INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
At the most macro-global level of analysis,
economic, political, and cultural activities may
now be more structurally integrated than in any
earlier historical periods. Far-flung networks
of public, private, and nonprofit organizations
weave together local communities, nation-states,
IGOs, and transnational entities.
Major theoretical and empirical tasks are to
explain these emerging organizational and network
forms, their global diffusion, and the impacts of
diverse trends on persons, nations, and civil
societies.

• Globalization among nation-states proceeding by
  fits-and-jerks along economic, political, and
  cultural dimensions
• World city networks and transnational advocacy
  networks add several layers of complexity to the
  international system

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The Globalization Trifecta
Globalization refers to processes that increase
connectivity among societies their people,
institutions, organizations. Globalization
intertwines cultural, political, and economic
interdependencies that challenge traditional
arrangements.
The growing extensity, intensity, and velocity
of global interactions can be associated with
their deepening impact such that the effects of
distant events can be highly significant
else-where and specific local developments can
come to have considerable global consequences.
(Held et al. 1999)

• Communication transportation technologies
  compress and decouple time, geographic spaces,
  social distances (global village)
• National regional boundaries grow increasingly
  permeable
• Cultural / identity groups become detached from
  their traditional territorial bases (the
  diffusion of supraterritoriality)

How can SNA concepts methods capture these
changes?
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World-System Analysis
World-system analysis, formulated by Immanuel
Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank, draws from
neo-Marxist development theory Fernand
Braudels Annales School. A system is defined as
a unit with single division of labor and multiple
cultural systems (Wallerstein 1974).

• The modern world-system is the only fully
  capitalist world-economy to emerge, around
  1450-1550, and it had expanded across the entire
  planet by about 1900.
• This world-economy consists of a tripartite
  division of labor into core, semiperipheral, and
  peripheral countries.

• Core businesses, with support of the states where
  they operate, monopolize the most profitable
  activities (80 of world wealth).
• Semiperiphery countries are dominated (usually by
  the core countries) but they also dominate some
  other nations
• Periphery countries are dominated by both other
  positions

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Structural Position in the W-S
Multiple-network analyses test world-system/depend
ence theory hypotheses that nations positions in
the tripartite W-S affect trade and investment
imbalances (foreign penetration control).
For 1960s, Snyder Kick (1979) block-modeled
four relationships trade flows, military
intervention, diplomatic relations, and joint
treaty memberships. The result was a four
10-block images.
They regressed the 118 nations economic growth
(change in GNP per capita from 1955 to 1970) onto
dummy variables for the set of 10 W-S block
positions, while controlling for 1955 GNP/capita.
Core block C nations had highest net GNP growth
rates, about 500 per capita more than others.
Although, semi- and peripheral blocks did not
have distinctly different growth rates, they
concluded the effects were entirely consistent
with world-system/dependency theories.
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periphery
core
semiperiph
periphery
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Role Equivalence in the W-S
Rossem (1993) argued that Snyder Kicks
application of structural equivalence methods
misspecified the world systems role relations,
due to substantial geographic clustering of
international relations.
His SNA analyses used five international
networks imports exports of economic goods
major conventional weapons trade foreign troop
presence diplomatic ties. A role equivalence
partition uncovered four W-S structural positions
(see next slide).
W-S role only weakly explained dependency
economic performance ? A nations role was
determined more by its absolute economic and
population size than by its development level
(tiny nations occupy the peripheral roles) ?
National GDP growth from 1980 to 1989 was
explained slightly better by dependency than by
positions in the W-S role structure ? Have W-S
positions stagnated or evolved over past 20-40
years?
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Role Equivalence Model of World System
Core USA, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Soviet
Union, Canada, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia
Semiperiphery Sweden, India, Egypt, Austria,
Czech, Iran, Pakistan, Mexico, Iraq, Poland,
Turkey, Greece, Indonesia
Periphery 1 Venezuela, Denmark, Kenya, Morocco,
Korea, Peru, Cuba, Hungary, Sudan, Jordan,
Israel, Ghana, Zambia, Panama, Somalia, Haiti,
Congo
Imports Exports
Diplomatic ties Arms trade
Troops
Periphery 2 Singapore, Jamaica, Yemen, Laos,
Uganda, Cyprus, Nepal, Mali, Iceland, Rwanda,
Benin, Guyana, Fiji, Belize, Taiwan, Chad,
Grenada, Brunei
SOURCE Van Rossem (1996 Fig 2 Table 2)
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World Cities Network
The World-System can also be examined as an urban
network comprised of intercity movements of
people, goods, information.
Global processes are geographically grounded
Globalization can be deconstructed in terms of
the strategic sites where global processes
materialize and the linkages that bind them.
(Saskia Sassen 1998392)
Air passenger traffic for pairs of cities is
widely available for measuring social distances
in WCN. Geographic proximity also constrains the
volumes flowing between the urban dyads.
WCN forms a hierarchy of core primary (NYC, LA,
London), semi- and peripheral cities how
closely resembling the W-S tripartition?
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SOURCE Derudder Witlox (2005)
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Transnational Advocacy Networks
In Activists Beyond Borders (1998), Margaret Keck
Kathryn Sikkink argued that transnational
advocacy networks (TANs) reshape international
relations by generating information, using
symbolic elements, pressuring states and
international orgs, and seeking to hold them
accountable to international norms.
A transnational advocacy network is nonstate
actors working together on an international
issue that are bound together by shared values,
common discourse, and dense exchanges of
information and services.
Boomerang effect occurs when human rights
groups inside a country can channel information
about human rights violations to transnational
actors, who in turn, generate international
pressures. Activists in Argentina Mexico
mobilized pressures from INGOs foreign
governments to stop those nations human rights
abuses.
Can TAN be analyzed as a transnational policy
domain network?
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References
Bergesen, Albert and John Sonnett. 2001. The
Global 500 Mapping the World Economy at
Centurys End. American Behavioral Scientist
441602-1615. Derudder, B. and F. Witlox. 2005.
An Appraisal of the Use of Airline Data in
Assessing the World City Network A Research Note
on Data. Urban Studies 422371-88. Held, David,
Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Johnathan
Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations Politics,
Economic and Culture. Stanford, CA Stanford
University Press. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn
Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca,
NY Cornell University Press. Keck, Margaret E.
and Kathryn Sikkink. 1999. Transnational
Advocacy Networks in International and Regional
Politics. International Social Science Journal
15989-101. Sassen, Saskia. 1998. The Impact of
New Technologies and Globalization on Cities.
Pp. 391-409 in Globalization of the World of
Large Cities, edited by F.-C. Lo Y.-M. Yeung.
Tokyo United Nations University Press. Snyder,
David and Edward L. Kick. 1979. Structural
Position in the World System and Economic Growth,
1955-1970 A Multiple-Network Analysis of
Transnational Interactions. American Journal of
Sociology 841096-1126. Van Rossem, Ronan. 1996.
The World System Paradigm as General Theory of
Development A Cross-National Test. American
Sociological Review 61508-527. Wallerstein,
Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System. Orlando,
FL Academic Press.