5. Nonstate Actors

in the International System

The Modern State System

• over the past few hundred years the state : has displaced all other political structures

- tribes, bands, cities, empires etc.

• where did states come from?• why have they displaced all other forms of political

organization?• will state be replaced in the future by some other form

of political organization?

The Rise of the Modern State

• two thousand years ago, Roman Empire. : a highly complex political system

: infrastructure of cities, laws, trade and knowledge

: by the 5th C., Rome collapsed

• much of western Europe reverted to anarchy: entering the Dark Age from about 500 C.E. to about

1000 C.E.

How War Made States, and Vice Versa

• the Dark Age : set the stage for the creation of the modern state: the highly fragmented, unstable, and violent

environment

• according to Charles Tilly, the modern state : emerged out of the constant warfare

• the constant warfare among these numerous rivals: generated a kind of rapid organizational evolution

• during about 65 % of the time in the 16th century and 17th century: the major European countries were engaged into

warfare• between 1816 and 1945

: the European countries were energetically arming: three-fifths of all interstate wars took place in Europe

• in the five centuries before 1500, European states: concentrated even more exclusively on the making of

war

• over the millennium as a whole, war : the dominant activities of European states

• The Hundred Years’ War

: conflict between England and France, lasting 116 years from 1337 to 1453

“By the end of July 1418, Henry V of England had the city of Rouen completely surrounded … In early December 1418 … the defenders attempted to reduce the demands on their ever-declining food stocks by expelling 12,000 people, useless mouths, from the city. Henry refused to let these people pass through the lines, and many of them, old men, women and children, perished in the winter chill, starting and helpless, between the walls and the tents of the besiegers. The scenes of suffering were recorded by an Englishmen, John Paige: ‘Here and there were children of two or three, begging for bread and starving, their parents dead… a woman was clutching her dead baby to her breast, and a child was sucking the breast of its dead mother.’” Robin Neillands. 1990. The Hundred Years War. p. 227.

• Joan of Arc

at the Siege of Orleans

• Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the Battle of Agincourt.

• state budgets, taxes, and debts reflect that reality

• before 1400, no state

: had a national budget

• during the 16th century, as war multiplied state expenditures,

: European states

- began to regularize and expand budgets, taxes, and debts alike

• Francis I started borrowing from Parisian businessmen in the 1520s: offering the city’s future revenues as security

- France’s public debt took on serious proportions : he spent the money on his great campaigns against Habsburg Emperor

Charles V.: borrowing for 18th century, wars

- swamped the state- ruined its credit- led directly to the fateful calling of the Estates General in 1789

• French taxes rose : from about 50 hours of an ordinary laborer’s wages per capita per year

in 1600 : to almost 700 hours per capita in 1963

• war: created the European network of national states

• preparation for war : created the internal structures of the states within it

- courts, treasuries, systems of taxation, regional administrations, public assemblies, and much more

• at the level of the state, the organizational division developed only slowly: between

- armed forces oriented to attacks on external enemies (armies) - those oriented to control of the national population (police)

• during the critical centuries from 1400 to 1700, rulers: spent much of their effort disarming, isolating, or co-

opting rival claimants to state power• only during the 19th century, European states

: established uniformed, salaried, bureaucratic police forces specialized in control of the civilian population

• they freed : their armies to concentrate on external conquest and

international war

• Leonardo da Vinci

: one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. (15th C.)

: interested in machines

: he hated war

- worked as a war engineer creating deadly and advanced weapons for the King of Milan.

