Unit -2

International System and States

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 1

 Meaning of International System
A system is an assembly of units, objects, or parts
united by some form of regular interaction.
“International System” is a widely used term among
students of International Relations.
Scholars tried defining this term in various ways
throughout the history.
Scholors such as Morton Kaaplan Hugo Grotius, Karl
Deutsch, Charles Mc Cleland, J. David Singer,
Kenneth Boulding, David Easton and Anatole
Rapport, have contributed to theorize the concept of
international system.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 2

 Starting with Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the eminent
legal philosopher, described ‘great society of states’
as the foundation of international order.
Joseph Frankel described International System is “a
collection of independent political unites, which
interact with some regularity.”

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 3

Kaplan is considered as one of the most well-known
believers of the International System. While insisting
on the balance of power which maintains the order
within the system,
Kaplan defines a System as a “set points related in
some way so that changing or removing any one thing
in the set will make a difference to other things in the
system”.
Accordingly the states do not allow one state to
become ‘over-dominant’ or a state to be totally
rejected by the others.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 4

 For structural realists such as John Mearsheimer
the International System is taken with key
assumptions as below;
•International System is anarchic with no higher
authority
•all states possess some offensive military
capability; state has the power to inflict some harm
on its neighbor
•States can never be certain about the intentions of
other states
•Main goal of states is survival
•States are rational actors

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 5

However, It is not easy to give a precise definition of
International System. However, such a system is believed to be
existing since 1648.
Evolution of International Political System
When analyzing the evolution of International political system,
some scholars believe that it began in the seventeenth century
with the signing of the Peace accord of Westphalia in 1648.
Since this period to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the
International System has undergone five evolutionary periods.
All of these phases have different characteristic features . Each
period based on the Balance of power and the major events
occurred during these periods.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 6

Accordingly it was a particular fact that the first three
phases in the evolution of the international system; that
is from the peace of Westphalia era in 1648 to the end of
World War II in 1945 were based on Multi-polar system.
However, the main features such as Euro-centralism,
Imperialism, rise nationalism and new powers as well as
the ideological division affected mostly throughout the
evolution of the system within these three phases. These
features will be discussed separately in below sections.  

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 7

1.Classical Period (1648-1815)
The first phase of the international system begins with the Peace
of Westphalia (1648) to the congress of Vienna (1815). The
Westphalia Treaty was signed after religious wars in Europe known
as the ‘Thirty Years’ war, between Catholics and Protestant states
and the modern state system was developed.
This concluded a long war among European states for religious
reasons, and ended Pope’s authority as the religious leader in
Europe. Subsequently, the concept of sovereign state and modern
states emerged. Consequently, nation-states learned the need of
their active relationship between other states of the international
system, most importantly the Balance of Power, which is being
maintained by such sovereign entities in the system.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 8

This can be fairly considered as the commencement of the
international system. From this stage, the international
system is created with relations among the nation-states
and created the political foundation for state relations.
This period is also remarkable for socio- political
revolution such as industrial revolution and French
revolution. Socio- political impact of these revolutions on
state relations was significant. Industrial revolution
changed the international system with new technologies
for fast transportation and trade.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 9

The industrial revolution which changed the economic
structure and created the rise of capitalism in the world,
then led to imperialism. The Imperialist expansion
changed all aspects of the entire international system, by
creating the world wars. During the classical period,
France, Russia, Britain, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Turkey,
the Netherlands and Prussia were the most powerful
states on multi-polar power system where the
international system was mainly Euro-centric.
Multi-polarization was defined as “the balance of power
or the equilibrium within the system was dependent
upon a number of powers”

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 10

2.The Post-classical Period (1815-1914)
The Post-classical period remained a century from the Congress of
Vienna (1815) to the beginning of World War I in 1914. Even during
this period the major features of Classical period remained
unchanged; Europe was considered as the powerful centre of the
world, balance of the power system was Multi-polar, and major
units of the International System were European States although
the United States of America (USA) was emerging as a world power.
However the significant and new features, which we can highlight
during this period was the rise of Nationalism in Europe, which
emerged as a strong force to allow states to grow more and more
powerful.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 11

