Teaching › Academic Departments › Political Science › Courses › Courses 2008-2009 › Autumn Semester › Multilateral Governance

The Study of International Politics IV: Multilateral Governance and International Organisations

Course Organization

Thursdays, 10:15 - 12:00
S1 (Villa Barton)

Course code: E562

ECTS credits: 6

 

Professor

Thomas Biersteker
thomas.biersteker@graduateinstitute.ch
+41 22 908 58 07 

Office hours:
Wednesdays 14:00 -16:00
(CV 315)

 

Assistant

Georg von Kalckreuth
georg.von.kalckreuth@graduateinstitute.ch
+41 22 908 59 41

Office hours:
Tuesdays 14:15-16:00 or by appointment
(Rigot 26)

 

 

Course Description

This course will explore the history and evolution of global security and economic institutions of multilateral governance over the course of the past century, continuing up to current debates about the governance of the contemporary international system. Different institutional forms, innovations, and ad hoc arrangements for governing the global system will be surveyed, including both formal and informal institutional arrangements. The course will provide students with a historicization of debates about multilateral governance and the changing role of international organizations over the course of the past century, illustrating both contradictory and transcendental elements of different governance arrangements.

 

Syllabus

This course will explore the history and evolution of global security and economic institutions of multilateral governance over the course of the twentieth century, continuing up to the present day. Different institutional forms, innovations, and ad hoc arrangements for governing the global system will be surveyed.

The course will begin with an analysis of the nineteenth century balance of power system that prevailed during the period of competitive imperialisms prior to WWI. Different global collective security experiments will then be examined, beginning with the League of Nations that provided the basis for multilateral governance after the end of "the war to end all wars."

The breakdown in Europe during the interwar years will be considered, with special emphasis on how the collapse of the League of Nations contributed to the construction of the post WWII world order, with the United Nations emerging as the lead international organization. Regional institutions and alliances as alternatives to universal membership organizations will be examined, along with other less institutionalized arrangements, such as the English school's conception of the anarchical society of states. The 1970s debate about hegemonic stability and the consequences of American decline from hegemony will be considered, as a way to understand the emergence of international regimes as a basis of governance and the discussion of the challenges of cooperation under anarchy in the 1980s.

Finally, the course will explore more recent debates about the role of institutions after the end of the Cold War, the revival of the UN as an operational collective security organization, the emergence of private authority in global governance, the significance of transnational issue networks, and the idea of "coalitions of the willing" as a basis for contemporary multilateral governance.

This course will provide students with an historicization of debates about multilateral governance and the changing role of international organizations over the course of the past century, illustrating both contradictory and transcendental elements of different governance arrangements.

There will be few secondary texts and no textbooks assigned. Rather, students will read original texts, typically (but not always) dating from the periods under study. To a certain extent, the course will be engaged in a recovery of "lost" texts, that is, works that are cited, but rarely read in their original editions. Some of the texts are out of print, hence we will make extensive use of a specially prepared course packet.

The pedagogical objectives of the course include:

  • (1) sensitizing seminar participants to the contextual setting of theoretical and empirical work on multilateral governance and international organizations,
  • (2) providing a basis for a sophisticated understanding of contemporary theoretical work on multilateral governance and international organizations (and a heightened ability to differentiate what is genuinely new from what is not), and
  • (3) illustrating how different conceptions of governance have emerged over the past century.

 

Course requirements

Course requirements will consist of active participation in the seminar discussions, taking the lead (along with at least one other student) of a portion of the discussion of one week’s readings (posing one or two questions for class discussion), and the completion of two short (8-10 page) papers analyzing some aspects, or recurring themes, in the readings in different sections of the course. The short papers will be due on October 23 and November 20, and a take-home final exam will be due on December 18. Further details about the papers and the exam will be provided in class.

Course packets are available at Imprimerie Minute.

Seminar sessions:

18 September: Introduction to the course

25 September: The 19th Century Inheritance – Balance of Power as Governance during the Age of Imperialism

 
 

2 October: Critiques of Balance of Power and the Idea of the League of Nations as a Basis for Governance

 
 

9 October: The Breakdown in Europe and the Construction of the Post-WWII Order

IMPORTANT: this class is rescheduled for Thursday October 16, 08:15AM, Room S4.

  • Arnold J. Toynbee, "Things Not Foreseen at Paris," Foreign Affairs, V. 12, N. 3, pp. 472-482, April 1934. Posted here; available at HEID via AtoZ through Chadwyck PAO.
  • E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939, Chapters Four and Five, “The Harmony of Interests” and “The Realist Critique” 1939. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/carr.htm
  • Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, Chapters 28 and 29, pp. 459-499, 1966 edition.
  • John Ikenberry, After Victory, Chapters 1 and 6. Chapter 1 only available at  http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6981.pdf
  • John G. Ruggie, International Regimes, 1982. “Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic System,” International Organization 36(2), pp. 379-415. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706527
  • Eric Helleiner, States and the Re-emergence of Global Finance, Chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-50, 1994.
 
