Last week of readings

These are relatively short articles on terrorism and the complication of non-state violence to the workings of the international system. Remember you need to be read to discuss your papers as well.

Said-Identity, Negation, and Violence

Negarestani-The Militarization of Peace

Postcolonial Questions

You only have to read the Preface and Introduction. I hope everyone had a nice holiday.

Chakrabarty-Provincializing Europe

Theories of Global Order

Reading is short but dense this week. Two articles and a chapter. Each of these pieces represents a major school of IR thinking about the conditions of global order.

Wendt-Anarchy is What States Make of It

Bull-Does Order Exist in World Politics

Cox-Social Forces, States and World Orders

The Global System Part II

I assigned a whole book but it is short and I cut the other readings. I think people are going to like this book. Also after listening to people today I think that this book in particular has a number of useful concept for all of the papers proposed. So read it carefully. Be ready to discuss how you would apply concept such as the exploit or protocol in pursuing the central question of your proposed paper.

Reading Here

Class November 7th

As we will be discussing paper ideas the readings have been shortened dramatically. Just read the Harvey chapter bellow. We will discuss Harvey's theory of uneven geographic development and his concept of space. After that we will discuss paper ideas.

Harvey-Uneven Development and Space

Class October 31st

 There is a practice job talk going on today. You all should attend it if you can. It is only a matter of time until you have to give one and it is important for the person giving the talk to have a real audience. As a result class will be starting at 3:15 rather than 2:30.

The job talk is in the Friedman room. Hope to see you all there.
Best,
Jairus

Political Economy

I went back and forth on which readings were most essential for this week. The result is a little Smith, a little Marx, and a lot of Keohane. Read Smith and Marx and figure out what you think Political Economy is from there see how Keohane adapts the insights from neo-classical economics to explain liberal institutionalism as an alternative to Realism.  For those interested in international regimes and institutions this is your week so dig in.

Smith-Wealth of Nations

Marx-Introduction to the Grundrisse

Keohane-After Hegemony

New Readings

Waltz-Theory of International Politics

Herz-Rise and Decline of the Territorial State

Morgenthau-Scientific Man

Week 8

I have cut down the readings some this week so we can focus in on the questions of the state and the rise of the system of states. In the readings below this is really a conversation about civil society in its relationship to internal sovereignty and whether a global civil society could constitute the basis of a global system or the end of international relations. Hegel and Kant are the intellectual tradition from which most Liberal IR theory emerges. The English school in particular finds its commitments to global order in the imaginary of Hegel. The Foucault reading provides alternative reading of the consolidation of power and the rise of civil society as a series crisis or problems rather than an organic unity with the state. The Hegel reading is not easy but put the time in as he best constructs how the matrix of civil society, state, and global state require one another for the possibility of something like international law. Enjoy and see you next week.

Hegel

Kant

Foucault

Week 7 The State Part 2

Foucault-Governmentality and Achille Mbembe are in the same reader. I included all of it because some of the other essays may be interesting to you. 

Tilly-State Making

Wendt-State as Person 

Week 6-The State pt. 1

I have made some slight adjustments. It seemed as if there was substantial interest in the sovereignty question and the democratic paradox last week so I am including a slightly larger Schmitt reading this week. As a result we will leave out the Locke and Rousseau readings. I will introduce them with the presumption that most of you have read both at some point in time and that a brief refresher will be sufficient to move on. So this week will consist of Gramsci, Althusser, and Schmitt. I have deleted the extra pages from all of the documents so everything in the PDF is to be read. Remember while the purpose of this week is to start thinking about what the state is consider how the questions of authority, legitimacy, and power implicate inter-state relations and international institutions. I would like to be able to discuss following last weeks discussion how different scales of governance differ in the ways they confront the democratic paradox as well as the relationship between force, sovereignty, and right.

