notion of sovereignty and almost all small states in central Europe attained sovereignty. The German states (about 250) were recognized as sovereign. The Peace of Westphalia established the principle that all sovereign states are equal. Interference by one state in the internal affairs of another was considered as the violation of sovereignty by the Peace of Westphalia. The system of sovereign states gradually expanded to the non‐Western world when Europeans explored and conquered much of the rest of the world. After the Treaty, the leaders sought to establish their own permanent national militaries. ‘National interest’ gained superiority over religious motives in a long term. The power and authority of the Holy Roman Empire was drastically curtailed by the Peace of Westphalia and the religious authority in Europe was replaced by Secular authority. It made Roman Catholics and Protestants equal and allowed the state to establish the religion of their people. Treaty of Westphalia established a core group of states that dominated the world until the beginning of the nineteenth century: Austria, Russia, Prussia, England, France, and the United Provinces (the area now comprising the Netherlands and Belgium). Following the Peace of Westphalia, in the eighteenth century, European states operated on the balance‐of‐power principle. The principles imply that it is dangerous for all states to allow any other state to become too powerful. The Westphalian state system contributed to the evolution of diplomatic methods and the growth of international law. The peace of Westphalia resulted from the first pan‐European peace congress and it established the practice of multilateral negotiation for resolving conflicts. The Treaty of the Peace of Westphalia recognized peace as the highest goal of the community of states.

Conflicting Perspectives regarding Peace of Westphalia

It is argued that two main treaties that comprise the Peace of Westphalia, make no mention of sovereignty. Some scholars argue that the Peace of Westphalia did not intend to redefine international relations since the treaties had no other purposes than ending the war. While each German principality had its own legal system, the final Courts of Appeal applied to the whole of the Holy Roman Empire hence they were not sovereign. It is also argued that the Peace of Westphalia simply took a pre‐existing set of concepts and established them between nations. Since the three
chief participants (France, Sweden and Holy Roman Empire) were all already sovereign, there was no need to clarify this situation. In any case, the princes of Germany remained subordinate to the Holy Roman emperor as per the constitution. In addition, each treaty contained clauses that allowed Sweden and France to intervene should the Holy Roman Empire break the Peace. This directly violates the concept of individual sovereignty, as it allows external actors to interfere with state affairs. Many scholars at present believe that with the rise of globalization, nation‐states are becoming less and less Westphalian as international organizations such as the European Union, the
United Nations, and the International Criminal Court gain legal power to intervene in countries.

Nepal’s relation with India

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Even after India had achieved independence from Britain in 1947, Nepalese-Indian relations continued to be based on the second Treaty of Sagauli, which had been signed with the government of British India in 1925. Beginning in 1950, however, relations were based on two treaties. Under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, ratified in July 1950, each government agreed to acknowledge and respect the other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence; to continue diplomatic relations; and, on matters pertaining to industrial and economic development, to grant rights equal to those of its own citizens to the nationals of the other residing in its territory. Agreements on all subjects in this treaty superseded those on similar matters dealt with in the previous treaties between Nepal and Britain. In the Treaty of Trade and Commerce, ratified in October 1950, India recognized Nepal’s right to import and export commodities through Indian territory and ports. Customs could not be levied on commodities in transit through India.

India’s influence over Nepal increased throughout the 1950s. The Citizenship Act of 1952 allowed Indians to immigrate to Nepal and acquire Nepalese citizenship with ease–a source of some resentment in Nepal. And, Nepalese were allowed to migrate freely to India–a source of resentment there. (This policy was not changed until 1962 when several restrictive clauses were added to the Nepalese constitution.) Also in 1952, an Indian military mission was established in Nepal. In 1954 a memorandum provided for the joint coordination of foreign policy, and Indian security posts were established in Nepal’s northern frontier (see India , ch. 5). At the same time, Nepal’s dissatisfaction with India’s growing influence began to emerge, and overtures to China were initiated as a counterweight to India.

King Mahendra continued to pursue a nonaligned policy begun during the reign of Prithvi Narayan Shah in the mid-eighteenth century . In the late 1950s and 1960s, Nepal voted differently from India in the UN unless India’s basic interests were involved. The two countries consistently remained at odds over the rights of landlocked states to transit facilities and access to the sea.

Following the 1962 Sino-Indian border war, the relationship between Kathmandu and New Delhi thawed significantly. India suspended its support to India-based Nepalese opposition forces. Nepal extracted several concessions, including transit rights with other countries through India and access to Indian markets . In exchange, through a secret accord concluded in 1965, similar to an arrangement that had been suspended in 1963, India won a monopoly on arms sales to Nepal.

In 1969 relations again became stressful as Nepal challenged the existing mutual security arrangement and asked that the Indian security checkposts and liaison group be withdrawn. Resentment also was expressed against the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950. India grudgingly withdrew its military checkposts and liaison group, although the treaty was not abrogated.

Further changes in Nepalese-Indian relations occurred in the 1970s. India’s credibility as a regional power was increased–and Nepal’s vulnerability was reinforced–by the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation; the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, which led to the emergence of an independent Bangladesh; the absorption of Sikkim into India in 1974; increased unofficial support of the Nepali Congress Party leadership in India; rebellions fomented by pro-Beijing Naxalite elements in 1973-74 in West Bengal State bordering Nepal; and India’s nuclear explosion in 1974. Nepal adopted a cautious policy of appeasement of India, and in his 1975 coronation address King Birendra called for the recognition of Nepal as a zone of peace where military competition would be off-limits. India showed some flexibility in placating Nepal by distancing, if not disassociating, itself from the Nepalese opposition forces based in India, agreeing to a favorable trade and transit arrangement in 1978, and entering into another agreement on joint industrial ventures between Indian and Nepalese firms. The latter agreement, by opening the possibilities of India’s investment, indirectly furthered India’s domination of Nepal’s economy. India also continued to maintain a high level of economic assistance to Nepal.

In the mid-1970s, Nepal pressed for substantial amendments to the 1971 trade and transit treaty, which was due to expire in 1976. India ultimately backed down from its initial position to terminate the 1971 treaty even before a new treaty could be negotiated. The 1978 agreements incorporated Nepal’s demand for separate treaties for trade and transit. The relationship between the two nations improved over the next decade, but not steadily.

India continued to support the Nepalese opposition and refused to endorse Nepal as a zone of peace. In 1987 India urged expulsion of Nepalese settlers from neighboring Indian states, and Nepal retaliated by introducing a work permit system for Indians working in Nepal. That same year, the two countries signed an agreement setting up a joint commission to increase economic cooperation in trade and transit, industry, and water resources.