And also the Imperialism heightened the conflict of
interest among European powers. European powers
behaved in a manner towards their interest in overseas
expansion. During the period from 1870 to 1914,
European nations and the U.S. and Japan went on a
colonization drive. This nationalisms and the
imperialism among the stated increased the hunger for
additional territory and pushed the “strongest to
survive” and to dominate the weak. This imperialism
drove the European states to get divided and then the
outbreak of World War I.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 12

1.Transitional Period (1914-1945)
Transnational period is a complex one with many events with the
beginning of the First World War to the end of Second World War.
The massive destruction experienced from the first world war
encouraged scholars and statesmen to focus on the international
system with seeking for solutions for such conflicts. Many of them
were influenced by the idealists such as Kant, Rousseau and Hugo
Grotius and influenced by them, the then US president Woodrow
Wilson pioneered to established the League of Nations. However,
this later failed to fulfill the objectives and the collapse.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 13

This crisis period also created the arms competition among great
powers, formation of power blocs, secret treaties and various
aggressive campaigns, which ultimately led to the Second World
War with the use of nuclear weapons.
During this transnational period, the structure of the International
System was likely changing. Although the balance of power still
remained Multi-polar, the United State of America and Soviet
Union were emerging as the main two Super Powers, which was
likely to changing the existing balance of power. This changing of
power structure added new states to the international system.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 14

Some significances of this period can be listed as the
transformation of old Russia to new Soviet union, creation of
modern Japan, the rise of militarism most notably the developing
of nuclear weapons and bombs. Ideological division between
democracy, fascism and communism was another change.
 
However, when analyzing the evolution of international system
upto world war II, it was clearly seen that the balance of power
remained as multipolar order. This was then transferred to bipolar
with the two blocs led by United States and the Russia.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 15

All the historic changes occurred during these periods under
multipolar world and as Kenneth Waltz described such
international system is decentralized and anarchic. He stressed
that the competition in multipolar system is more complicated.
Waltz emphasized “In the old multipolar world, the core of an
alliance consisted of a small number of states of comparable
capability. Their contributions to one another's security were of
crucial importance because they were of similar size”.  Waltz
argued that a bipolar structure dominated by two great powers is
more stable than a multipolar structure dominated by three or
more great powers. Under multipolarity, states rely on alliances to
maintain their security. This is inherently unstable, since ‘there are
too many powers to permit any of them to draw clear and fixed
lines between allies and adversaries’

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 16

According to the Thomas Hobbes Realism, there are two
ordering principles namely, anarchy and hierarchy. He
considered that the unipolar world as a hierarchy, while
also characterizing multipolar and bipolar systems as
anarchical. Scholars debated on the balance of power
several assumptions.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 17

George Kennan was deeply regretting about the evolution of
international system from a European-centred multipolar system to
a bipolar system based on the dominance of two nuclear
superpowers. In late 1940s Kennan agreed that the stability of the
international system depends on the multipolar world order, which
was dismissed after the world wars. He believed that the United
States should use its economic power to restore Europe and Japan
as great powers, so that the Soviet threat could be shared.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 18

When supporting the multipolar world order, Karl Deutch said that
the international system consisted with at least five great powers
such as during above mentioned phases, is historically more stable
 
After the destructive world wars till today, the international system
again went through two other significant periods;

