week 6 post class blog Trump card

This class was very interesting as we had the opportunity to examine the recent summit between President Trump and Kim Jong un.  I really appreciated the hopeful opinion that Emma shared that this may be the opening door for something greater. I however do not feel hopeful about future relations.  I agree with the sentiment that this is more show than anything. Trump has made millions on using smoke and mirrors to trade on his name. I think he continues this same technique with his presidency to maintain his base. There was no real diplomatic presence for this meeting. There are no assurances for a follow on meeting. The United States gained no real concessions and has agreed to pull away from military exercises on the border. I think his style of diplomacy is dangerous and sets a precedent that States can appeal to Trump's ego and gain valuable concessions. I believe that Trump won this for himself and his base but the American people and diplomacy have lost big time. At some point I have to wonder if the United States is near to breaking off from being a rational actor on the international stage.

I tend to fall more along a constructivist lines. I believe that humans have a lot more control over the way we set our social order and are capable of fundamental change.  I will utilize an example from a previous blog post utilizing international women's movements. Today people have access to the freedom of information that has the capability to rapidly transcend international borders. We have seen ISIS move across boarders to execute attacks within the United States as well as Europe. Clearly in the modern world we are faced with a new challenge to identity. With this shift in identity the major players on the international scenes have the potential to be non state actors. One cannot ignore the international business market and their ability to manipulate states in their best interests. Apple is a great example of a power international business organization in the way their moved their headquarters to Ireland. They were so powerful that the current administration set current tax laws to be more favorable.  This sway of powerful companies within government is nothing new however the way in which they clearly move outside a home based country and pit countries against each other shows a new style and autonomy. Technology has allowed dispersed offices to all be in the same room with each other. This allows organizations to break free of the chains of identity based on location and reach out to new markets and people. the increase of technology will only increase the capabilities to reorganize with non state actors.  I think this will continue and ultimately the whole dynamic of power will shift. 

Fundamental Change: What a Week

The assignment for week six was definitely and interesting one. Personally, I enjoy debating, and arguing, so it has been a fun week for me. I put in more effort this week, re-reading the assigned articles for the module, and continually checking to see if the "pro group" had posted their rebuttal. When reading their rebuttal, it was almost as if my body had been taken over. I instantly started coming up with arguments to make, and jotting down the specific quotes from their post so that I could reference the precise spots in which they were wrong. After what had only seemed like an hour, I looked up to see that it was approaching 11pm. I had been working for hours. In this post, I am going to talk about how I think the "pro group" did, what point I believe they should have made, and how I think the exercise went overall.

One point that started to drive some of our group members crazy, was the fact that the pro group did not have a basic definition of what they believed fundamental change was, specifically. If I were in their group, I would have made the example of the international environment changing from a bipolar world, to a multipolar world as the point that fundamental change is possible. This argument alone would have made me struggle to oppose the idea that fundamental change is not only possible, but that it already happened in the international environment. The group could have then based all of their arguments on this one point, that it has happened before, and therefore it is possible to happen again.

Overall, I think the exercise, including the class discussion, went well. It was more of each side arguing why they were right, and less trying to convince the other side that their view was wrong. I do not believe that any minds were changed during this activity. During the class discussion, some people got a little testy, including myself, when our personal arguments were under scrutiny. This was a fun exercise, but took more work than our usual interactive group activities. This activity only worked to emphasize my view of humanity, that all humans are just self-interested. That humans will look out for their own security, and believing that this will never change. In conclusion, I guess that I was lucky to be placed in the group that was based on realist theory, as I believe that I am generally a realist when it comes to international relations, even though I did end up agreeing with a Green Bay Packers fan. I guess there is a first for everything.


https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/06/fundamental-change-what-week.html

