History of International Relations

1. Ramil H. Agapay Jr.
International Relation
Dr. Virgilio H. Onganiza
Chapter 2:
THE HISTORICAL SETTING
OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

2. Introduction
“Conquest has been the
greatest lever of change
in human history.”
- Barbara Ward

3. The Origin of the Modern
State

4. Antiquity
 An outline of the state began to take form in the
seventeenth century, but some influence
originated in antiquity.
 Greek city-states (800 B.C.- 168 B.C.) –
antecedents of modern diplomacy and arbitration
to settle disputes that states and international
organizations, such as UN would later use.
 Athens – created and practiced democracy.
 A Legacy of Rome in the West (27 B.C.-A.D476)
– rudiments of international law… to conduct
relations w/ barbarian tribes living in the borders
of its empires.
 during the Byzantine days, was the Justinian Code,....
influenced modern code law states.

5. Feudalism
 The collapse of Roman rule left western Europe
in the Dark Ages(A.D. 476-800), a period marked
by decline in law and order, trade, and learning
and decrease in population.
 Protection improved as feudalism evolved,
reaching its full form between the eleventh and
thirteenth centuries of the Middle Ages (A.D. 801-
1400).
 Feudalism called for lords to distribute land
vassals and to offer them protection. In return, the
vassals contributed money and soldiers to their
lords.

6. Attempts at a Universal State
 Charlemagne (A.D. 742-814), king of the Franks,
established a Christian kingdom over the former
Roman Empire in Western Europe, and Pope Leo
III anointed him as the Roman Emperor.
 Holy Roman Empire (A.D. 962-1806) – took
shape usually under the rule of a German
emperor approved by the Roman Catholic pope.
 Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in
1806. Voltaire (1694-1778) supposedly said that
this empire were neither Holy, Roman Empire nor
an Empire.

7. Strong Kings
 A king usually began as lord but, over time, came
to rule over the lords and large territories.
 Not only the did kings have to gain control over
the feudal lords within their domains; these rulers
also had to wrest themselves free of the control of
the Roman Catholic pope at the same time.
 The Roman Catholic Church was a cultural unifier
for centuries in Europe, and the pope had
considerable powers.
 Protestant Reformation
 Creation of the Church of England – during the reign of King
Henry VIII
 In the 1600s, some kings eve asserted they ruled
by the Divine Right.

8. Strong Kings (Cont)
 Bloody wars against states took over as to
whether the Catholic or the Protestant faith would
prevail in Europe and was finally culminated in
the Thirty Years’ War (1618 - 1648) known as the
Peace of Westphalia of 1648 by recognizing the
sovereignty of each king.
 The American Revolution of 1776 and the French
Revolution of 1789 jolted the monarchs’ powerful
position, since these revolutions rejected the
entire concept of monarchial rule.
 The state absorbed the sovereign status once held
by king
 In time, sovereignty passed from the state to the
people, meaning the people were the ultimate

9. The Role Nationalism
 Not only did authority finally transfer to the
people, but passion sprang from them that
empowered the state as well.
 Nationalism – set of beliefs involves a special
sense of identity among a group of people that
distinguishes them from the other group.
 Nationalism today is not the fierce political force
that it was in the Second World War or during the
colonial independence movement following this
war, but it remains an important political force in
the world.

10. THE CLASSICAL STATE SYSTEM
(1648 - 1914)

11. The War System
 After the religious wars of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, European fought wars not to
completely destroy an opponent but to take a piece of
territory in Europe, grab a colony from another state,
or check the advances of an opposing state.
 War was never inevitable, and gradually the
prosecution of war fell under the regulation of
international law, although an effort to outlaw war
altogether was not made until the twentieth century.
 A Balance of Power system helped to preserve the
independence of states. Ideally, under this system, a
powerful state or alliance always faced a counter
alliance marshalling about equal power.

12. The Economic System
 Mercantilism (approximately the 16th through the 18th
century and extended to some in the 19th)
 Stressed the accumulation of gold and silver by the state and
state control over manufacturing and trade to enhance state
power and prestige.
 This economic system stressed protection for homed markets
and, consequently, greatly restricted trade among countries.
 States were prone to fight wars to secure colonies for
resources and markets.
 Free trade or laissez-faire
 an alternative economic system proposed in The Wealth of
Nations by Adam Smith.
 He advocated that countries sell their products without trade
restrictions such as tariffs and quotas so that everyone would
have quality goods at cheaper prices and enjoy higher
standards of living.
The Industrial Revolution (1750 - 1850
 Helped to prepare Europe for a free trade system by ) providing

13. The Colonial System
+A primary objective was to enhance the wealth of
the colonizing state in different way+
First Colonial Period (late 16th to the middle 19th
century) accompanied and served the policy of
mercantilism.
 Spain exercised mercantilism in the 1500s by mining gold
and silver in the Americas.
 1600 and 1700s other European countries placed settler
colonies along the Atlantic Seaboard of North America
Second Colonial Period or Ages of Imperialism
(1870 - 1900)
 A spirit of manifest destiny animated Europeans and
convinced them they had a mission to rule over non white
races.