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 19

•The Cold War Period (1945-1989)
 Cold war period right after the Second World War was a real
transformation in the international system. This period lasted till
the collapse of the former Soviet Union, when the alliance with
the west was ended. Following the defeat of Germany, Italy and
Japan after the World War II, the war partners into two blocs:
Western camp led by the United States and the Socialist camp led
by the Soviet Union. The strange relationship between two camps
was called the Cold War. This relationship was named by Joseph
Frankel as “a war fought without firing a single shot”. During this
period two blocs had Ideological conflicts with Intense arms race,
both conventional and nuclear, Even proxy wars like the Vietnam
War and the Korean War were also remained. Since there were
two blocs, the balance of power was a Bi-polar one with two
Super-Powers. Began with a tight balance, but later it became
loose.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 20
 •The Contemporary Period (1989 onwards)
 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Super Power
that balanced power in the contemporary international
system was the United States. This transformation was
caused by the economically weak Soviet Union and with
the Globalization. The global economic and cultural forces
have made the ‘relations’ or affairs more global than
international. While many scholars call this is a uni-polar
world, some remained doubtful to call so. since early
1990s, US had initiated to spread their primary ambition
as to expand their supremacy, power and hegemony. This
US hegemony had two advantages at the early era in
both military and economic dominance as well as there
was no other great power emerged to challenge the
U.S.after Soviet Union’s collapse.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 21

 However, the developments occurred in the international
agenda during the past few years, we can see a certain
changes in the international system from the uni-polar
system.
The next answer is to support this transformation of the
international system to a multi-polar one.
Do you agree?

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 22

 3.1. Power defined
 In the field of social and political sciences,
the concept of power is defined as:-
- the ability to influence others to do what
one wants to do.
- an integral and essential part of international
relations and politics.
- a pre-request for political give and take in
the world today
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 23
 Power defined….
International politics like domestic politics
is a struggle for power.
In this regard, power is a vital and
inseparable feature of the State system.
Power as a concept has been approached
and defined by various scholars,
international political scientist and authors
differently.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 24
 Power defined….
 According to J.W Burton(1967), Power
emanates from the ability of state to
make its will prevail upon other states
 Morgenthau (1973) contemplates
power to mean man’s control over
the minds and actions of other men.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 25

 Power defined….
 Schwarzenberge (1954) defines power as the
capacity to impose one’s will on others using
effective sanctions in case of non- compliance.
 Political power is interaction and relation between
those who exercise power and those over whom
power is exercised.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 26

 Defining Power …….
Dahl (1957) defines power as “A” has a
power over “ B ” to the extent that
“ A” can get “ B ” to do something.
Power is dynamic, not static because it is
constantly changing.
 Power is Relative and Situational: if China
is considered powerful, it can be powerful
only if we specify the comparison.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 27
 3.3. Elements of National Power
• National power is an important factor in
shaping international relations.
• A state makes use of its power to promote
its national interest.
• Nation states seem keen and inclined to
possess power as it is the instrument to
pursue and implement domestic as well as
foreign policies.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 28
 Elements of National Power…..
• Morgenthau (1973) distinguishes two elements as
determinants of national power: relativity stable and those
subjects to constant change.
• Palmer and Perkins(1976) divided power into seven
components and elements of tangible and intangible
nature.
• Tangible elements -geography, natural resource,
infrastructure, population constitute and can be assessed
to a certain extent in quantitative terms,
• Intangible elements - ideology, reputation, moral,
leadership, political culture……..etc
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 29
 Elements of National Power…..

1. Geographic /physical Features

• Geographic factors played a decisive role in the
making and unmaking of civilizations.
• The geographical element includes the size of land,
shape, climate, location, nature of terrain and
topography.
1.1. Size of land
• The land area or size of a country is an important
factor and a measure of the power of a nation
although land does not directly exude/emanet power.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 30

 Elements of National Power…..

1.2 Climate
• Extreme heat or cold weather is totally unsuitable for the
health and energy of people.
• Proper climate also contributes to a nation’s productivity and
strength.
1.3. Topography
• The terrain/landscape of a state can influence the size and
shape of a state as well as its strategic potential for an attack
or defense.
• There is retreat when serious natural obstacle such as oceans
and mountains are encountered.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 31

 Elements of National Power…..

1.4. Location
Location in the sense of spatial relationship
may affect a state’s:-
- both its military and economic powers.
- nature of national interest.
 Since foreign policy is the means of furthering a
nation’s interest, the interconnectedness between
location and foreign policy forms an important part
of diplomacy and policy planning.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 32
 Elements of National Power…..

