poli sci diary

The fifth debate is still yet to be decided but one pertinent faction of the 21st century is the acceleration of globalization. We hear about globablization and globalism (maybe) a lot these days but its important to point out that with transportation comes globalization and technology. Religion is also an important element of IR, does it produce more violence or more peace in the world? "Political Islam" was thrown out there, Bush has followed the guidance of Jesus Christ and more locally religious extremists in this country are gaining more power everyday. Globalism is a type of globalization, and it centers on deterritorialization. The compression of space and annhilation of distance. Globalism is extending beyond social and geographical space, an example could be Huntington's religous space map. Liberalism is mostly closely aligned with globalization, it is breaking the rules it seeks to enforce. Where neoconservatists emphasize our (or any native) national character, American greed, and the danger of spreading anarchy and diluting the essence of the American homeland.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We defined regulative and constitutive rules on Monday and elaborated today. Regulative rules not being able to be influenced or contrasted to constitutive which are influenes and created by society. Constitutive rules are hard to specity in a rigid way. That is, regulative rules are set in stone, and constitutive rules can be compared to a game of chicken in which the actors can influence the game. Or these can be described as brute facts, or social facts. The first being rules that are set before the states came into play, they cannot be influenced. Social facts refer to things that can be socially transformed, states decide the rules.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

***We continued with the "English school of thought" which primarily focused on a response to the changing world situation after the Cold War; from the neoliberalist, neorealist positions that focused more on the patterns and mechanisms that underlied the international order. This perspective looked more at the focus on the "international society", an important distinction, because this defined the era, societies were the focus of attention. The definition of an international society can be described as a collection of states that are aware of their common values, and that creates an international community in which societies influence the actions of different actors/states. This intertwines with the rationalist/order apex of the order, security and justice triangle. Emphasis is on order, social impusles wanting to order things (this is different from rational choice theory).*** May be used for journal for last fridays lecture

Constructivism was born about this same time, from a response to the current conditions after the Cold War, and the most influential person on this theory is Alexandra Wendt, an alumni from the U of M around 1992. The basic premise about this theory is that there is a construction that consists of social ideas and practices that constrains the action of states. This can be contrasted to the material culture that was emphasized by Waltz during the neorealist predominace. By this definitinon it would seem that actors like North Korea whose power is defined by material capabilities would be insignificant becuas it is fairly new(without a storied history) and is economically weak.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)