12 Chapter 1 The Globalization of International Relations

international development) as sub!elds, but here we will reserve the term for two macro
level topics. Traditionally, the study of IR has focused on questions of war and peace—
the sub!eld of international security studies. The movements of armies and of diplo-
mats, the crafting of treaties and alliances, the development and deployment of military
capabilities—these are the subjects that dominated the study of IR in the past, especially
in the 1950s and 1960s, and they continue to hold a central position in the !eld. Since
the Cold War, regional conflicts and ethnic violence have received more attention,
while interdisciplinary peace studies programs and feminist scholarship have sought to
broaden concepts of “security” further.7
The sub!eld of international political economy (IPE), a second main sub!eld of
IR, concerns trade and !nancial relations among nations and focuses on how nations
have cooperated politically to create and maintain institutions that regulate the flow
of international economic and !nancial transactions. Although these topics previously
centered on relations among the world’s richer nations, the widening of globalization
and multilateral economic institutions such as the World Trade Organization has
pushed IPE scholars to focus on developing states as well. In addition, they pay growing
attention to relations between developed and developing nations (often labeled
North-South relations), including such topics as economic dependency, debt, foreign
aid, and technology transfer. Also newly important are problems of international envi-
ronmental management and of global telecommunications. The sub!eld of IPE is
expanding accordingly.8
The same principles and theories that help us understand international security (dis-
cussed in the !rst half of this book) also help us understand IPE (discussed in the second
half). Economics is important in security affairs, and vice versa.
Theoretical knowledge accumulates by a repeated cycle of generalizing and then test-
ing. For a given puzzle, various theories can explain the result (though none perfectly) as
a case of a more general principle. Each theory also logically predicts other outcomes, and
these can be tested empirically. A laboratory science, controlling all but one variable, can
test theoretical predictions ef!ciently. IR does not have this luxury, because many varia-
bles operate simultaneously. Thus, it is especially important to think critically about IR
events and consider several different theoretical explanations before deciding which (if
any) provides the best explanation.

Actors and Influences

Watch The principal actors in IR are the world’s governments. Scholars of IR traditionally study
the Video the decisions and acts of those governments in relation to other governments. The inter-
“Conflict Diamonds
national stage is crowded with actors large and small that are intimately interwoven with
and the Kimberley
Process” the decisions of governments. These actors are individual leaders and citizens. They are
at MyPoliSciLab bureaucratic agencies in foreign ministries. They are multinational corporations and ter-
rorist groups. But the most important actors in IR are states.

7
Neack, Laura. Elusive Security: States First, People Last. Rowman & Little!eld, 2007. Booth, Ken, ed. Critical
Security Studies and World Politics. Rienner, 2005. Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A
New Framework for Analysis. Rienner, 1997.
8
Cohen, Benjamin J. International Political Economy: An Intellectual History. Princeton, 2008. Gilpin, Robert.
Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton, 2001. Keohane, Robert O.,
and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Power and Interdependence. 3rd ed. Longman, 2001.
 Actors and Influences 13

