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Sa diversité historique

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Espace mondial, une vision française des global studies

4.6 (98 ratings) | 9.7K Students Enrolled

Afin d’expliquer comment la mondialisation reconstruit les politiques publiques et les comportements sociaux nous étudions les échanges et interactions entre les acteurs politiques, économiques et sociaux -publics et privés, individuels et collectifs- et la façon dont ils redessinent les relations internationales. Ce cours prend sa source dans les approches sociologique et historique françaises des relations internationales. This course is also available in english version: www.coursera.org/learn/global-studies

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4.6 (98 ratings)

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YL

Nov 27, 2015

The prof is very approachable and the course is very interesting

OO

Apr 04, 2019

Je recommande fortement cet enseignement de grande qualité.

From the lesson

Le système international

La polarisation et le multilatéralisme sont les nouvelles caractéristiques du système international après 1945. La première est probablement dépassée et la seconde contestée.

Sa diversité historique12:38

L’enjeu du multilatéralisme16:52

De la polarité à l’apolarité14:27

Taught By

Bertrand Badie
Professor
Marie-Françoise Durand
Professor

Transcript

It’s a kind of paradox:

the concept of international system

which seems to be so obvious and so important

has not been used in international relations theory.

That’s particularly strange as the realist theory

gives us a macro vision of international politics,

but realism was a little bit reluctant

to the concept of system

which implies an idea of order.

For the realists, there is no order

in the international arena

as it is a permanent fight among gladiators,

it’s a kind of anarchy.

And so, we had to wait for the great moment

of the system theory

for observing the first uses

of the concept of the international system,

that’s to say around the 60s, the 70s, so, very late.

My purpose is to define

what is an international system,

which is not so obvious too.

How to define it? And after,

I will offer a lecture

on what is multilateralism,

that’s to say how multilateralism

is shaping the international system.

And then we have to take into account

the famous problem of polarity.

Are we facing a unipolar or a multipolar

or a post-bipolar system? What does it mean?

What is an international system?

I would say that an international system

is a state of international life, a moment,

a sequence of the international life.

It is made for helping to describe

and to understand constraints

on actors and relations.

It is I would say a set of international practices

that can be identified

at a given sequence of the time.

Now the problem is to define the criteria

of the international system.

If the international system is a moment

of the international life,

how to seize this moment?

How to describe this moment?

Which kind of variables

has to be used and mobilized

for describing the international order?

I would select four criteria, four variables,

which are explaining the transformation

of the international system.

First one is degree of inclusiveness.

Is the international system including

all the potential actors?

All the potential actors, it means first

all the states, all the sovereign states.

And we have to take into account something

very important and even crucial

for understanding the international system

that generally all the state actors

don’t participate in the international system.

If we observe the European 19th century

international system, it was limited to Europe.

It pretends to cover all the world

and to take into account what for instance

took place in Latin America, but however

only European states were participating in it.

The China or the Ottoman Empire were not admitted

as members of the international system,

and with the Monroe doctrine,

US didn’t accept to participate

in this kind of international system.

And now the problem

is what about developing countries?

Formally of course they are members

of the international system,

but sometimes, late members.

If you take into account for instance

the decolonization process,

this decolonization process took place

during the 60s, mainly during the 60s,

and so, before 1960 the major part of the world

was not actively participating

in the international system.

Now, another question is:

what about the non-state actors?

That’s to say: is the inclusiveness

of the international system also covering

non-state actors, which are more and more active,

more and more relevant

inside the international arena,

but which don’t really participate in.

The second variable

would be what about the deliberation?

An international system can be identified

through its way of deliberating,

that’s to say how deliberation is going on?

What are the institutions, the procedures?

And what are the members

of the international system,

which are really participating,

actively participating in the decisions?

And so we have to observe that

for the major part of the international system,

those one were oligarchic or even diarchic,

that’s to say we have to take into account

the difference between active states,

which are really participated

in the decision-making process and passive states.

For instance, now, with the P5, that’s to say

the five permanent members

of the security council of the UN,

only five sovereign states are really active states

in the international arena,

and the others have to follow.

If now we take into account the G groups,

that’s to say G7, G8 or G20,

all the other members are not participating

in the decision-making process, and so we can say

that this deliberation is really oligarchic,

and so we can classify

the international systems according

to the real participation

of the actors to the decision.

Third criterion, it would be the alliances

which are composing the international system.

Are these alliances structured or not?

Are they covering all the states of the world

or not, or only a small part?

Are they lasting like NATO for instance

created in 1949 up to now, or are they precarious?

This is another variable.

And the last one will be of course

the type of power and domination,

which is exercised inside the international system.

Is there a hegemonic power?

Is there a condominium?

Or is there a decentralized power

inside the international system?

If now we try to classify the international systems,

we have to take into account

not to fall into three traps.

The first one would be the obsession with polarization

considering that all the international systems

are polarized, that is not true.

Polarization, as we will see, is an exception.

What about the non-polarized international systems?

The second trap will be

the absence of a social dimension,

that’s to say international system

is not only made of state actors,

is not only made of sovereign states,

but more and more as we saw previously,

more and more by non-state actors.

What are these non-state actors?

How to classify them? And how to consider

their participation in the international life?

And the third trap would be disregarding

the temporal factor, that’s to say

international system is not a stable one,

an international system is moving, is transforming,

and this transformation

is probably at the core of the international analysis.

If, for putting an end to this lecture,

I consider different kinds of international systems,

I would say that for instance

beginning with the Vienna congress in 1815,

from 1815 up to 1818,

we had a kind of oligarchic joined management,

that’s to say the fourth winners

of the wars against Napoleon

were co-managing the international system.

From 1818 up to 1871, that’s to say

the creation of Germany, I would say that

we had an unstable and a conniving coalition,

fragile coalition among the major European powers,

but without a real command management,

a kind of limited competition.

From 1871 up to 1914, that’s to say

the beginning of the First World War,

we had a conniving antagonism,

that’s to say structuring alliances,

which will result in the confrontation

of the First World War.

From 1918 up to 1939, that’s to say

the Second World War,

we had a very fluid international system,

without any structuration

and without a very fast transformation

of the coalitions and alliances.

Now from 1945 up to 47,

very brief period just after the war,

we had a kind of fragile joined management,

a kind of condominium between USSR and US

who were the two winners of the Second World War,

I mean the main two winners

of the Second World War.

From 1947 up to 67,

we had a rigid bipolarity.

From 67 up to 89, that’s to say

the destruction of the Berlin wall,

we had a diarchic polarization

From 89 up to 94

we had a limited unipolarity around US

which was the real winner of the cold war.

And from 94 up to now,

we have a kind of fragmented apolarity,

without a clear hegemony,

without a clear structuration,

and because the system is not very clear,

it’s coined post-bipolar system,

without deciding exactly on the content

of this international system.

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