1.5. Population
• Population is another important element of national
power.
• Manpower is the central element of power that needs
consideration .
1.6. Quality and Character
• Another aspect that needs consideration is the quality and
character of population including religious character of
people, productive capacity and skills , customs and beliefs,
class structure, urban- rural ratio and the degree of social
mobility of the people.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 33
 Elements of National Power…..

2. ECONOMIC ELEMENT
• Raw materials, minerals, flora and fauna, industrial
capacity all form an inter-web of natural resources.
• These constitute an important factor while
determining the relative power of a nation with
relation to other states.
• What a state has and what a state does have with
its resources are two aspects of the economic
element which is relatively stable in a state.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 34
 Elements of National Power…..

2.1 Raw materials

• The emergency of mechanized warfare involves a wealth
of mineral resource as necessary building blocks of
military power.
• The modern arms of states requires quantitatively and
qualitatively abundance of these resources to place them
as great military powers.
• Uranium is required in making bombs and modern military
force.
• Nations possessing Uranium deposit have naturally rise in
importance in the context of power calculation.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 35
 Elements of National Power…..

• Being rich in resource but not possessing the capacity,

technology and ability to put these resource to use,
renders a nation incapable of transforming these raw
material into industrial products, thus undermining its
prospects of being a powerful nation.
2.2. Food sufficiency
• A country which is self sufficient or nearing self-
sufficiency is better placed in the struggle for power
over a nation which is required to import food-stuffs.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 36

 Elements of National Power…..

3. ORGANISATIONAL ELEMENT
3.1. Nature of state
• The essential aspects of organizational element is
nature of state which includes:-
- democratic values and democratization,
- effectiveness and efficiency of governmental organization,
- stability and the attitude of the people towards it.
- coordination amongst departments of government,
- government's capacity to use its natural assets,
- quality of leadership.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 37

 Elements of National Power…..

4. PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS
4.1. National Character
• What people think and what is their attitude
towards various issues are important factors in
national character.

• The national outlook is also conditioned by

history and the cultural influence of the people.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 38

 Elements of National Power…..

4.2. National Morale

• It is the degree of willingness of people to
support all activities of the nation by putting
national welfare above individual welfare.
• People’s support wholeheartedly and their
total commitment to the nation whether in
peace time or in crises enables the
government to pursue its polices effectively.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 39
 Elements of National Power…..

5. Propaganda
• It is a tool that attempts to control the attitude
of other groups by using certain instruments
of communication to enhance their leverage
in a given international situations.
• Thus, national character, moral and
propaganda are important element in the
evaluation of national power.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 40

 Elements of National Power…..

6. Leadership Quality
• All political decisions in areas of domestic and
foreign policies are decided by the political
elite leaders.
• The allocation of resource between defense
and civilian programs, planning of the budget,
nature of relations between nation states
during war and peace, depend on the quality
and wisdom of leadership.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 41

 Elements of National Power…..

7. Ideology
• Ideology can be defined as organized ideas
about the world system and its role,
characteristic of the beliefs, and values of a
particular group, party or political system.
• Nationalism, capitalism, liberalism, socialism,
communism, fascism, Nazism etc help to
create or to break power blocks.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 42

 Elements of National Power…..

8. Military Element
• Military organization and structure helps in
strengthening of a country’s policy objectives.
• Power of a country in the military context is
based on the quality and quantity of armed
forces.
• The quality and nature of leadership also adds
up as military elements of national power.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 43

 3.4. Balance of Power
• Balance of power refers to a situation in which states of
the world have roughly equal power
• Used objectively, the term indicates the relative
distribution of power among states into equal or
unequal shares
• Increasing military power and seeking allies has shifted
over time in a series of redistributions.
• Balance of power has long affected the Global
Structure.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 44
Models of the Balance of Power