State Actors
POWERS THAT BE
A state is a territorial entity controlled by a government and
inhabited by a population. The locations of the world’s states
and territories are shown in the reference map at the front of
this book, after the Careers section. Regional maps with
greater detail appear there as well.
A state government answers to no higher authority; it
exercises sovereignty over its territory—to make and enforce
laws, to collect taxes, and so forth. This sovereignty is recog-
nized (acknowledged) by other states through diplomatic
relations and usually by membership in the United Nations
(UN). The population inhabiting a state forms a civil society
to the extent that it has developed institutions to participate
in political or social life. All or part of the population that
shares a group identity may consider itself a nation (see
“Nationalism” on pp. 160–161). The state’s government is a
democracy to the extent that the government is controlled by
the members of the population. In political life, and to some
extent in IR scholarship, the terms state, nation, and country States are the most important actors in IR. A handful of
are used imprecisely, usually to refer to state governments. states are considered great powers and one a “super-
(Note that the word state in IR does not mean a state in the power.” Here, leaders of Britain, the United States, and
Germany watch a British-German soccer game (overtime
United States.) shootout) together during a G8 summit at Camp David, 2012.
With few exceptions, each state has a capital city—the
seat of government from which it administers its territory—
and often a single individual who acts in the name of the
state. We will refer to this person simply as the “state leader.” Often he or she is the head
of government (such as a prime minister) or the head of state (such as a president, or a king
or queen). In some countries, such as the United States, the same person is head of state
and government. In other countries, the positions of the president or royalty, or even the
prime minister, are symbolic. In any case, the most powerful political !gure is the one we
mean by “state leader,” and these !gures are the key individual actors in IR, regardless of
whether these leaders are democratically elected or dictators. The state actor includes the
individual leader as well as bureaucratic organizations such as foreign ministries that act in
the name of the state. (What the United States calls departments are usually called minis-
tries elsewhere. U.S. secretaries are ministers and the State Department corresponds with a
foreign ministry.)
The international system is the set of relationships among the world’s states, struc-
tured according to certain rules and patterns of interaction. Some such rules are explicit,
some implicit. They include who is considered a member of the system, what rights and
responsibilities the members have, and what kinds of actions and responses normally
occur between states.
The modern international system has existed for only 500 years. Before then, people
were organized into more mixed and overlapping political units such as city-states,
empires, and feudal !efs. In the past 200 years the idea has spread that nations—groups of
people who share a sense of national identity, usually including a language and culture—
should have their own states. Most large states today are such nation-states. But since
World War II, the decolonization process in much of Asia and Africa has added many
new states, some not at all nation-states. A major source of conflict and war at present is
the frequent mismatch between perceived nations and actual state borders. When people
identify with a nationality that their state government does not represent, they may !ght
14 Chapter 1 The Globalization of International Relations

to form their own state and thus to gain sovereignty over their territory and affairs. This
substate nationalism is only one of several trends that undermine the present system of
states. Others include the globalization of economic processes, the power of telecommuni-
cations, and the proliferation of ballistic missiles.
The independence of former colonies and, more recently, the breakup into smaller
states of large multinational states (the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia)
have increased the number of states in the world. The exact total depends on the status of
a number of quasi-state political entities, and it keeps changing as political units split
apart or merge. The UN had 193 members in 2013.
The population of the world’s states varies dramatically, from China and India with
more than 1 billion people each, to microstates such as San Marino with 32,000. With the
creation of many small states in recent decades, the majority of states have fewer than
10 million people each, and more than half of the rest have 10 to 50 million each. But
the 17 states with populations of more than 80 million people together contain about
two-thirds of the world’s population.
States also differ tremendously in the size of their total annual economic activity—
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)9—from the $15 trillion U.S. economy to the econo-
mies of tiny states such as the Paci!c island of Tuvalu ($36 million). The world economy
is dominated by a few states, just as world population is. Figure 1.1 lists the 15 largest
countries by population and by economy. Each is an important actor in world affairs,
especially the nine in the center that are largest in both population and economy.
A few of these large states possess especially great military and economic strength and
influence, and are called great powers. They are de!ned and discussed in Chapter 2. The
most powerful of great powers, those with truly global influence, have been called super-
powers. This term generally meant the United States and the Soviet Union during the
Cold War, and now refers to the United States alone.
Some other political entities are often referred to as states or countries although
they are not formally recognized as states. Taiwan is the most important of these. It
operates independently in practice but is claimed by China (a claim recognized formally
by outside powers) and is not a UN member. Formal colonies and possessions still exist;
their status may change in the future. They include Puerto Rico (U.S.), Bermuda
(British), Martinique (French), French Guiana, the Netherlands Antilles (Dutch), the
Falkland Islands (British), and Guam (U.S.). Hong Kong reverted from British to
Chinese rule in 1997 and retains a somewhat separate identity under China’s “one
country, two systems” formula. The status of the Vatican (Holy See) in Rome is ambig-
uous, as is Palestine, which in 2012 joined the Vatican as the UN’s only nonmember
observer states. Including such territorial entities with states brings the world total to
about 200 state or quasi-state actors. Other would-be states such as Kurdistan (Iraq),
Abkhazia (Georgia), and Somaliland (Somalia) may fully control the territory they
claim but are not internationally recognized.