Relations between the two countries sank to a low point in 1988 when Kathmandu signed an agreement with Beijing to purchase weapons soon after a report that China had won a contract for constructing a road in the western sector to connect China with Nepal . India perceived these developments as deliberately jeopardizing its security. India also was annoyed with the high volume of unauthorized trade across the Nepalese border, the issuance of work permits to the estimated 150,000 Indians residing in Nepal, and the imposition of a 55 percent tariff on Indian goods entering Nepal.

In retaliation for these developments, India put Nepal under a virtual trade siege. In March 1989, upon the expiration of the 1978 treaties on trade and transit rights, India insisted on negotiating a single unified treaty in addition to an agreement on unauthorized trade, which Nepal saw as a flagrant attempt to strangle its economy. On March 23, 1989, India declared that both treaties had expired and closed all but two border entry points.

The economic consequences of the trade and transit deadlock were enormous. Shortages of Indian imports such as fuel, salt, cooking oil, food, and other essential commodities soon occurred. The lucrative tourist industry went into recession. Nepal also claimed that the blockade caused ecological havoc since people were compelled to use already dwindling forest resources for energy in lieu of gasoline and kerosene, which came mostly via India. To withstand the renewed Indian pressure, Nepal undertook a major diplomatic initiative to present its case on trade and transit matters to the world community.

The relationship with India was further strained in 1989 when Nepal decoupled its rupee from the Indian rupee which previously had circulated freely in Nepal. India retaliated by denying port facilities in Calcutta to Nepal, thereby preventing delivery of oil supplies from Singapore and other sources.

A swift turn in relations followed the success of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in early 1990. In June 1990, a joint Kathmandu-New Delhi communiqué was issued pending the finalization of a comprehensive arrangement covering all aspects of bilateral relations, restoring trade relations, reopening transit routes for Nepal’s imports, and formalizing respect of each other’s security concerns. Essentially, the communiqué announced the restoration of the status quo ante and the reopening of all border points, and Nepal agreed to various concessions regarding India’s commercial privileges. Kathmandu also announced that lower cost was the decisive factor in its purchasing arms and personnel carriers from China and that Nepal was advising China to withhold delivery of the last shipment. The communiqué declared that Kathmandu and New Delhi would cooperate in industrial development, in harnessing the waters of their common rivers for mutual benefit, and in protecting and managing the environment.

General Theory of International Relations

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

The first thesis
A general theory of international relations needs to deal with the relationships between at least three fundamental concepts: Structure, Purpose and Situation. Power, and restraints on power, will be considered as subsidiary concepts. Structure- not just as nation but all other influential factors.

The second thesis
A general theory of international relations needs to permit of a multiplicity of viewpoints ranging from that of a responsible member of a particular group at a particular time (say, the Secretary of State of the United States today) to one that approximates, as far as may be possible, to that of a hypothetical observer from Mars studying the emergent characteristics of an interacting system of many cultures, races, states, classes, etc., over the full course of history.

The third thesis
A general theory of international relations needs to deal with two realms: the realm of fact and the realm of value — of “should” propositions — and with the interrelations between these realms. In almost every problem of international politics the first question to be asked is, in the particular context, who is to be regarded as the “we” and who is to be regarded as the “they.” The Phenomena of External and Internal Means of Balance of Power: Alliances
serving as external means and Increased armaments as internal balance of power. The recent world order in terms of economy, ideology and political system are becoming just as aspect of purpose. The means-ends concepts works better in international relation.

System Theory

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Morton Kaplan after 1955 explain the theory in more systematic manner

In simpler words, a system refers to a set of elements interacting with each other.

This theory assumes that there is a system in international relations and the states are its components. In the international system, states interact with one another, and are dependent on one another.

States are involved in constant interaction with ‘the whole’ or the international environment which is in the form of world politics.

The system is used as a tool of analysis and focus is upon arrangement of actors, interaction of actors or recurring pattern of the behavior of the actors.

International system is a pattern of relations between the basic units of world politics which is characterized by the scope of the objectives pursued by these units and of the tasks performed among them.

A system is an integrated one where all elements work to make the system survive. In the international system, the nation‐states,
knowingly or unknowingly, help the system to survive and progress.

Despite crises, the international system has survived and progressed. Systems theory of IR strongly sends the message that by adapting itself to changes, the international system would become an efficient system where the nations‐states would be more engaged in cooperation and mutual development.

Nations or states are the main actors in the international politics and the role of the state changes with the change of international system.

In the study of International Relations the System Theory is the established as one of the important theory. First the scholar David Easton developed this theory in the field of national politics and scholar Morton A. Kaplan in the field of international politics and relation. Beside that among those who developed the System theory for analyzing international relations, the contributions of Karl Deutsch, Raymond Aron as well as scholar Charles McClelland are significant.

A system is a group of parts that interact according to some kind of process. Systems are often visualized or modeled as blocks of different component with some kind of drawn connections. In the study of IR a “system” is a collection of events or effect which has relationships among all the actors of international Relations. Of course all three: things and relationships and the whole system have to be imagined by us, and tested against ‘reality’, to serve our purposes to understand the international Relation.

All systems have the same common characteristics. These common characteristics are summarized below:

All systems have some basic structure.
All systems are generalizations of reality.
They all function in the same way.
There are functional as well as structural relationships between the units of a system.
Function implies the flow and transfer of some material (events or Effect in IR). Systems exchange data and matter internally and with their surrounding environment through various processes of input and output.
Function requires the presence of some driving force, i.e. World Politics in IR.
All systems show some degree of incorporation between its parts as a whole.

The systems approach distinguishes itself from the more traditional analytic approach by emphasizing the interactions and connectedness of the different components of a system. Although the systems approach in principle considers all types of systems, it in practices focuses on the more complex, adaptive, self-regulating systems

System theory can also be define as, a set of concepts and models which can be used to understand relationships and moreover, simultaneous, transient and shifting relationships.

System is particular method of the data obtaining, measuring, analyzing and taking feedback from the environment of world politics. System is the concept that refers both to a complex of interdependencies between states, government and their relation, that involves distinct regularities and to a similar type of interdependency between such a complex and its surrounding environments.

System theory allow us to focus upon the actions of nation as the components of the system; upon the structure and functioning of the system which results from the interaction of nations; or upon the environmental factors which stipulate both actions of nations and operational environment of the system.