 

16 October: Regional Institutions as a Basis for Governance

  • David Mitrany, "The Functional Approach to World Organization," International Affairs, July 1948. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3018652
  • Karl Deutsch et. al., "Political Community and the North Atlantic Area," in International Political Communities, pp. 1-24, 1957.
  • Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe, Chapter 1, pp. 3-31, 1958.
  • Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell, Regionalism and World Politics: Regional Organizations and International Order, Chapter 11, pp. 309-329.
  • Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, Chapter 2, pp. 27-39.
 
 

23 October: The Anarchical Society

IMPORTANT: the class of the following week (October 30) is rescheduled for October 23, 08:15 AM, Room S1.

  • Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society, Chapters 1-4, pp. 3-98, 1977.
  • Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society, Chapters 1 and 25.
  • Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History, Chapter 6, “The Revolt against the West” pp. 153-198, 1966.
  • Christian Reus-Smit, "The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions" International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997), pp. 555-89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2703499
  • Andrew Hurrell, On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society, Chapter 1.
 
 

30 October: Hegemonic Stability

IMPORTANT: this class is rescheduled for Thursday October 23, 08:15 AM, Room S1.

  • Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, Chapter 14, pp. 291-308, 1973.
  • Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, Chapters 1 and 6, pp. 9-49 and 211-244, 1981.
  • Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Chapter 8, (pp. 514-540), 1987.
  • Susan Strange, States and Markets, Chapter 2, 1988.
  • Henry Nau, The Myth of Americas’s Decline, Chapter 1, pp. 3-14.
 
 

6 November: The ‘New’ Institutionalism and Cooperation under Anarchy

IMPORTANT: this class is rescheduled for Thursday November 13, 08:15 AM, Room S1.

  • Stephen Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 1-21, 1981.
  • Robert Keohane, After Hegemony, Chapters 4-6, pp. 49-109, 1984.
  • Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Chapter 4, pp. 73-87, 1984.
  • Kenneth Oye, Cooperation Under Anarchy, Chapter 1, pp. 1-24, 1986. (Reprinted from article in World Politics, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2010349 )
 
 

13 November: Institutions after the End of the Cold War

IMPORTANT: the class of the previous week (November 6) is rescheduled for November 13, 08:15 AM, Room S1.

 
 

20 November: The revival of the UN as a Collective Security Organization

  • Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “The Politics, Power and Pathologies of International Organizations,” International Organization, 1999, 53:4. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601307
  • Ian Hurd, After Anarchy, Chapters 1 and 5, pp. 1-25 and 111-136, 2007
  • David Cortright and George Lopez, Sanctions and the Search for Security: Challenges to UN Action, Chapter 1, pp. 1-19, 2002.
  • Roland Paris, “Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism” International Security, 22(2), 1997. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539367
  • Paul Kennedy, The Parliament of Man, Chapter 8, pp. 243-279.
 
 

27 November: The Role of Transnational Networks in Global Governance

  • Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell, 1998) Chapter 1.
  • Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink,International Norm Dynamics and Political Change, International Organization, 1998, 52:4. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601361
  • Neta Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics, Chapter 1, pp. 11-81.
  • Anne Marie Slaughter, A New World Order, Introduction and Chapter 1, pp. 1-64, 2006.
 
 

4 December: The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance

  • Claire Cutler, Virginia Hauffler, and Tony Porter, Private Authority and International Affairs, Chapter 1.
  • Rodney Hall and Thomas Biersteker, The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance, Chapters 1 and 10.
  • John Gerard Ruggie, “Reconstituting the Global Public Domain: Issues, Actors, and Practices”. A Working Paper of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard University. Available at www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/CSRI/publications/workingpaper_6_ruggie.pdf
  • Deborah Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security Cambridge University Press, 2005, Chapters 1 and 7.
 
 

11 December: Coalitions of the Willing

  • James Lindsay and Ivo Daalder, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Chapters 1 and 12.
  • G. John Ikenberry and Anne Marie Slaughter (eds.), Forging a World of Liberty under Law: US National Security in the 21st Century, Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security. Available at http://www.princeton.edu/~ppns/report/FinalReport.pdf, pages 6-32 and 58-61.
  • Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye, Jr, CSIS Commission on Smart Power: a smarter, more secure America, pp. 1, 5-14, and 27-36, 2007. Available at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf.
  • United Nations General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome, Resolution 60/1 adopted by the General Assembly (New York, United Nations: September 2005). Available at http://www.un.org/summit2005/documents.html 
 

18 December: Final Exam