• Leonardo da Vinci

• Mona Lisa

(1503–1507)

• Design for a Flying Machine, c. 1488

• An armoured tank

at Chateau d’Amboise

• an Artillery Park

1487

• around 1500 C.E., states

: covered only 20 percent of globe

Global Imperialism, 1914

• European states: began to expand their economic, technical, and military

powers beyond their own shores• during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

: Spain and Portugal took control of South America: the Dutch, the French, and the British expanded state

power into Asia• by the nineteenth century

: nearly all of Africa - had similarly been divided up among European states

• the organizational structure of the state : imposed around the world by force

• all around world, people : viewed the state as a superior form of political evolution: states - primary actors in domestic and international politics around

the world- supreme authority over internal affairs- legal equality with other states

• Europe : took several hundred years to create the modern state

• much of the world: forced to take up this form of organization more quickly

• the state : has supreme authority over internal affairs

- legal equality with other states

• the state: legal entity with permanent population, well-defined territory, and a

government• the nation

: collection of people - perceive common ties based on ethnic, linguistic, and/or cultural

factors• the nation-states

: a convergence between territorial states and the psychological identification

Mainstream Approaches in IO

Realism:

- The state is the most important actor in international relations

- The state is a unitary and rational actor

- International relations are conflictual

- High politics, security, dominate the international agenda

- The role of nonstate is marginal

* high politics: issues related to the military, security

• Liberalism:

- Nonstate actors are important

- International relations are a mixture of cooperation and conflict

- A variety of issues, low politics, can come to dominate the global agenda

* low politics: issues related to the economic, social, environmental relations

IGOs and NGOs

• the 1648 Peace of Westphalia

: ended the authority of the Pope by creating states

• the history of world politics for the past 350 years

: a chronicle of interaction among states

• today, the supremacy of state

: challenged by intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations

• the end of Westphalia system?

• two types of nonstate actors

: intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

• the number of nonstate actors increased greatly in the 20th century

: especially since the decolonization movement began after World War II

- in 1909, 37 IGOs and 176 NGOs

- in 1960, 154 IGOs and 1,255 NGOs

- in 2003, 243 IGOs and 28,775 NGOs

IGOs

• IGOs - intergovernmental organizations

: UN, EU, NATO, ASEAN, World Bank, IMF, ILO etc.

: members are states

: the product of interstate system

- purpose is to solve shared problems

: state governments

- give IGOs authority to make collective decisions to manage particular problems on the global agenda

• global scope of membership and multiple purposes

: UN

• global scope and single purposes

: WHO, ILO, IMF

• regional scope and multiple purposes

: EU, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organization of American States, League of Arab States

• regional scope and single purposes

: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), International North Pacific Coffee Organization

NGOs

• NGOs - nongovernmental organizations

: members - private individuals or groups who focus on specific aspects of the global agenda

: range from earth sciences to health care, language, history, culture, theology, law, ethics, security, and defense

: professional associations, foundations, multinational corporations, indigenous groups, religious groups

- International Political Science Associations, the World Young Women’s Christian Association, the World Wide Fund for Nature International

: many NGOs interact with IGOs

- more than one thousand NGOs consult with the UN system

: NGOs are most active in the advanced Global North

World Bank

• created at 1944 Bretton Woods conference

• at first, designed to assist European reconstruction efforts after WWII

: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) = World Bank

: later, to assist in the development of productive facilities and resources in less developed countries

• most of the World Bank’s loan funds

: obtained not from government but from private capital market

• loan applicants

: require to demonstrate that the loan will finance a rationally planned undertaking

• long-term projects

: private and governmental loans to developing countries for social projects (building infrastructure)

International Monetary Fund

• the IMF also originated in World War II at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944

: to finance the rebuilding of Europe after the devastation of World War II

: to save the world from future economic depressions

• the more difficult task of ensuring global economic stability

: assigned to the IMF

• The IMF sought a multilateral solution: (1) stabilizes international monetary exchange rates(2) lender of last resort for countries experiencing financial

crisis and balance of payments problems• IMF’s voting

: weighted, giving a larger voice to wealthier states• criticized because of its strict financial conditions for its

loans• tension with Global South• undermines state sovereignty and increases inequalities

• in its original conception, the IMF : based on a recognition that markets often did not work well : founded on the belief that there was a need for collective action at

the global level for economic stability

• over the years since its inception, the IMF : changed markedly : now champions market supremacy with ideological fervor

• the most dramatic change in these institutions : occurred in the 1980s: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher preached free market

ideology in the U.S. and the U.K.