Under this theory the nations of the world (politics) are consider to be in contact and association in a complicated framework of relationship, which is formed through the process of interaction. As per the scholar Richard Little, the system theory is definitely particular design of relationships which can found in the international relations. It is assumed that, despite the complexity and confusion displayed by the mixture of interactions of the actors (state, organization etc) of the international relation, there are a set of structures which, describe the international system and explain the behaviour of the individual states or other actors.

Prof. Morton Kaplan presented a number of real and hypothetical models of global political organization. His six well known models were (i) balance of power system, (ii) loose bipolar system, (iii) tight bipolar system, (iv)universal actor system, (v) hierarchical system/’Unipolar World Model’., and (vi) unit veto system. The first two are historical realities; the remaining four are hypothetical models.

a) Balance of Power system -:- Within this system the nation will act as a international actors. As per this system the country makes balance of power between them and avoid the possibility of war to maintain the world peace. This system has six different rules for the balance of power:

Every nation actors has to gain power from negotiation and diplomatic relation, but not from the war.
First of all nation actors responsible to protect their interest and if there is no other way to protect their interest they have to go through risk of war to protect their interest.
To end the war is respectable, than to end other nation actor.
Nation actor has to make voice against building alliance of nations, which may cause supremacy of power among actors.
Nation actor has to prevent other actors to achieve supremacy in power relationship.
Nation actor has to give opportunity for the war-losing actor to interact in the international system as an actor friend in relation.

b. Loose bipolar system :- In a situation where too many actors influence intentional relations, it becomes difficult to strike a perfect balance of power position and loose bipolar system develops. This is a system where the two superpowers are in balance because of the relationship of surrounding nation actors. These surrounding actors may be neutral state or small states alliance. It affect not only the policy of the superpower also make affect on the arms conflict of superpowers.

c. Tight bipolar System :- Tight bipolar system, deals with only the two superpower and other neutral and alliance nation actors have no role to do in international relations. Two superpowers direct involved maintaining their relations and politics. And because of absence of the fair third party supranational actor the tight bipolar system maintain the international relations.

d. Universal actor system :- The universal international system grows when the universal actor, like the UN, take over many of functions of powerful units in a loose bipolar system. In such a system the universal actor becomes powerful enough to prevent war among nations, but national actors retain their individuality.

e. Hierarchical system :- In the hierarchical international system, the universal actor becomes too powerful and the international community becomes a pattern of world-state. Nation actors interact on non-directive way with the most and powerful role of universal actor (United Nation), which makes hierarchical system in international relations.

f. Unit Veto system :- The veto system is a result of weapons develop-capacity, they create a system of one-level actors, each of whom possesses assort of veto power by high merit of his destructive capacity. In a loose bipolar system, a few nations possess such destructive weapons; in a tight bipolar system only two nations possess such destructive weapons combined with extensive economic power. The non-aligned nations virtually vanish in such a situation.

Criticism
The System theory has its weaknesses. For instance, it makes the things too mechanistic by using the terms ‘input’, ‘output’, ‘feedback’, ‘environment’ and like. Scholar Stanley Hoffman has criticized the System theory effectively. What is worse in that their approach is selective as only those problems relevant to the systems are considered and others are ignored? Most of the model situations only exist in theory. The System theory dose not predict what will actually happen, but it only forecasts what would happen if certain conditions develop, which rarely, if ever develop exactly as imagined.

Introduction and Development of International Relations

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

History of the Discipline of IR:

IR in practice and as an academic vocation is both ancient and modern. It is relatively a juvenile discipline of social science. It achieved departmental status by setting up a Chair on IR at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth in 1919. A simple examination of the classics of political science and political thought signifies to its ancient status in theory and practice. The activities beyond one’s border in order to maintain and accumulate power at home and sustain ambitions and interests abroad provide the very stuff of IR in ancient context is made of as much as they do in the New Century. The past always acts as an acknowledged guide to the present and the future.

IR is integrally related to the First World War. Before that tumultuous and tragic event IR was not taught as a separate subject but in the US universities it was organized on lectures under History and Economics faculties. After the creation of the League of Nations, the League sponsored a series of International Studies conference through its Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. The Geneva Institute of International Studies served as an intermediary between the League and the growing subject of IR on the level of universities. In the aftermath of another Great War the UNESCO, a specialized agency of UN provided an additional stimulus to the development of study of IR. UNESCO sponsored conference of representatives of universities in 1948 calling to establish chair or department for systematic teaching, study and research of IR. The decolonization during that era expanded the scope of IR in new states. IR no longer remained the exclusive preserve of America and Europe. Though there was horizontal expansion of IR in all new countries it did not reach our mountainous country till 1960s.[1] Now we have access to the resources as well as learning it under the syllabus of an American university in the age of democracy.

The Development of IR Thinking

The stages of development of IR had its genesis in the first half of the 20th century. It achieved its maturity in the post-War world passing through several trends and stages.[2]

The first stage of IR ran up to the end of the First Great War. During that period IR was taught by diplomatic historians concerned with history than politics and contemporary events. They were interested in description of past events rather than critical analysis of the present and prediction of the future. This historical approach precluded a development of theories on IR. It could not prevent the Great War from occurring and after that international catastrophe the study focused on only current affairs. This second stage was perpetuation of also bias as it gave importance to the present without reference to the past. Therefore both stages were encumbered by ineffectual partial approaches. The third stage existed throughout inter-war years and then after the new scholarship was adopted which was an essentially moralist-legalistic approach renouncing war. There were votaries of peace, just world and internationalism. They were quite euphoric in reposing unstinted trust in international organizations to prevent wars and conflicts. They pursued lofty ideals of the rule of international law and civilized norms and values. The statesmen like Woodrow Wilson who put forth 14 Points Charter to chalk out liberal internationalism to be an elixir of the contemporary world. The great faith in the newly established League of Nations and creation of legal institutions and organizational devices had fizzled out with the rumblings of war machines in 1939. Continental Europe attracted magnetic involvement of the West as it soon was embroiled in a quagmire of wars and conflict. Therefore emphasis on utopianism/liberalism/idealism ignored the hard realities of international life and did not comprehend well the nature of IR.

