THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Module 3 – A History of Global Politics: Creating an International Order

Lesson 1. The attributes of today’s global system

a. Key attributes:
1. There are countries or states that are independent and govern themselves
2. These countries interact with each other through diplomacy
3. There are international organizations like the United Nations that facilitate these
interactions
4. Beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international organizations also
take on lives of their own
b. The nature of a nation-state: people did not always organize themselves as countries; people
used to have identified exclusively with units as small as their village or their tribe, or they
see themselves as members of larger political categories like Christendom
c. Not all nations are states; not all states are nations
1. State: a country and its government; with population, territory, government, sovereignty
(the authority to govern itself)
2. Nation: an imagined community; people who have imbibed a particular culture, speak a
common language, and live in a specific territory; there is a connection with a
community of people even if one person will never meet all of them in his/her
lifetime; most nations strive to become states; it is nationalism that facilitates the
formation of the state; states become independent and sovereign

Lesson 2. The interstate system

a. The treaty of Westphalia: a set of agreements signed in 1648 to end the Thirty Years’ War
between the Catholic and Protestant powers Europe; the signers agreed to exercise
complete control over their domestic affairs and swear not to meddle in each other’s
affairs
b. Napoleon Bonaparte challenged the Westphalian system by spreading the principles of the
French Revolution – liberty, equality, and fraternity – to the rest of Europe; the Napoleonic
Code forbade privileges by birth, encouraged freedom of religion, and promoted
democracy in government service
c. The Concert of Europe: an alliance of the United Kingdom, Austria, Russia and Prussia (present-
day Germany) after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815; restored the Westphalian system; an
alliance that sought the restoration of the sovereignty of states
d. The Concert of Europe collapsed after the First World War; but its traces can still be seen today
as countries frown upon violent imposition of system of government by one country upon
another

Lesson 3. Internationalism: the desire for greater cooperation and unity among states and peoples

a. Liberal internationalism
1. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804, Germany): if people living together require a government to
prevent lawlessness, then the same should be applied among states; without a
form of world government, the international system would be chaotic; states must

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 give up some freedoms and establish a continuously growing state consisting of
various nations which will ultimately include the nations of the world
2. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832, United Kingdom): coined the word “international” in 1780;
an international law has to be created to govern inter-state relations, to create the
greatest happiness of all nations taken together; but such world government will in
effect become supreme and its laws can overwhelm the sovereignty of individual
states
4. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-872, Italy): believed in a republican (instead of monarchial)
government; proposed a system of free nations that cooperated with each other;
the free, independent states would be the basis of an equally free, cooperative
international system; free, unified nation-states should be the basis of global
cooperation
5. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924, United States): nationalism is a prerequisite for
internationalism; the principle of self-determination posits that the world’s nations
has a right to free and sovereign government; only by being democracies can
nations build a free system of international relations based on international law
and cooperation; advocated the creation of the League of Nations at the end of the
First World War in 1918, as a venue for conciliation and arbitration to prevent
another war; it served as the blueprint for future forms of international
cooperation ; its principles survived the Second World War
b. Socialist internationalism
1. Karl Marx (1818-1883, Germany): any true form of internationalism should deliberately
reject nationalism; the world is not divided into countries, but into two classes –
capitalists (owners of lands, factories, companies, and other means of production)
and the proletariat (those who labor for the capitalists); the proletariat, which has
no nation, should overthrow the state and alter the economy; nationalism
prevented the unification of the world’s workers
2. The Socialist International (SI): a union of European socialist and labor parties
established in Paris in 1889; declared May 1 as Labor Day; created International
Women’s Day; initiated the successful campaign for an 8-hour workday
3. Vladimir Lenin (1970-1924, Russia): led the Bolshevik Party which overthrew Czar
Nicholas II during the Russian Revolution of 1917; the revolutionary government,
which did not believe in obtaining power for the working class through elections,
created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; established the Communist
International in 1919, the central body for directing communist parties all over the
world
4. Joseph Stalin (1878-1953, Russia): succeeded Lenin; joined the Allied Forces during the
Second World War; dissolved Communist International in 1943 to appease the
doubting allies United States and United Kingdom; reestablished the Communist
Information Bureau after the war; took over the countries in Eastern Europe;
directed the various communist parties in Eastern Europe; the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991