14. The Political System
 The classic era of the state system in Europe also
bore witness to the emergence of democratic
self-rule as the prevalent form of government.
 European international society emerged during
the classical state system. These states
interacted with some regularity because they
shared common rules and institutions. A growing
body of international law governed diplomacy, the
prosecution of war, and many other aspects of
states’ relationships.
 By the First World War, the European society of
states was regularly interacting with some states
from other continents.

15. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

16. Ideology
o Ideology is the fundamental belief system
concerned with the nature of society’s political,
social and economic arrangements and the role
of individuals and groups within these
arrangements. And ideology can be a guide and
call to action for its believers and political
“blueprint” for organizing society and even for
conducting foreign policy.
o Different visions of world order, bound up in
ideological perspectives, have contributed to
three long, intense wars: First World War, Second
World War, and the Cold War.

17. Mass Ideologies and World Wars
 First World War (1914 - 1918)
 Pres. Woodrow Wilson expressed America’s war mission as “making the world
safe for democracy”. Self-determination has resounded up to the present as a
major democratic principle for various minorities wanting autonomy or independent
statehood.
 Democracy would soon encounter serious challenges by totalitarian dictatorship in
Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union.
 Democracy – as an ideology calls for a population to select its
government and hold that government accountable to the people
through elections. Stressed the values of individual liberty, equality,
and the rule of law.
 Communism – emanated from the writings of Karl Marx (1818-
1883). He believed it was historically inevitable that the workers in
the industrial age would destroy and revolt capitalism and the
governments of the states that protected the rich capitalists and
factory owners. In theory and in practice, communists always put the
group interest of Soviet society ahead of individual rights.

18. Mass Ideologies and World Wars
(Cont.)
 Second World War (1939 - 1945)
 began with Germany’s and Russia’s attack on
Poland in 1939 and ended in 1945 with the
unconditional surrender of the German and
Japanese leaders, a total surrender made possible
by the complete victory of Allies.
 After the 2nd World War, the Western allies brought
democratic reforms to West Germany, and the
United States did the same in Japan. These
Western states wisely assisted the conquered
states in their economic renewal and in their return
to the state system

19. The Cold War
 The Unite States and the Soviet Union had a cool
relationship long before 1917, when Lenin’s communists
took control.
 Allies probably hoped their presence would encouraged the
counterrevolutionary forces to overthrow the communists.
The United States and the Soviet Union did not recognized
esc other diplomatically until 1933.
 However, nuclear stand –off between the two superpowers
resulted in four decades of peace in the sense that these
states did not fight each other directly.
 The Cold War began because of opposing ideological world
views but also because of the usual power struggle among
major states to establish a new balance of power after a war.
 The Cold War was a series of tense and dangerous crises
over a four-decade period. A crises is a sudden, unexpected
threats that portends serious consequences.

20. The Collapse of Communism
 In the 1980s, the communist system in Europe
began to implode with a swiftness that caught
almost all Western leaders and scholars by
surprises. The Solidarity Movement in Poland first
challenged Poland’s Community Party in 1981
and later Poland’s military regime after it took
control.
 By 1989, mass demonstrations across Eastern
Europe had brought down communist
governments while Soviet troops remained in
their barracks.

21. The Post-Cold Era
 Although the Cold War did not involve direct fighting
between the two superpowers, communisms defeat
was a resounding as if the West had won a Third World
War. As in other postwar periods, matters in the post-
Cold War era are in a state of flux before a new
balance of power and a new order of values can take
clear form. A period of this kind is a “defining
movement”, an opportune time for victorious leaders to
shape conditions that will serve the common interest of
the international society if they choose to do so.
 At least, in 1990, after leading the Western coalition
that defeated Iraq’s aggression against Iraq in 1990-
1991, President George Bush spoke of a “new world
order” that could form with the end of competing

22. Globalization as a Stage of
History
 According to James N. Rosenau, the state has
proven unable to provide solutions to many
problems that originate outside the territory and
beyond the authority of the single state. States have
reached new levels of cooperation and have worked
out a new form of authority to make up for what they
cannot do alone.
 Increasingly, global policies are taking the shape as
most states identify many of the same problems and
recognize they must work together in a world of
growing interdependence. World efforts to diffuse
conflicts and halt the proliferations of weapons have
become critical.

23. History and International
Society
 Hans Morgenthau, in his classic study Politics Among
Nations, believes social laws govern politics. Since these
laws have roots in human nature, including the drive for
power, we should not expect much to change about
international relations. Morgenthau calls his thinking
realism because he takes human nature for what it is
and historical processes for what they are. He believes,
however, that the pursuit of power by states and the
resulting conflict are durable.
 Kenneth N. Waltz , whose view culminated in his Theory
of International Politics, neo-realists focus on “structural
realism”. This form of realism concerns the distribution
of power among a given number of major states
bounded within the same system. For him, structural
transformation sufficiently radical to alter the anarchical
nature of the international system is unfathomable.

24. History and International Society
(Cont.)
 Robert Gilpin offers a different twist to neorealist
theory. He thinks international relations operate by
the rules of a strong, dominating state until a
challenging state arises to replace the first.
 Trans-nationalists such as Robert O. Keohane and
Joseph S. Nye Jr., with their work Power and
Interdependence, represent a group of scholars
who regard realism as less adequate today to
account for significant changes in international
relations. The world was becoming more
interdependent, requiring emphasis on cooperation
instead of conflict.

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