After the Second Great War the fourth stage succeeded on the backdrop of the devastation which had shaken the moral foundations and faith in international organizations and law as instrument of peace. The emphasis now was shifted to making a scientific analysis of the developments in IR including causes of war and ways to avert it. The determinants and roots of foreign policies, techniques of the conduct of IR, the mode of conflict resolution, crisis management, forces and influences which mould and condition the behaviour of states became the cardinal concern of the study. The objective of studying IR was not to exalt or criticize international issues and problems rather to understand them comprehensively. Realism occupied a position of the prevalent school developed by thinkers like E.H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, Kenneth W. Thompson, Reinhold Niebuhr, George F. Kennan, and Henry A. Kissinger. They conveyed what IR and international behaviour of states is as on contrary to what idealists espoused. Power according to them is the currency of international politics. It is a means as well as ends. International politics in the gist is the struggle for power. Every state seeks more of it to use and to fulfill and satisfy national interests. Some partial theories or more importantly approaches on the sidelines of application of realist doctrine were developed. The growth of deterrence theory in the 1950s and 1960s alongside new methodology of game theory came into existence.

On the shadow of hostile ideological camps, orthodox Marxism interpreted IR in its own tenets and tenor. It stressed on transnational class solidarities coupled with a liquidation of transnational class struggle. The thrust in the subject matter of IR was altered with the subsequent development in science and technology, decolonization, the emergence of universal values, spread of nuclear technology, arms race, growth of international and transnational actors. Its desire sought for theoretical contemplation and philosophy of IR.

The fifth stage was marked from mid 1960s to 1970s wherein structurally inter-paradigm debate figured prominently taking a cue from The Scientific Revolutions, a text by Thomas Kuhn. It was the post-realist paradigm which was aptly labeled the behavioural approach to the study of IR followed the paradigm shift. It was thorough and heated exchange of theses over the principles and procedure most suitable for delving into international phenomena. The emphasis on law-like generalizations purported to patterns and regularities presumed to be constant across space and time. The quantitative study of IR was made. To some extent nation-state as a unit of analysis lost the appeal and luster and attempts were made to ascertain real forces of IR. The more relevant unit of analysis – individuals, group think, transnational organizations and bureaucracies were examined. Non-state actors with international reach and scope became the subject matter of this study. The transnational perspective responded with the dynamics of IR and global circumstances.

Neoliberalism or transnationalism in 1970s reflected the ongoing international economic exchange. It formulated complex interdependence in IR introducing transnational relations, economic interdependence, security communities, international organizations and the broader concept of international regimes. A critique of such positive interdependence responded with fine tuning radicalism from Marxist perspective in the form of the world-system, dependency and underdevelopment postulates. It was well received both in Latin America and the US in the late 1960s and 1970s due to American intervention to contain ideologically hostile regimes in the non-Western world.

The North-South disparities were widening the gulf between the affluent and the impoverished societies. The conflicts about unequal dividends of global economy demanded New International Economic Order by the countries of the South. The concepts such as neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, structural violence, international political economy, peace and other alternative movements became a subject of discourse and analysis of IR. Peace research was started which one of the manifestations of a resurgence of neoliberal theorizing. It appeared at a time when the Cold War lost the chill to détente. It was developed by heavy funding within Western Europe and Scandinavia. Then functionalists, neo-functionalists, world federalists and integration theorists discussed the issues of regionalism, global stability, global order and global peace. Ethically concerned futurologists motivated the people to mull different and alternative worlds for the secure future of the posterity. These trends are known as the post-behavioural era.

The sixth stage from late 1970s to the first half of 1980s the study of IR was influenced by variables such as economic issues, ecological and environment challenges. It became the concern of international community. In 1980s realism was transformed into neorealism with both neoliberalism and radicalism faded.

The conscious or subconscious rationalization involved in contemporary theorizing by the Western scholars was challenged by the intellectuals of the South. The Western theories in many cases were considered irrelevant and inapplicable to the countries of the South. Its inadequacies led to the growth of non-Western perspectives on IR. It came to fore as the demand for a more credible effort on the part of the capitalist West to establish an egalitarian global economy was raised. During the heyday of Cold War most of these countries to note chose nonalignment and peaceful co-existence despite some regional powers courted either superpowers – the US and Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 ushered the triumph of liberal democracy and “the end of history.” the disintegration of Soviet Union was the resultant product of its own inherent flaws in political and economic system. The great debates were also not squarely debated instead the theories were refined within the respective schools of thought. By the end of 1980s the theoretical contestation was reduced to relatively narrow discord.

The mainstream of controversial theories was replaced by rationalists and reflectivists camps. The post-modern debate ensued in the seventh stage. In contrast to neo-realists and neo-liberals shared belief in rational (scientific) methods, reflectivists are characterized by emphasizing interpretation (hermeneutics), the reflections of actors and agents central to institutions. Norms and regimes seen as inter-subjective phenomena are to be studied by non-positivist methods. Four main undercurrents of post-positivism in 1980s were critical theory, post-Marxism, post-modernism and post-modern feminism.

The eight stage had salient feature of unipolar moment with a lonely superpower the US on the landscape of IR. However there were concerted efforts by European countries and other major powers of regions to create a multipolar world order. The post-Cold War era traits comprised of the process and move toward democratizing IR. A thesis on power diffusion has become vogue as the great powers in contemporary IR are constrained to use traditional attributes and resources to achieve their objectives than in the past.

A comparatively new discipline IR has passed through different stages as mentioned above in ordeal atmosphere since its inception in the early 20th century. The study of IR is thus neither well-organized nor fully scientific nor having comprehensive conceptual framework. Yet it has developed itself as an autonomous discipline under the branch of political science apart of which draws upon such diverse fields as economics, history, law, philosophy, geography, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies.

The “Great Debates”/ Inter-paradigm debate

First Major Debate: Utopian Liberalism/Idealism vs. Realism (1930s & 1940s)

Second Major Debate: Traditional Approaches vs. behaviouralism (late 1950s & 1960s)

Third Major Debate: Neorealism/neoliberalism vs. Neo-Marxism (late 1960s & early 1970s)

Fourth Major Debate (the early stages): Established traditions vs. post-positivist methodologies (late 1980s & 1990s)

Earlier the inter-paradigm debates was confined and subsumed easily in a conventional tripartite superstructure designated aptly by three waves. There are new debates and there are cutting edges across approaches to IR but we can still discern no new dominant paradigm.

The modern world-system has its origin since a half millennia approximately 1500. Immanuel Wallerstein sees it essentially as a world economy without a world empire. George Modelski concentrates on political leadership in a society although it has anarchical elements is still nevertheless a society. So contemporary world system of the last half millennium is rooted in economic or political relationships. Realism, world society and structural approaches were evident in 19th century theory and practice in concert system (realism), in the growth of international civil society organizations (world society approaches) and in the structuralist Marxist and geopolitical traditions.