Gramsci-Political Writings

Althusser-Ideological State Apparatus

Schmitt-Concept of the Political

Week 5

I have cut a few of the readings but subsequently made the readings we have longer. I think it is worth reading all of the Schmitt book (just 74 pages) and a significant portion of the McNeil book (about 160 pages). Sammy did a good job with Fanon so I think we can discuss the postcolonial context of these other readings without reading more of Wretched of the Earth. Both the McNeil and Schmitt readings employ materialist and ideational arguments for change. Try to identify when change is being driven by ideas, by material factors, or through the strategic interaction of ideas and material factors such as technology which is at the razor edge between materiality and human driven ideational change. See you next week.

McNeill-The Pursuit of Power

Schmitt-Notes on the Partisan

Week 4 Human Nature

Butler-Psychic Life of Power

Foucault-History of Madness

Connolly-Neuropolitics

Week 3-Human Nature Part II

Thomas Hobbes-Just read 'Of Man'

Fanon-Wretched of the Earth

Freud-Why War

Montaigne-Essays (Optional Readings for Discussing Hobbes' intelectual origins)

Week 2- Wednesday 10-12:30 Location 624 Saunders Hall

Lebow-Cultural Theory of International Relations

Aristotle-The Politics Book 1

Readings for August 29th

Click on the Link

Blakeslee-Introduction

Hall-The Point of View Toward Primitive Race

Hoffman-International Relations

Tunader-The State as a Living Organism

Wight-Why is there no International Theory

Syllabus

IR Graduate Field Seminar

Political Science 630                                                                                                     Prof. Jairus Grove

Spring 2011

BUSAD C103.

Monday 2:30-5:00

Description:

The discipline of International Relations has no agreed upon set of methods or topics of study. Rather than try to survey all of the various methods and approaches this course attempts to stage a series of debates.  After an introduction to the origins of International Relations as a field of study we will move on to competing theories of human nature and subjectivity, the state, the international system, political economy, and global violence. Throughout the course we will discuss how each of these texts are differently appropriated by schools of thought such as Realism, Liberal Internationalism, Constructivism, Postcolonialism, and Critical Security Studies.

Requirements:

There is approximately 250 pages of reading per week and the expectation is that everyone will be prepared to discuss  all of the material. All readings will be available online at: 

http://humans-wars-states.blogspot.com/

Each participant in the seminar will be expected to present a 10 to 15 minute critical reading of one of the texts once during the semester. A schedule of presentations will be created on the first day. During the last week of class participants will present abstracts of paper topics developed over the semester. The paper should be 20 to 25 pages.

Regular attendance is expected and since readings are available online please read the articles assigned for the first day of class.

Office hours and my contact information, as well as specific pages numbers for reading selections will be updated soon.

Week 1

Making of a Discipline:

Ola Tunander, “Swedish-German geopolitics for a new century Rudolf Kjellen’s ‘The State as a Living Organism,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1988.
G. Stanley Hall, “The Point of View toward Primitive Races,” The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910.  

George H. Blakeslee, “Introduction,”  The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910.  

Stanley Hoffman, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Daedalus: Journal of the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer 1977.

Martin Wight, “Why Is There No International Theory?,” International Theory, April, 1960.

Week 2

Theories of the Human, Classical:

Richard Ned Lebow, “Fear, Interest and Honor.” in Cultural Theory of International Relations, 2009.

Aristotle, “Book 1,” The Politics, 1996.  

Al-Farabi “The Aims of Aristotle’s Metaphysics” in Classical Arabic Philosophy, eds. Jon McGinnis and David Reisman, 2007.

Ibn Bajja “Conjunction of the Intellect with Man” in Classical Arabic Philosophy, eds. Jon McGinnis and David Reisman, 2007.

Week 3

Theories of the Human, Modern:

Michel de Montaigne “Cowardice, mother of cruelty” “Of Glory” in The Complete Works of Michele de Montaigne.

Thomas Hobbes, Man and Citizen, 1991.

Jeremy Bentham, The Rationale of Punishment, 1830.

Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, 1962.

Frantz Fanon, “Colonial War and Mental Disorders,” in Wretched of the Earth. 2005.

Week 4

Theories of the Human, Contemporary:

Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” in Gender and the Politics of History, 1988.

Michel Foucault, “The Anthropological Circle” in History of Madness, 2006. 

Judith Butler, “Subjection, Resistance, Resignification.” “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identity.” in The Psychic Life of Power. 1997.

Ian Hacking, “The Suicide Weapon,” Critical Inquiry, 2008.

William E. Connolly, “Nature, Affect, Thinking.” in Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed, 1999.

Week 5

War and Violence in The Global System Part 1:

William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000, 1984.

Frantz Fanon, “On Violence in the International Context,” The Wretched of the Earth, 2005.

Carl Schmitt, “Theory of the partisan: intermediate commentary on the concept of the political,” 2007.

Ned Blackhawk, “The Indigenous Body in Pain,” in Violence over the Land: Indians and 

Empire in the Early American West, 2006.

Michael Shapiro “Warring Bodies and Bodies Politic,” in Violent Cartographies, 1997.

Week 6

Theories of State Part 1:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The State of War,” in The Social Contract and other later political writings.

John Locke “Of The State of Nature” and “Of the State of War” in The Second Treatise of Government. 

Carl Schmitt, Concept of the Political, pgs. 19-45

Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince, 1959. 

Louis Althusser, “Ideological State Apparatus” in Lennin and Other Essays.

Week 7

Theories of State Part 2:

Michel Foucault “Governmentality” in The Foucault Effect, ed. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon.

Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter  Evans.

Michael Taussig, “Maleficium: state fetishism,” in The Nervous System, 1992. 

Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories, 1993

Alexander Wendt, “The State as Person in International Theory,” Review of International Studies, 2005. 

Achille Mbembe, “On Private and Indirect Government”, On the Postcolony, 2001.

Week 8

The State System Part 1:

Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, 

Bartolome de Las Casas, An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies, 2003.

Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace” in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,  “Foreign Policy”, “International Law”, “World-history”, in Philosophy of Right, (321-360) 

Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended, Picador, 2001. [Selections]

Week 9

The State System Part 2:

W.E.B. Du Bois, Color and democracy: Colonies and peace, 1945.

Hans Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest: a critical examination of American foreign policy. 1951

John Herz, “The Rise and Demise of the Territorial State,” 1957.

Christopher Lee, Make a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives, 2010.

Kenneth Waltz, “Anarchic Orders and Balance of Power,” in Theory of international Politics, 2010. 

Hedley Bull “The Concept of Order in World Politics” and “Conclusion,” in The Anarchical Society, 1995.

Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is What States Make of It. International Organization, 1992

Week 10

Political Economy Part 1:

Adam Smith “Of Colonies” in the Wealth of Nations. 704-749.

John Stuart Mill, “Preliminary Remarks,” in Principles of Political Economy. 

Karl Marx, “Introduction” in Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy.

Robert Gilpin “Governing the Global Economy” In Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order, 377-402.

Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, “Interdependence in World Politics” in Power and Independence, 1989.

Week 11

Political Economy Part 2:

Karl Polanyi, “The International System” “Political Economy and the Discovery of Society” “Transformation in Progress” “Freedom in a Complex Society.”  in The Great Transformation, 2001.

Vincent Tucker, The Myth of Development: A Critique of a Eurocentric Discourse” in Critical Development Theory eds. Ronaldo Munck and Denis O’Hearn.

David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, 2006.

Week 12

War and Violence in The Global System Part 2:

Edward W. Said “Identity, Negation, and Politics” in The Politics of Dispossession, 1995.

Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” Public Culture, 2003.

Stuart Elden, Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty, 2009.

Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks, 2007.

Reza Negarestani, “The Militarization of Peace: Absence of Terror or Terror of Absence,” in Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development, Vol. 1. 2006.