Week 6 (Post-Class): Context Theory

'Context Theory'

An argument against a change in the international realm

Fair warning: this turned out to be significantly longer than I expected! Maybe I should have just posted my mid-semester essay instead. In any case, enjoy! (and tell me what you think of course!)

I'll be honest, I've sat on this post for some time because I'm not entirely sure what to talk about following various posts and a short essay on essentially the same (read: a similar) subject. I feel like it would not have been appropriate to branch off into a separate discussion- the argument about change in the international realm has been the central topic of our course for the last few weeks. All of this having been said, I got a benefit that some of my classmates did not. In our in class assigned discussions, I was fortunately tasked with arguing for a side that I happened to agree with (for the most part).

Writing about this topic several times has enabled me to refine my argument. The purpose of this entry is to share the argument I made in my recent mid-semester essay. To this end, my argument focuses on the notion that the international realm is based on the fundamentals of human behavior. Culture and identity are an incredibly important part of the human experience, and it has been since we first achieved sentience- and likely, before.

In international relations, the notion of the nation remains central to the stability of the state. A nation-state without a nation is only held together by coercion. That is not stable. However, that is not to imply that national identity has any sort of permanence either, instead the difference between national identity and coercion is willful co-identification versus mandatory conformity. Such identity, based on a perception of common culture, is central to forming a nation. Further, much as we are taught in American University's Intercultural Communications course, culture and identity revolve around contrast. Specifically, it is the notion that you cannot understand (and thus fully comprehend) your own culture and identity without stepping into and experiencing another. As the old saying goes, light does not exist without dark. One culture and identity cannot exist without a foreign one to contrast it against. Otherwise, that original identity would be without purpose.

I propose that what we are witnessing in the international realm is not in fact a change in the fundamental operating principles of anarchy, but instead the rise of new nations based on the changing context of the 21st century and with it, a shift in international boundaries. The case-in-point here is the European Union. A growing European nation is evolving from the smaller nations of Europe much in the same way that a fledgling American nation evolved from the separate American nations of the original Thirteen Colonies. Admittedly, the convergence of European nations may be more drastic. Nevertheless, a new nation is emerging in the context of the 21st century as Europe must come together to compete with larger states ranging from America in the west to Russia, India and China to the east. Ultimately, as this evolution takes place - presuming it is not derailed by the compound crises of the early 21st century - European international borders will shift to the periphery of the bloc. In the end, however, the space that exists between those new boundaries and nations that lay beyond them is still anarchy.

Such anarchy is reinforced by the fact that while international organizations exist to regulate the relationship between nations, they do not supersede the sovereign authority of the nations which subscribe to them. The survival of sovereign authority is evidenced by the fact nations enter into such organizations and agreements willingly. They subscribe to constraints willingly. Sovereignty is not ceded; codes of reasonable behavior, that are in the relative self-interest of all partied states, are agreed upon. All nations, however, remain capable of seceding from such organizations and agreements.

To this end, the UN Security Council remains an oddity that may, at first glance, contravene this argument. In writing at least, it has the authority to intervene when it sees threats to international peace and security. This may erode the notion of sovereign authority. In practice, such intervention only occurs when the sovereign states that comprise the UNSC agree that a certain course of action is agreeable. Because the UNSC is not in and of itself sovereign, it is only comprised of sovereign states that agree to joint decisions. There has not been a true cessation of sovereignty in the way that the states that comprise the United States have ceded sovereignty to the federal government, or in the way that European states have ceded sovereignty to the EU (their aspiring federal government). Instead, the UNSC can only impose its decisions by force - martial, economic, or otherwise - not be legal action backed by the understanding that it is sovereign over a state. We see this occur in practice as states who end up on the wrong end of a UNSC resolution rarely bow to it willingly in the way American states or European countries do.

To conclude then, I restate that what we are witnessing is the evolution of new nations and the shifting of boundaries, based on the changing context of the 21st century, but not fundamental change away from the inherent anarchy that exists between sovereign human groups.