The modern state system emerged and got inured n the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the subsequent treaty. Hobbes and Machiavelli were considered realists. Callières outlined a Treatise on Diplomacy and Hugo Grotius was regarded as the father of international law. The Duc de Sully and Kant sought to create conditions for a permanent and working peace system. Friedrich Gentz became the father of modern diplomacy. De Tocqueville envisaged the outlines of mid-20th century international relations. Carl von Clausewitz said war was the continuation of politics by other means. The geopoliticians flourished and the Marxist tradition was germinated.

There was briefly in the 1920s a consensus in theory and practice on the practice of precepts of Wilson’s liberal internationalism. The Anglo-American tradition of idealism or utopianism came under scathing attack from by the European continental scholars who had the first hand experience of ultra-nationalist war mongering regimes in those countries. Those scholars were steeped into prudential realism and axiomatic power politics. Morgenthau put forth well known six principles of realism. In Europe as liberal democracies were at the margins and isolation. The Second great consensus was therefore on realism. The discipline of IR had been founded on the notion that international politics were in essence state-centric and that the dominant mode of relations between states was power politics. It is beginning to crack.

The Study of IR in Japan, China and India: A Concise Glance at the State of the Art Discipline in Three Asian Powers

International Relations as a disciplinary study in Japan can not be found as a separate departmental specialization except in the Graduate Schools of Area Studies, International Cultural Studies, Political Science and Law faculty. From 1868 (the Meiji restoration) till at present there are four traditions governing the principles of Japanese IR which are Staatslehre or statecraft principles, Marxism, historicism and American political science.[3] In brief Staatslehre tradition significantly influenced the study of pre-war military and colonial period and after 1945 also it was forcefully appeared in the academic scene. From 1920 to 1960 Marxism was put forth to criticize the government of the day and in 1920 the word Shakai Kagaku or social science came into prominence. Historicism did not care about relevance of policy and it included in its matter pre 1945 events and personalities. In pre 1945 in Japan there was an influence of European social science and after the war American social science dominated. Prof. Inoguchi has remarked that the salient feature of Japanese political science and IR is diversity without integrated discipline or without institutional integration. During Cold war between 1960 and 1970 Japanese academics were in dilemma to choose either realism or idealism which is not solved even today regarding partial peace with the West and total peace with friendly powers. The post-Vietnam war displaced the Japanese realism about running the world by post-realism and post-idealism.[4]

There are three stages of IR development institutionally in China. The first stage since 1953 catered the needs of civil servants of the Foreign Ministry and new talents in the field of national and public security. The second stage from 1964 to 1979 established three departments of international politics at Peking, Remin and Fudan universities studying the national liberation movements in the Third World, communist movements in the world and IR in the Western world respectively. The third stage from 1980 to the present there are 36 schools of IR within universities, and 54 bachelor or master degree programs, and 29 doctoral degree programs in IR. In China IR is developed and explained within the Marxist thought. Of late Chinese IR scholars are involved in brain storming of non-Marxian theories in Chinese context.[5]

With respect to India liberal-idealism of Nehru’s doctrine in Indian foreign policy is under duress from intellectuals and think tanks to overhaul it.[6] They emphasize the Indian establishment to profess and pursue realist principles while conducting IR especially after 1990 which heralded New World Order. They are cognizance of the fact that the new nuclear nation is a major power to reckon with in the 21st century. There are four universities at four corners in India at the departmental status for imparting specialization in the discipline of IR. Indian analysts and thinkers are imbued with Western paradigms on IR and they indulge in appraising them in their context.[7] Recently they are reclaiming the post-colonial space of discourse due to development of the post-colonialism as a distinct strand of theory. Despite analyzing the workings of the post-colonial state in contemporary settings of IR, authorities on it are based in Euro-American academics employing a textual language of the Occident.

[1] Sridhar Khatri, “Teaching International Relations in Nepal,” Contributions to Nepalese Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2, July 2001, pp. 139-154.

[2] Heavily referred to Vinay Kumar Malhotra, International Relations, (New Delhi: Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., Reprint 2006), pp. 1-13.

[3] Takashi Inoguchi and Paul Bacon, “The Study of International Relations in Japan: Towards a More International Discipline,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 1, 2001, pp. 1-20.

[4] Takashi Inoguchi, “The Sociology of a Not-So-Integrated Discipline: The Development of International Relations in Japan,” Journal of East Asian Studies, February, 2001, Vol.2, No.1, p.119.

[5] Qin Yaqing, “Why is there no Chinese international relations theory?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 313-340.

[6] C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy, (New Delhi: Penguin Books/Viking, 2003).

[7] Kanti Bajpai and Siddarth Mallavarapu (eds.), International Relations in India: Bringing Theory Back Home, (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005); Kanti Bajpai and Siddarth Mallavarapu (eds.), International Relations in India: Theorizing the Region and Nation, (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005).

Impact of the cold war

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

1. Immediate Consequences

Communist Containment, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan

President Harry S. Truman announced the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947.

The containment policy would take necessary diplomatic, economic, and military measures to stop communism from spreading to new areas instead of fighting in the areas that were already communist.

Truman proclaimed that the United States would commit itself to support any nation struggling against “armed minorities or outside pressures.”

U.S. foreign policy thereby formally adopted the Truman Doctrine or the containment policy became a key component of U.S. foreign policy throughout the Cold War.

In June 1947, U.S. secretary of state George C. Marshall announced a U.S.‐sponsored economic aid program (the Marshall Plan) to help European nations recover from World War II.

The Marshall Plan was generally an attempt to protect Europe from being taken over by the Communists. The Marshall Plan was often considered as the economic weapon of the Truman Doctrine of containment.

By strengthening West European economies, the threat of communism taking hold in the region was diminished.

The Marshall Plan was considered to be successful.

Nazism & Hitler in Germany

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Hitler:

Adolf Hitler was born as an Austrian citizen in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, in 1889, the fourth child of Klara and Alois Hitler. Hitler’s father worked his way up in the Austrian customs service to a position of considerable status, and as a result Hitler had a comfortable childhood. Hitler began school in 1900, and his grades were above average. It was decided that he would attend Realschule, a secondary school that prepared students for further study and emphasized modern languages and technical subjects. However, Hitler and his father strongly differed about career plans. His father wanted him to enter the civil service; Hitler insisted on becoming an artist. As a result, Hitler did poorly in Realschule, having to repeat the first year and improving little thereafter.

During this time, Hitler began to form his political views: a strong sense of German nationalism, the beginnings of anti-Semitism, and distaste for the ruling family and political structure of Austria-Hungary. Like many German-speaking citizens of Austria-Hungary, Hitler considered himself first and foremost a German.