9
GDP is the total of goods and services produced by a nation; it is very similar to the Gross National Product
(GNP). Such data are dif!cult to compare across nations with different currencies, economic systems, and
levels of development. In particular, comparisons of GDP in capitalist and socialist economies, or in rich and
poor countries, should be treated cautiously. GDP data used in this book are mostly from the World Bank.
GDP data are adjusted through time and across countries for “purchasing-power parity” (how much a given
amount of money can buy). See Summers, Robert, and Alan Heston. The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An
Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (2), 1991: 327–68.
GDP and population data are for 2008 unless otherwise noted.
 Actors and Influences 15

FIGURE 1.1 Largest Countries, 2011– 2012

Largest Largest
Population Economy
Both

China
Pakistan Britain
India
Nigeria France
United States
Bangladesh Indonesia Italy

Brazil
Philippines South Korea
Russia
Vietnam Spain
Japan
Ethiopia Mexico Canada

Germany

Note: Left and center columns listed in population order, right column in GDP order. GDP calculated by purchasing parity.

Source: Central Intelligence Agency. World Factbook. GDP estimates for 2011, population 2012.

Nonstate Actors
National governments may be the most important actors in IR, but they are strongly influ-
enced by a variety of nonstate actors (see Table 1.2). These actors are also called transna-
tional actors when they operate across international borders.
First, states often take actions through, within, or in the context of intergovernmen-
tal organizations (IGOs)—organizations whose members are national governments.
IGOs ful!ll a variety of functions and vary in size from just a few states to virtually the
whole UN membership. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
the World Trade Organization (WTO), military alliances such as NATO, and political
groupings such as the African Union (AU) are all IGOs.
Another type of transnational actor, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are
private organizations, some of considerable size and resources. Increasingly NGOs are
being recognized, in the UN and other forums, as legitimate actors along with states,
though not equal to them. Some of these groups have a political purpose, some a humani-
tarian one, some an economic or technical one. Sometimes NGOs combine efforts
through transnational advocacy networks.10 There is no single pattern to NGOs.

10
Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics.
Cornell, 1998. Batliwala, Srilatha, and L. David Brown. Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction. Kumarian,
2006.
16 Chapter 1 The Globalization of International Relations

Together, IGOs and NGOs are referred to

IN THE ACTION as international organizations (IOs).11 By
one count there are more than 25,000
NGOs and 5,000 IGOs. IOs are discussed
in detail in Chapters 7 and 10.
Multinational corporations (MNCs)
are companies that span multiple coun-
tries. The interests of a large company
doing business globally do not correspond
with any one state’s interests. MNCs often
control greater resources, and operate
internationally with greater efficiency,
than many small states. They may prop up
(or even create) friendly foreign govern-
ments, as the United Fruit Company did in
the “banana republics” of Central America
a century ago. But MNCs also provide poor
states with much-needed foreign invest-
ment and tax revenues. MNCs in turn
depend on states to provide protection,
well-regulated markets, and a stable politi-
cal environment. MNCs as international
actors receive special attention in Chapters
9 and 13.
Nonstate actors participate in IR alongside states, although generally in
less central roles. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are becoming Various other nonstate actors interact
increasingly active in IR. Here the singer and activist Bono helps present an with states, IOs, and MNCs. For example,
Amnesty International award to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, 2012. the terrorist attacks since September 11,
2001, have demonstrated the increasing
power that technology gives terrorists as
nonstate actors. Just as Greenpeace can travel to a remote location and then beam video
of its environmental actions there to the world, so too can al Qaeda place suicide bombers
in world cities, coordinate their operations and !nances through the Internet and the

TABLE 1.2 Types of Nonstate Actors

Type Who Are They? Examples

IGOsa Intergovernmental Members are United Nations,
Organizations national governments NATO, Arab League
NGOsa Nongovernmental Members are Amnesty International,
Organizations individuals and groups Lions Clubs, Red Cross
MNCs Multinational Companies that ExxonMobil, Toyota,
Corporations span borders Wal-Mart
Others Individuals, Cities, Bono, Iraqi Kurdistan,
Constituencies, etc. al Qaeda
a
Note: IGOs and NGOs together make up International Organizations (IOs).
Source: IGO and NGO. Copyrighted by Joshua S. Goldstein and Jon C. Pevehouse, Published by Pearson Education,
Upper Saddle River, NJ

11
Armstrong, David, Lorna Lloyd, and John Redmond. International Organization in World Politics. Palgrave, 2003.