• “conditionality”

: a hotly debated topic in the development world

: conditions designed to increase the likelihood that they will be repaid

• Stiglitz

: believes that conditionality is a bad idea

- it even reduced the likelihood of repayment

• Joseph E. Stiglitz

• the IMF – under the influence of the U.S. Treasury: impose a condition on developing countries

- that most Americans would have found unacceptable for themselves : the U.S. ignored the IMF’s advice: the market would not punish the U.S.

- for ignoring its advice• but poor countries ignore the Fund’s advice

• many of the policies - that the IMF pushed premature capital market liberalization : contribute to global instability

• IMF funds and programs : failed to stabilize the situation : made matters worse, especially for the poor

• free market reforms and privatization in Latin America

: one or two successes – Chile

: much of the rest of the continent

- the lost decade of growth

- persistently high rates of unemployment

: the benefits accrue to the well-off - the top 10%

- while poverty has remained high

• in developing nations, the unemployed workers

: typically do not become a safety net

: a large social cost by urban violence, crime, the social and political unrest

: wide-spread anxiety even among workers who have managed to keep their jobs

The United Nations

• founded in 1945: successor to League of Nations: universal membership (190 states)

• at the start of WWII, world leaders created new institutions to preserve peace

• The UN’s objectives: maintain international peace and security: promote peaceful relations between states: promote cooperation for solving international problems: encourage human rights and freedoms

Figure: The Changing Membership of the United Nations, 1945–2005

Source: United Nations

• the liberal conviction: war is not inevitable but can be controlled by

institutions• But paralyzed by the Cold War conflict

• after the end of the Cold War: involved in a broad range of global agenda

- food, population, law of the sea, water, disarmament, racism, aging, indigenous peoples, global warming …

• evolved into a complex network: UN-NGO cooperation

• the issues and problems that the UN will be asked to manage : continue to grow

• the UN

: a vast administrative machinery

: decentralized conglomerate of countless committees, bureaus, board, commissions, institutions

• budgetary constrains and inefficient bureaucracy

: reduce it’s the capacity

• can the UN meet the huge demands?

• is original UN design outdated?

The United Nations: System and Structure

• Security Council, General Assembly, Secretariat, International Court of Justice, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council

• Security Council

: initiate actions including the use of force

• General Assembly

: make recommendations

: has grown in number and importance

: dominated by the Global South

: the one state, one-vote rules

• G-77

: a coalition of the less developed Global South countries comprising three-fourths of the UN

: resist dominance by Global North

The Global North and Global South

• North-South Differences over priorities(1) controversy over size and nature of UN budget

: the U.S. contributes 22 % of the core UN budget: the poorest 70 percent of the UN’s members pay the

minimum (0.01%) and only $ 13,000 annually.: 10 largest contributors commended 10 votes, while the

poorest members paid 25 % and commended 175 votes

(2) controversy over programs: poor states

– need should determine expenditure levels: major contributors

– do not want to pay the program they oppose

• less money for peacekeeping operations

: peacekeeping operations understaffed and underfunded

: peacekeeping expenditure reduced from $3.4 billion in 1994 to $2.9 billion in 2002

: financial restrains reduced peacekeeping personnel from 78,000 in 1994 to 46,500 in 2003

• affected mainly by the United States and other member states’ arrears: the U.S.

- in arrears more than $1.2 billion in 2001 until the 9/11

: about 90% of the Global South - also in arrears around $3.1 billion

• Kofi Annan’s “bold reforms”: UN - “bloated bureaucracy” and “inefficient

administration”: reduce costs, correct corruption and wastes, reassign

administrative responsibilities, reorganize programs

The future of the UN

• optimistic

: the UN’s many important contributions to world peace and development

- the UN is likely to play an active role in social and economic enhancement, and peace and security

• pessimistic

: the UN’s agenda is likely to be controversial and divisive / lack of consensus

- the UN expected to serve 190 states and 6 billion people with less money than the annual budget of NYC’s police department