The death of Hitler’s father in January 1903 changed the family. The survivors’ income was adequate to support Hitler, his mother, and his sister, but the absence of a dominant father figure altered Hitler’s position in the family. He spent much time playing and dreaming, did poorly in his studies, and left school entirely in 1905 after the equivalent of the ninth grade.

Hitler had hoped to become an artist but was rejected as unqualified by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in October 1907. His mother died in December 1907, and Hitler pretended to continue his studies in Vienna in order to receive an orphan’s pension. In reality, he mostly wandered about the city admiring its public buildings and frequently attending operas, especially those of Richard Wagner, whom Hitler adored for his heroic portrayals of German mythology.

When he had exhausted his inherited funds, Hitler, unwilling to take a job, ended up in a homeless shelter. It was there that he was first exposed to extreme political ideas, particularly the racial concepts of Lanz von Liebenfels. LiebenfelS published a periodical about tHe supposed superiority of Aryans, an ill-defined race which included Germans, and the inferiority of other raceS, especially Jews. At the same time Hitler Acquireda hatred for socialism and came to equate it with the Jews.

Between 1910 and 193 Hitler’s life improved when he began to paint and sell postcards and pictures for a living, copying famous paintings and drawing public buildings. He debated ideas with others in the hostel in which he lived, developing the beginnings of his public speaking style. Failure to register for the draft in Austria led him to flee for Munich, Germany, in 1913 to escape Austrian authorities. He was extradited to Austria but was found physically unfit to serve in the military. He then returned to Munich.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 came as an opportunity for Hitler, as his money was running out. He volunteered for a Bavarian unit in the German army and served the whole war. Though repeatedly decorated for bravery, he was never promoted beyond private first class. In a war of very high casualties, this is difficult to explain. Perhaps officers considered him a loner who could carry messages and perform other dangerous duties but who was unsuited to command men.

Hitler saw trench warfare as a form of the struggle for survival among races, a struggle that he was coming to see as the essence of existence. At the same time, his anti-Semitic feelings were growing extreme. When Germany was defeated in 1918, Hitler was lying in a military hospital, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. He decided Jews had caused Germany’s defeat and that he would enter politics to save the country.

Hitler returned to Munich after the war. He was selected to be a political speaker by the local army headquarters, given special training, and provided with opportunities to practice his public speaking before returning prisoners of war. His speaking successes led to his selection as an observer of political groups in the Munich area. In this capacity, he investigated the German Workers’ Party—one of the many nationalist, racist groups that developed in Munich in the postwar years.

The German Workers’ Party, later renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (abbreviated NSDAP or Nazi Party), became Hitler’s political focus. Here he found an outlet for his talents in political agitation and party organization. The party espoused essentially the same ideas Hitler had picked up in Vienna: violent racial nationalism and anti-Semitism. He also shared the Nazis’ opposition to the liberal democracy of the German Weimar Republic, which had been established after the war.

Though still in the army, Hitler quickly became the new spokesman for the party. His talent for public speaking and the use of the local army’s resources to generate publicity drew large audiences to events sponsored by an organization that had only 100 to 200 members. When he presented the party’s official program to a gathering on February 24, 1920, there were almost 2000 present.

Hitler was discharged from the army the following month, and he soon attained dominance in the Nazi party. He was the party’s most effective recruiter and, thanks to paid attendance at his speeches, its most successful fundraiser. When opposed within the party, he found ways to push out rivals and dissenters. Several times he did so by threatening to leave the party himself. Hitler obtained enough support to have himself chosen as Führer (absolute leader) of the party on July 29, 1921.

Hitler appealed to a wide variety of people by combining an effective and carefully rehearsed speaking style with what looked like absolute sincerity and determination. He found a large audience for his program of national revival, racial pride in Germanic values, hatred for France and of Jews and other non-German races, and disdain for the Weimar Republic. Hitler asserted only a dictatorship could rescue Germany from the depths to which it had fallen. His views changed only minimally in subsequent years and attracted increasingly larger audiences.

Nazism

Nazism, pronounced NAHT sihz uhm or NAT sihz uhm, was a political movement–and later a form of government–that developed in Germany during the 1920’s. The Nazis, led by the dictator Adolf Hitler, controlled Germany from 1933 to 1945. Nazism also describes any governmental system or political beliefs similar to those of Hitler’s Germany. The word is also spelled Naziism.

Nazism was a fascist movement–that is, it tightly restricted personal freedom but permitted private ownership of property. The Nazis called for aggressive nationalism, militarism, and the expansion of Germany’s borders. They overvalued the Germans and other northern European peoples, whom they called Aryans. They claimed that Jews, Slavs, and other minority groups were inferior. Nazism opposed democracy, Communism, socialism, feminism, and other political systems and movements that claimed to favor equality. It promised to build a harmonious, orderly, and prosperous society for Germans. Instead, it brought terrorism, war, and mass murder.

Nazism refers to the totalitarian Fascist ideology and policies adopt and practiced by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker’s Party from 1920-1945. Nazism stressed the superiority of the Aryan, its destiny as the Master Race to rule the world over other races, and a violent hatred of Jews, which it blamed for all of the problems of Germany. Nazism also provided for extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples into a single empire. The economy picture for the state was a form of corporative state socialism; although members of the party who were leftists (and would generally support such an economic system over private enterprise) were wash out from the party in 1934.

The birth of Nazism:

Germany experienced political and economic crises after its defeat in World War I (1914-1918). A democratic government had replaced the monarchy that ruled the country. But the nation suffered from severe inflation and unemployment after the war ended. Many Germans lacked faith in the new government and began to turn to political groups that called for extreme changes. One of these organizations was the German Workers’ Party, a small discussion group in Munich. Hitler joined this group in 1919 and quickly gained control. He changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1920. Nazi stands for the first word in the German name of the party.

Nazism responded to deep problems in German history. Germany had not become a united nation until 1871, and many Germans felt that Germany was inferior to other countries. This feeling of inferiority encouraged aggressive nationalism and a desire for expansion. Industry grew rapidly during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and brought great wealth to the industrialists. But workers resented what they considered an unequal distribution of profits. In addition, many middle-class and upper-class Germans had lived comfortably under the monarchy, and they feared and disliked the newly formed democratic government. Finally, many Germans blamed their problems on Jews.

Hitler’s aims were primarily nationalistic, but he also promised social revolution to win support from the masses. The Nazi Party grew rapidly in the postwar crisis. The military supported Hitler’s ideas of discipline, order, and military conquest. The middle classes and farmers were attracted by the promise of social reform. Wealthy industrialists joined to fight Communism. Powerless people responded to ideas of racial superiority, anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews), and German strength. By 1923, the Nazi Party had 17,000 members.