A realist approach to fundimental change

This debate brought forth some interesting notions regarding fundamental change in the realm of international relations, what it's nature is, and how it can be accomplished. One of the key points discussed was the issue of sovereignty and whether states would be willing to forgo their sovereignty and under which conditions this might happen. The argument is that states will not only forgo their own security, but in a certain regards their own survival in order to join this greater institution or entity. I do believe that if there is some recreation of the sense of self, in terms of role and identity, that this might happen within certain contexts (the creation of a European identity for example). That being said, I do ultimately believe that these cases are the exception more than the rule. Central to the argument made by the pro-fundamental change side was that this change happens within the context of large international institutions (and to a lesser extent created by borderless social and political movements) and that once certain values of these institutions were exported that they would be institutionalized within the new member state. The institutionalization of these new sets of norms and values are then one of the key factors of reshaping a state's identity or role within international society. One of the main problems with this theory is that state's join these institutions for a variety of reasons, and once they join it does not necessarily mean that their value system will change at all, and some actors will use these institutions to advance their own domestic agenda and therefore further entrench the idea of sovereignty. If the issue around fundamental change is centered around the idea that states will surrender their sovereignty in due time as a result of a restructuring of their values system or change in role and identity, then this neglects the role of individuals on the domestic level play and the internal power struggles within a state. Ultimately, the realm of international relations is a collection of states with their own set of individual actors vying for power on the domestic level, and without some external force or threat serving as a catalyst for cooperation, these individual actors are not (as a whole) likely to give up sovereignty which is their vehicle for obtaining power.

Time to Take a Step Back

Aliens and zombies. What a great session it was today. Aside from the sharp turn into sci-fi and Game of Thrones town, I thought the debate was a lively one and one that, though it was never truly resolved (like a recent conference in Singapore), it did highlight the very real lines in the sand currently drawn between liberals and realists.

So is fundamental change possible? It's a great question and one I look forward to exploring much more deeply my paper. My summation of today's class is that there is very little agreement as to what fundamental change looks like, what would cause such a shift, or whether we'd even perceive it right away if it did occur. Even outside of our pro/con groups I think a pretty solid breakdown in the class of those that believe that fundamental change is possible and those that think it isn't. I would also say the balance leans toward a more interest/realist-based approach. Our class seems skeptical that actors can stray from Hobbes' man in the state of stature. I find myself simultaneously agreeing that human nature is the hardest of habits to break, but also that normalizing behaviors and outside stimuli can create lasting change.

At the end of the day I really want the zombie apocalypse to show up or, as mentioned in class, a significant climate event to bind humanity together in a new system, a world government where all voices are equal, with strong considerations for human rights and the ability and capacity to maintain justice within that system. Let me dream.

Thank goodness I don't have to be a realist anymore...

Going into the debate I was very much against the idea that international actors are destined to be stuck in this Hobbesian state of being. When I think of the Hobbesian state I think of the programmed characters in video games whose sole purpose is to exist to protect themselves against the player. Programmed to protect themselves in the same endless loop again and again until the player wins and they become irrelevant. Luckily, I’m glad to say, I don’t agree this is the way the world works. Although arguing from this perspective did really make me question to what extent the international system can change. If states are made up of people, whose only drive is to survive, how then could the states themselves move past this servitude to survival?

I believe the answer lies in the composition of states and the composition of the types of people within and around them. In the world we live in today, it’s naïve to think that the influences of the state are influenced solely by the ideas within that state.  Even if leaders are not influenced by the needs of their own people, they will be influenced by the ideas of the states around them.

Maybe in the times of Hobbes, I could’ve believed that the fight for survival could only produce anarchy but now, being able to look back on history I have to say that ideas, practices, and norms have been the big game changers on the international scale. Over time it has become easier and easier to survive. Technologies have changed, driven by the novelty of ideas, and there is no end in sight for that.

Without getting into too much detail, what I can see as fundamental change is that it happens but it happens at a glacial pace. While ideas drive the practices and the norms that can instigate change through a kind of snowball effect, it is an incredibly slow rolling snowball. The way that we as humans, and ultimately states, view change is limited by the time in which we can view it and act in it. Luckily ideas transcend time, which then means change may also transcend time. As others have mentioned throughout this class we can see this in the changes of ideas in social movements. The generally accepted views of women within societies, for example, have changed almost everywhere in the world at some point in history and progressively so in the West. These ideas didn’t start in our lifetime, they’ve been changing over the centuries and have snowballed into what we see unfolding before us today. Big change, fundamental change, comes slowly.