This document holds precise and well-taken lecture notes of the course Actors in World Politics, given by Dr. Ragazzi in the first year of 2022/2023. IT ALSO contains ALL practice exam questions AND answers given by Dr. Ragazzi during the lectures spread out over the whole block.
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Actors in World Politics - Dr. Francesco Ragazzi
International Organizations: Politics, Law and Practice
Tuesday 23 Dec, 09.00: Exam
Class 1: Introduction
➢ What is expected of us in the exam when it comes to readings?
○ You don’t need to understand the parts he didn’t explain.
○ Use the lectures!!! (replay it)
➢ Should we know the theory and also remember the case studies and examples the
authors use?
○ Know main names and main dates, no exact details.
■ E.g. Peace of Westphalia
➢ Do we also need to know concepts and definitions that are mentioned in the lectures
but are featured in the readings?
○ Only use the lectures for this.
➢ Do we need to know specific economists and what their contributions were?
○ Malthusianism is important (what is it about and why does it matter in the
context of transnational actors?)
■ Malthus believed that the population was growing at a much faster
pace than the growth of the resources to feed that population.
■ If the growth wasn’t somehow limited, people would end up starving
and the country would fall apart.
■ Economic form of reasoning that it could be a good thing people we’re
leaving the territory (of the UK in particular)
○ Framing:
■ Telling a simple story with a good and bad guy as to why you should
engage in a particular cause
■ Narrative, ideology
○ Boomerang effect:
■ NGO not able to push agenda or obtain result in its own country
because of the unwillingness of the country
■ It can use its international networks to get other countries and IGOs to
pressure the country
○ Methodological nationalism:
■ Questions of the state are rational to focus on
,Class 2: International, global, or transnational?
The world has become global:
Humans have developed shared concerns (global issues, e.g. climate change). But this wasn’t
always the case, so what happened?
1. Dimensions of Globalization
2. Globalization as a series of processes
Dimensions (4) of globalization:
1. People
a. People are constantly on the move, migrating, leaving their dear cities and
coming to study in The Hague.
b. Most migration is from the Global South to the Global South, something that
isn’t talked about that much.
2. Capital (money)
a. Financial flows are becoming increasingly global.
b. International trade of goods and services.
c. The exports between rich and poor countries are increasing.
d. Also, international trade is becoming more and more distributed in different
parts of the world; more and more countries are participating.
3. Politics
a. There are different things that influence politics in many countries; global
politics, e.g. climate change, conflicts.
b. Russo-Ukrainian Conflict has global impact everywhere, e.g. energy prices.
c. “Smaller events” have influence too, e.g. terror attacks (no harm, but global
news).
i. The whole world is looking at the news of the whole world.
4. Culture
a. Yes, Hollywood movies are usually about American and Hollywood
lifestyles/characters, but the market of cinema consumption is becoming more
and more global.
i. Keeping up requires looking at the interests of different parts of the
globe.
b. Culture has become global: Netflix is one of the key players of the sector
i. By using more regional movies, e.g. (about) small cities in France.
Globalization as a series of (3) processes:
1. Deterritorialization
2. Interdependence
, 3. Time-space compression
Deterritorialization: The process through which geographical territory becomes less of a
constraint on social interactions. In other words: unbundling/disconnecting something from
the territory where something exists.
➢ You can Whatsapp anyone, anywhere, at any time. You’re going way out of
your territory this way.
➢ If your government bans such platforms, you’re stuck in your own territory.
Interdependence: The process through which security and force matter less and countries
are connected by multiple social and political relationships. - Keohane and Nye
➢ Sort of a non-realist view
➢ However, it is true. Countries are becoming more and more interdependent.
For example, swapping energy resources from Russia to somewhere else is
difficult due to their interdependent economies.
Time-space compression: The set of processes that cause the relative distances between
places (i.e. as measured in terms of travel time or cost) to contract, effectively making such
places grow “closer”. - Harvey
➢ Quite related to deterritorialization, but puts the emphasis on something else.
○ It’s not that territory doesn’t matter anymore, but that things are now
increasingly closer, because we have a faster and cheaper way to communicate
and get to places (e.g. fast trains getting you everywhere in Europe).
Making sense of Globalization (3 approaches):
1. The International Relations approach
2. The “globalist” approach
3. The transnational critique
The International Relations approach:
● The world is divided in domestic/international
● States are the main actors of IR
● Other actors exist but they’re negligible
The “globalist” approach:
● World divides are flattened
● Undifferentiated investment surface
● Decreased relevance of states
The transnational critique (go here during the course):
● A problem of analytical purchase
○ Maybe there’s another way of looking at the world.
, ○ Relations develop between states and non-state actors.
○ Happenings like 9/11: no crazy warfare, no nuclear attacks, but a major
international impact.
○ States adapt to globalization: Transgovernmentalism (Slaughter -
Chapter 6).
○ It’s obvious states aren’t going away
■ States play key roles in many things
● Visa’s, regulation of IOs, interest rates, taxes, etc.
■ States aren’t disappearing, they’re adapting to globalization in
many different ways.
● A problem of conceptualization: an either/or conception; don't think this way!
○ E.g., it’s not 0 states or all states.
Directions (4) for a transnational approach:
1. The “territorial trap”
2. Re-thinking sovereignty
3. Re-mapping the territory
4. Re-imagining national identities
The “territorial trap” - Agnew:
➢ International relations (realist view) are victim of the territorial trap (mental trap)
➢ Composed of three wrong ideas
1. States don’t have exclusive power over territory
○ We’re used to states controlling their entire territories all of the sudden since
1648, which isn’t true.
2. Domestic and foreign realism aren’t separate
○ One thing is domestic politics, and another thing is international politics.
Different ministers, different news pages, cuisines, etc. A great deal of our
existence is based on this distinction. This isn’t actually how it works.
3. Boundaries of the state aren’t the boundaries of society
○ (Connected to 2nd one) The boundaries of the states aren’t the boundaries of
society (e.g. Dutch people live here, Chinese people live in China, etc.).
Sovereignty isn’t absolute, but relational:
1. Rule existed in other forms (city-state, monarchies, empires)
○ Rule has always existed in many forms different than now. The future of
international politics can be without states, the ones we know today don’t have
to be the final form of existence, it can change, and probably will.
2. Territorial state is a recent invention (19th century)
○ In fact, territorial states, and the idea that a territory and nation should be the
same is a relatively new idea, e.g. unification of Italy, because they weren't
unified before (took time, war, negotiation).
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