Teaching › Academic Organisation › Political Science › Courses › Courses 2007-2008 › Autumn Semester › Multilateral Governance

The Study of International Politics IV: Multilateral Governance and International Organisations (E562)

Course Organization

Time & Location:
Thursdays, 10.15 - 12.00, CV201

Professor:
Thomas J. Biersteker
Office: Room 315, Voie Creuse 16
Office hours: Wednesday 14:00-16:00
Telephone: 022 908 58 07
Email: bierstek@hei.unige.ch

Teaching Assistant:
Andrew Prosser
Office: Rigot 35
Office hours: Thursdays 16:00-17:30
Telephone: 022 908 59 48
Email: prosser0@hei.unige.ch

 

Course Description

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 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), (3) and illustrating how different conceptions of governance have emerged over the past century.

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 three 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 25, November 22, and December 20. Further details about the papers will be provided in class.

Course Packets: Available at Imprimerie Minute.

 

Seminar Sessions


27 September: Introduction to the course

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

  • Jules Ferry, Speech to the French Chamber of Deputies, 1885. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/ modsbook34.html
  • Cecil Rhodes, Cecil Rhodes: His Political Life and Speeches: 1881-1900, pp. 298-320, 1900. Available online (with login password).
  • John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, Introductory and Chapter VI, pp. 1-13 and 76-99, 1902. Available online
  • Captain A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Chapter VII, pp. 254-280, 1895. Available online
  • Sir Halford Mackinder, "The Geographical Pivot of History," The Geographical Journal, pp. 421-444, 1904. Available online
  • Norman Angell, The Great Illusion, Chapters II and III, pp. 15-48, 1910. Available online
  • Henry Noel Brailsford, The War of Steel and Gold, Chapter 1, pp. 9-46, 1916. http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/ Brailsford/AP01.htm
  • G. Lowes Dickenson, The International Anarchy, 1904-1914, Chapter 1, pp. 3-12. Available online


11 October: Critiques of Balance of Power and the Creation of the League of Nations as a Basis for Governance

  • John A. Hobson, Towards International Government, Chapter 1, pp. 11-27, 1915.
  • Woodrow Wilson, "The Fourteen Points Speech," 1918. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918wilson.html
  • Sir Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, Chapter 6, pp. 148-181, 1919.
  • H.G. Wells, “The Idea of a League of Nations,” Parts I and II, Atlantic Monthly, January/February 1919. Available online
  • John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Chapters I, III, and IV, 1920. http://historicaltextarchive.com/keynes/
  • Georges Clemenceau, Grandeur and Misery of Victory, Chapters XI and XVI, pp. 170-192 and 277-285, 1930.
  • Arnold J. Toynbee, "Things Not Foreseen at Paris," Foreign Affairs, V. 12, N. 3, pp. 472-482, April 1934.
  • Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, Part III, Chapter IV, pp. 480-496, 1936.
  • Arnold Wolfers, Britain and France between the Two Wars, Introduction and Conclusion, pp. 3-8 and 380-390.


18 October: The Breakdown in Europe and the Construction of the post WWII Order

  • E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939, Chapters Four and Five, “The Harmony of Interests” and “The Realist Critique” 1939. Available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/carr.htm
  • Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, Chapters 28 and 29, pp. 459-499, 1966 edition.
  • Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, Chapter 76, “Summing Up,” pp. 725-737.
  • John Ikenberry, After Victory, Chapters 1 and 6.
  • John G. Ruggie, International Regimes, 1982. “Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic System,” International Organization 36(2), pp. 379-415. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-8183 %28198221%2936%3A2%3C379%3AIRTACE%3E2.0. CO%3B2-%23
  • Eric Helleiner, States and the Re-emergence of Global Finance, Chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-50, 1994.


25 October: Regional Institutions and Alliances as a Basis for Governance


1 November: The Anarchical Society

  • 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. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici= 0020-8183%28199723%2951%3A4%3C555%3ATCSOIS% 3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
  • Andrew Hurrell, On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society, Chapter 1 (forthcoming 2008).


8 November: Hegemonic Stability and Hegemonic Decline

  • 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.


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

  • 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)


22 November: Institutions after the End of the Cold War


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


6 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.
  • Deborah Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security, Cambridge University Press, 2005, Chapters 1 and 7.
  • Peter W. Singer, “Outsourcing War,” Foreign Affairs, March 1, 2005. URL http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/ fellows/singer20050301.htm


13 December: 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. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-8183%28199823 %2952%3A4%3C887%3AINDAPC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M
  • Neta Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics, Chapter 1, pp. 11-81.
  • Anne Marie Slaughter, A New World Order, Chapter 1, pp. 1-64, 2006.


20 December: Coalitions of the Willing

  • James Lindsay and Ivo Daalder, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Chapters 1 and 12.
  • Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy, Chapter 1.
  • John Ikenberry, “America’s Imperial Ambition,” Foreign Affairs, September-October 2002. URL: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/Ikenberry.pdf
  • G. John Ikenberry and Anne Marie Slaughter (eds.), Forging a World of Liberty under Law: US National Security in the 21st Century, Princeton Project report, available as a PDF file at http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/report/ FinalReport.pdf, pages 6-32 and 58-61.

 

Syllabus-Multilateral-Governance.pdf (60 Kb) Jan 27, 2008