The rise to power Nazism did not gain wide support until the Great Depression, a worldwide business slump, began in 1929. Discontented Germans then turned to Nazism in increasing numbers. Nazism promised economic help, political power, and national glory. Hitler’s fiery personality and talents as an speaker also had a strong influence. The Nazi Party grew into a huge political organization with special divisions for children, youth, women, and professional people. It even had soldiers called storm troopers, who terrorized opponents.

In the elections of 1932, the Nazis emerged as the strongest party in Germany. On Jan. 30, 1933, Hitler became chancellor (prime minister). He quickly moved toward dictatorship, outlawing civil liberties and all political parties except the Nazi Party. The Nazis took over the press, the radio, and the school system. In time, they established a totalitarian state (a government that permits no opposition). They organized a powerful secret police force called the Gestapo and set up concentration camps for anyone suspected of opposing Nazism. Jews and members of other minority groups were also imprisoned in these camps, where the Germans either killed them or used them for forced labor.

Cause of Success of the Nazism:

The Versailles Treaty
Growth of Communism
Economic Crisis
Lack of unity among political Parties
Personal qualities of Hitler
Other Causes

Expansion, war, and collapse:

Hitler and his followers hoped to make the Nazi state a world empire. In 1938, they began to carry out their plans. Germany annexed Austria in 1938, and German forces occupied Czechoslovakia the following year. The Nazis attacked Poland later in 1939, and World War II began. The Nazis started a campaign to murder all European Jews. Hitler called this plan the “final solution.” About 6 million Jews died by firing squad, in gas chambers, or by other methods. About 5 million others, including Gypsies, political opponents of the Nazis, Polis and other Slavs were also killed. These mass murders later became known as the Holocaust. The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and other nations defeated Germany in 1945, and the Nazi government collapsed.

Paramilitary Organizations under Nazism
Nazism made use of paramilitary organizations to maintain control within the party, and to compress opposition to the party. Violence and terror promote compliance. Among these organizations were the:

S.A. (Sturmabteilung): Storm troopers (also known as “brown-shirts”) were the Nazi paramilitary arm under Ernst Rîhm. It was active in the battle for the streets against other German political parties.

S.D. (Sicherheitsdiest): the Security Service under Reinhard Heydrich.

S.S. (Schutzstaffel): Defense Corps was an elite guard unit formed out of the S.A. It was under the command of Heinrich Himmler.

Gestapo (Geheime Staatpolizeil): the Secret State Police, which was formed in 1933.

Nazism also placed an emphasis on sports and paramilitary activities for youth, the massive use of propaganda (controlled by Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels) to glorify the state, and the submission of all decisions to the supreme leader (FÅhrer) Adolf Hitler.

Function of diplomats

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

A diplomat has to organized series of function that includes observed, report, and deal with issues in their respective areas. Most functions contain for political affairs, economic and commercial affairs, information and cultural affairs, consular affairs, and administrative matters. In addition, within the functions of a diplomat usually includes a number of attachés from other government departments. Military, air, and naval attachés have traditionally been assigned to foreign missions, but agricultural, commercial, labor, and cultural attachés are becoming increasingly common as a new trend.

The activities of diplomats are extremely mixed. They range from such serious tasks as negotiating issues of great political significance and reporting and commenting on important events in the foreign country to meeting with foreign students, arranging itineraries of exhibits about life in the home country, and issuing visas. These are some of the majors’ functions of Diplomats:

Representation of State
(1) Legal Representation

A diplomat is a legal representative of his/her state in another state or international organization like the UN, the UNESCO etc. In his/her capacity as a legal representative of his/her state, s/he conducts negotiations with the government in the accredited state or participates in the deliberations and voting of UN organs in which his/her country is represented. Unless otherwise indicated, s/he signs the agreements on behalf of his/her state.

(2) Symbolic Representation

Diplomacy is very often subtle and symbolic; the more it is so, the more impressive it becomes. When the head of a state or government visits another country, the Ambassador posted in that country normally holds a reception at his/her Embassy which is attended by his/her counterparts and other senior officials belonging to the host country

(3) Political Representation

Diplomat’s job is to watch the politics of that country. What are political policies and like projection and what are the political parties at play and what is going to be the future leaders and politics of that country. The most important function of a diplomat is to assess the real nature of the policy and power of the country in which s/he is stationed and report it back to his/her External Affairs Ministry. The Ambassador and his supporting staff supply the raw material with the help of which the External Affairs Ministry formulates foreign policy. In the words of Professor Morgenthau: “As the foreign office is the nerve centre of foreign policy, so are the diplomatic representatives its outlying fibers maintaining the two-way traffic between the centre and the outside world”.

The diplomat, with the help of his/her military, economic and other attaches, assesses the real military strength of the country of his/her posting, stability of its government and its policy towards his/her own country. The function of the military and economic attaché’s is to collect military and economic information through wide reading and social contacts and to help Ambassador draft his/her reports to the External Affairs Ministry. The diplomat must not only help his/her foreign office in the formulation of the country’s policy, but must also possess the art of ‘selling’ his/her country’s policy to the government and people of the country in which s/he functions. His/her is a two-way dealing: with his/her own government at home and with the government of the country from where s/he functions.

Negotiations
Diplomacy is synonymous with negotiations and the diplomat must be an experienced negotiator. Many delegations from the diplomat’s country visit foreign countries to conduct negotiations on trade, political and military affairs. The team that negotiates with the foreign government normally includes the Ambassador of the country concerned, who is an on-the-spot assistant and informer. The execution of numerous trade and cultural agreements involves negotiations with the host country for the selection of institutions, persons, items etc.

When matters of great political importance are discussed and negotiated, the Prime Minister or the External Affairs Minister visits the concerned country and negotiates directly with the foreign government. The diplomat has to do the spade-work for such negotiations and thereby assist his superiors. The direct participation of the External Affairs Minister or high ranking officials from the Ministry does diminish the importance of the Ambassador in negotiations; nevertheless, his assistance and assessment are of great help. Thus, no negotiation between the two countries can be accomplished without the assistance and involvement of their Ambassadors to some extent.

The diplomats negotiate on four ways:

Official negotiation
Unofficial negotiations
Facilitative negotiations
Technical negotiations

Informal Function:
Press function: Diplomats has to read newspapers of concern foreign country because all politicians may not be honest and that is if diplomats even have access to them. He/She must read all papers to get a better color of what the media in the country is saying about their internal mechanisms. Diplomats need to make the best presentation of their country. Diplomats will try to get favorable eyes for his/her own country.

