What Is Significant About Developments In Post-Cold War Ir Theory?
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What is significant about developments in Post-Cold War IR theory?
This essay will explore the significance of developments in post-Cold War International Relations theory. It wasnt surprising that the collapse of the Soviet bloc, arguably the third greatest cataclysm of the Twentieth Century and an event which drew a line under the Two World Wars, would pose some serious theoretical questions for International Relations. In order to do this the essay will be broken down into two sections. The first will analyse globalisation and the effect of it on Realism. The second the will analyse culture and its effect on Liberalism. As a result this will demonstrate, theoretically, that issues in post-Cold War international relations can be used to critique the orthodox theories of International Relations: Realism and Liberalism.
Realism is said to be the most established theory in International Relations and was in its height during the Cold War. It deals with what is best for the state (state-centric) in order to ensure survival. This means having sufficient power to enable security for the state. A modern realist Hans Morgenthau defines this as “mans control over the minds and actions of other men” (Morgenthau [1948]1955:26 taken from Baylis and Smith 2001: 150). So what effect does globalisation have on the traditional theory of Realism? Its undeniable that globalisation is a capitalist process. It has taken off, as a concept in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of socialismÐâ„-, as a viable alternate form of an economic organisation. Now the West is a major influence in ex-communist countries. Left critics of globalisation define the word quite differently, presenting it as worldwide drive toward a globalised economic system dominated by multinational corporations (MNCs), such as Shell and Microsoft, and banking
Ðâ„- There is no definite starting point to globalisation, but the circumnavigation of the globe, in the 1519 to 1521, is seen as the first great expansion of European capitalism. There was also a big expansion in world trade and investment in the late nineteenth century. This was brought to a halt by the First World War and the spell of anti-free trade protectionism that led to the Great Depression in 1930. The end of the Second World War brought another great expansion of capitalism with the development of multinational companies interested in producing and selling in the domestic markets of nations around the world. The emancipation of colonies created a new world order. Air travel and the development of international communications enhanced the progress of international business. Then the end of the Cold War broke the barriers to globalisation in communist countries and globalisation just grew and grew.
institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), that are not accountable to a democratic process or national governments. This challenges the realist idea of the state being the principle actor. To highlight this we can clearly see how powerful MNCs are by seeing that the majority of them are invited to the G8 summit, which addresses a wide range of international economic, political, and social issues. Left critics also say that with the spread of globalisation the rich, the Ðcore north, exploits the poor, the Ðperipheral south. To back this up they point to the figures used from UNDP 1999 Development Report which found that over the past ten years, the number of people earning $1 a day or less remained static at 1.2 billion while the number earning less than $2 a day increased from 2.55 billion to 2.8 billion people. Pro globalisation supporters dispute this saying that there is mounting evidence that inequalities in global income and poverty are decreasing and that globalisation has contributed to this turnaround. For example, the World Bank notes that Chinas opening to world trade has brought it growth in income from $1460 a head in 1980 to $4120 by 1999. The countries that are getting poorer are those that are not open to world trade, notably many nations in Africa. Africa and other less developed countries, although not completely opening itself up to globalisation, is accepting the internet and other telecommunications as an opportunity to gain access to knowledge and services from around the world in a way that would have been unimaginable previously. The internet and technologies such as mobile telephony allow developing countries to leapfrog steps in their development of infrastructure. A poor land line telephone system in the Philippines, for example, is being rapidly bypassed by mobile phones with internet access. The spread of globalisation on this scale would have been unthinkable if the Soviet bloc hadnt collapsed opening up new markets and cultures.
Liberalism, which was very prominent after the First World War (WWI) during the setting up of the League of Nations, is concerned with the individuals within the state. In other words the state is the Ðservant to the peoples thoughts. Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man says that he could see no major competing ideology to the Ðliberal idea after the Cold War but only localised resistance. (Fukuyama 1992: 45-46). During the Cold War cultural differences had to take a backseat to the global geopolitical struggle between the US and USSR. Both the US and USSR offered their way of living, either democratically or totalitarian, to the rest of the worlds states. When the Cold War ended the way at which the liberal politics of the West were absorbed across the globe was unprecedented. The victory by the West also gave rise to a huge development in communications technology, which added to greater globalisation. This increase in globalisation meant that culture was now an important factor in world politics. The Wests culture seemed to make the world more as one by establishing common icons in such things as food, clothing and electronics. This is what Benjamin Barber referred to as McWorld (Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike, and Sony). This being said it didnt mean that everyone was becoming westernised. Globalisation drew influences from many other cultures and one has only to look at Disney to see how stories and images of local cultures have been absorbed into the globalised mainstream (Baylis and Smith 2001: 459). The goals of multinational corporations (MNCs) to succeed in these new markets also meant that they had to adapt to the local culture. This is called hybridisation and the use of hybridisation was seen by McDonalds not using beef in their hamburgers in India. As cultures were besieged by other cultures some started to repel this modernity. As Francis Fukuyama had clearly pointed