Concentration of Power

Uni-polar Bipolar Tri-polar Multi-polar

More Concentrated Less Concentrated

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 45

 THE CONCEPT OF POLARITY

• Polarity in international relations is any of the

various ways in which power is distributed within
the international system.
• Based on the system of polarity, four types of
systems can be distinguished namely:
- uni-polarity,
- bipolarity,
- tri-polarity, and
- multi-polarity .
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 46
 Polarity and Polarization

It’s important not to use the concepts of polarity and

polarization interchangeably
• POLARITY • POLARIZATION

The degree to which the global The degree to which states

system revolves around one or cluster in alliances around the
more extremely powerful most powerful members of
states, or “poles”. the global system.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 47

 Balance of Power……
Uni-polarity
Uni-polar systems possess only one great power and face
no competition in the world.
If a competitor emerges, the international system is no
longer called uni-polar.
Uni-polarity is a situation in which one state or superpower
dominates the international system.
Kenneth Waltz maintains that the United States is the only
“pole” to possess global interests after 1991 up to now. Do
you agree?
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 48
 Balance of Power……
Bi-polarity
Bipolarity is a distribution of power in which two states
have the majority of economic, military, and cultural
influence internationally or regionally.
The term is often applied to the period of the cold war
between the United States and the Soviet Union.
 In the Cold War, most Western and capitalist states fallen
under the influence of the United States(USA) while most
Communist states fallen under the influence of the United
Socialist States of Russia (USSR)
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 49
 Balance of Power……
Multi-polarity
 Multi-polarity is a distribution of power in
which at least three great powers have nearly
equal amounts of military, cultural, and
economic influence.
 The classic example is nineteenth-century
Europe. What about the 21st century? Can we
say there is multi-polar or uni-polar currently?

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 50

 Balance of Power……
 Today, thought it is debatable, there are a
number of regional balances overlaid by a uni-
polar pattern.
 One of the great difficulties of evaluating the
balance of power in the 21st century is that
power resources are unevenly distributed
among the great powers.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 51

 Balance of Power……
 For some scholars , uni-polarity (US hegemony) will give
way to a new configuration of power:-
- Some predict the return of a bipolar pattern
with a new up-coming of Russian to
compete with America
- A stronger hypothesis predicts the emergence of
a multipolar pattern of a balance-of-power
competition where the US – China – Japan –
Russia – the European Union would constitute 5
poles/centers of global power.

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 52

 3.5. Deterrence defined
• Legally defined, deterrence refers to the
inhibition of criminal behavior and wrongs by fear
of punishment.
• Politically defined, deterrence refers to the policy
of developing military power so that other
countries will not attack your country.
• The concept deterrence in general can be defined
as the use of threats by one party to convince
another party to refrain from initiating some
course of action.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 53
 Deterrence defined….
• A threat serves as a deterrent to the extent that it
convinces its target not to carry out the intended
action because of the costs and losses that target
would incur.
• In foreign affairs, deterrence is a strategy intended to
convince an adversary from undertaking an action
not yet started.
• Deterrence theory gained increased prominence as a
military strategy during the Cold War with regard to
the use of nuclear weapons.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 54
 Deterrence defined……
• Deterrence theory holds that nuclear
weapons are intended to deter other
states from attacking with their nuclear
weapons, through the promise of
retaliation and possibly Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD).

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 55

 Deterrence defined….
• A policy of deterrence can fit into
two broad categories:-
(i) preventing an armed attack against a state’s
own territory (known as direct deterrence)
(ii) preventing an armed attack against another
state (known as extended deterrence).

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 56

 Deterrence defined……
• Deterrence is commonly thought about in
terms of convincing opponents that a
particular action would elicit a response
resulting in un acceptable damage that would
outweigh any likely benefit.
• Rather than simple cost-benefit calculations,
however, deterrence is more usefully thought
of in terms of a dynamic process with
provisions for continuous feedback.
7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 57
 Deterrence defined……
• The process initially involves deterring
who shall attempt to deter whom from
doing what, and by what means.
• A successful deterrence policy must be
considered in not only military terms,
but also in political terms

7/25/20 PP TDIR SDIR MA 2018 Endale N. 58