Commercial function: Commercial relations are not just political or media, but based on the trade between the countries. The better trade means the better relationship between the two states. They are good diplomats, who will able to distinguish the clarity of decision-making to expedite the trade and commerce.

Administrative function: Diplomatic mission are extension of the home government abroad. Thus, each diplomatic mission contains two key elements: A diplomatic element, whose chief functions are political (negotiation, information, etc.), and consular elements, whose chief functions are administrative. Administrative function includes:

Representation of home citizens and home institutions in the host state
Management of the affairs of citizens of the home state in the host state (e.g., facilitation of economic ties, handling legal problems of home citizens etc.)
Immigration policy and other support to their national

Responsible Person of the Diplomatic Mission

Ambassador:

Ambassador is chef official of diplomatic mission at foreign state. The ambassador is the highest-ranking official of diplomatic service with full responsibility. Unlike a minister and a chargé d’affaires, an ambassador is supposed to represent, in theory, the person of his or her sovereign. Although this theory has little significance now that monarchies are uncommon, it was because of this theory that the United States did not appoint diplomatic of ambassadorial rank until 1893. Today most republics appoint ambassadors in order to conduct relations on an equal basis with other nations. In recent years a majority of the heads of diplomatic missions representing the United States have also held the rank of ambassador.

The embassy abroad, or foreign mission, is headed by an ambassador assisted by a career diplomat who serves as deputy or first secretary. The deputy secretary oversees and coordinates the work of the staff and assumes the responsibilities of the mission as chargé d’affaires whenever the ambassador is away or incapacitated or is between ambassadorial assignments.

Diplomatic missions are staffed largely by Foreign Service officers, with the exception of the attachés who are drawn from their respective agencies back home. The secretaries and secretarial staff come from a separate civil service corps. Citizens of the host country may be hired as translators or for non sensitive jobs.

Consular:

Counselor is a diplomat ranking below an ambassador in foreign mission. Counselor is responsible to take care the problems of own citizens in concern state. He/she is also responsible for issuing Passports for native citizen, Visa, people in jail that need proper legal assistance in that country. In the foreign state this kind of assistance cannot be denied. Because of that Consular will be appointed as a government official living in a foreign state to promote the commerce of the official’s own state and protect its citizens in the concern state.

Consular operations are concerned with the economic and commercial relations between nations. Originally, diplomatic and consular responsibilities were kept strictly separate because early theorists felt that national interests should not be “contaminated” by private commercial matters. Thus, two separate services—diplomatic and consular—usually existed. Today all major countries have combined these two services, and a single corps of professional civil servants serves in both areas.

Consular work involves a variety of activities. Consuls issue birth, death, and marriage certificates to citizens residing or traveling in the foreign country. Consular officers also regulate shipping, aid their country’s citizens when they travel on business or as tourists, and report on economic and business conditions abroad. Activities are often carried out in consulates located in major trading and commercial cities as well as in the capital city.

End of the Cold War

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Certain structural weaknesses in Soviet‐style communism are associated with the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War. Centrally planned economies proved to be less effective than capitalist economies.

Because of the economic crisis, the communist regimes in Eastern Europe fell one by one.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev adopted certain policies: political openness and economic restructuring in the mid‐1980s to address the economic crisis.

In order for his reforms to take place, he needed to end the Cold War to lower defense spending.

Gorbachev thus announced that the satellite states should be free to choose their own government.

Communist regimes in these countries started to collapse.

The Soviet Union did not intervene as one after another communist regimes collapsed in 1989‐90.

The key external factors contributing to the collapse of communism were the policies of the US administration at that period and the advance of economic and cultural globalization that created demands for western‐style economic and political reforms in Eastern Europe.

The USA and the USSR agreed to disarm a whole category of nuclear weapons through Arms control process.

The dismantling of the Berlin Wall began on November 10, 1989. By mid‐1990, many of the Soviet republics had declared their independence.

On December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved

The Cold War thus ended with the demise of Soviet Union. With the disintegration of the USSR, Russia came out losing the status and position of a superpower.

The supremacy of the USA has been established making the world unipolar.

Impact of Holocaust in International Relations

International Relations — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish refugee from Poland, coined the word genocide in 1944 to describe what was happening in German‐occupied Europe. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944)
In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention, which requires governments to “undertake to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”

Genocide Convention

Article 1 The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

International Accountability for Crime Against Humanity

After holocaust, Prosecution of top Nazi leaders at Nuremberg established the principle that individual officials could be held responsible for “crimes against humanity” and for implementation of policies that violated international law

Tribunals created by the United Nations Security Council are trying government officials for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda,

What are the Crime Against Humanity ?

“Crimes against humanity” include any of the following acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
} murder;
} extermination;
} enslavement;
} deportation or forcible transfer of population;
} imprisonment;
} torture;
} rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of
comparable gravity;
} persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial,
national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds;
} enforced disappearance of persons;
} the crime of apartheid;
} other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing
great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury.

International Protection of Human Rights

Before the Holocaust, international efforts to oppose human rights abuses were limited to other country territory.
As a result of holocaust, the recognition that the protection of human rights is an international concern expanded dramatically with the 1948 adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became apparent after the war, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred. A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter’s provisions on human rights.

Protections for Refugees

} During the Nazi era, Jews fleeing the Germans and their collaborators often found that entry to other countries, including the United States, was barred.
} Later in 1951, under the United Nation Refugee Convention, governments promised not to return refugees to places where their life or freedom would be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Reconciliation Between Christian and Jews

The Nazis exploited centuries of negative Christian teachings about Jews and Judaism to foment hatred and promote their own racist, anti‐Semitic policies
Mainstream Christian churches—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—failed as institutions to protest or systematically oppose Nazi persecution of Jews.

In 2000 during a historic visit to Jerusalem, Pope John Paul II expressed sorrow for “the hatred, acts of persecution, and displays of anti‐Semitism directed against Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.”

Idea of a Jewish Homeland

During the rule of Nazis in Germany, most Jews who sought to escape Nazi persecution were trapped in German‐occupied Europe because virtually no nation was willing to admit large numbers of Jews, even on a temporary basis.
After World War II, the United Nations divided Palestine into two potential states, one for Jews and one for Palestinian Arabs. The State of Israel was founded in 1948 as a homeland where any Jew could become a citizen under any circumstance.