Understanding world knowledge
1.1 Ontoiogy and epistemology
1.2 Reflexivity
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' This idea often justifies the historical bases of international studies. The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana wrote the phrase in his Life of Reason in 1905. But his preceding sentence is now forgotten: 'when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual'.1 Colonial ideologies still influence the Euro-American worldviews that dominate present-day international 'knowledge'.2 We should also 'remember the past' through the histories of the world written by Arab, Chinese, Greek, Persian, Hindu, Slavic, Roman and other non-European scholars.
Knowledge comes from the intellectualization of facts or opinion, usually by comparison (C14.1). The first part of this chapter outlines how we question the existence of things that we take for granted - ontology - and then how we come to know about these things - episteinolog)>. This is particularly important within international studies, because the scale of knowledge is very large, and this creates endless possibilities for grand claims based on nothing more than 'authority'. For the researcher, this questioning starts from a reflexive approach to all aspects of a study - an ongoing personal assessment of "where we aTe coming from", and how our own, and other, worldviews, may affect the objectivity of a study. Because the world is a big place, most world knowledge arrives through intermediaries, and that is a problem as al-Birunl noted a thousand years ago (Figure l.l).1'
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Understanding world knowledge 11
The tradition regarding an event...will invariably depend for its character as true or false upon the character of the reporters, who are influenced by the divergency of interests and all kinds of animosities and antipathies between the various nations.
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, India (circa 1030)
Figure 1.1 Reporters
1.1 Ontology and epistemology
Are we fust avatars in a virtual reality game played by higher beings - just objects in a massive computer simulation? And if not, how can we prove it?4 Ontology* - the study of how we know that something exists - can help to explore questions like this. How did something (an entity) come into existence, how do we prove it is, in what way does it be, how do we know it is real, and how can we categorize it?
Ontological questions can be posed in simple forms - What makes this event international? Could 'international' situations occur without the political construction of nations? Is this phenomenon truly universal? How do we demonstrate global impacts? Questions can also be framed as a null ontological hypothesis, a default assumption that something does not exist until we can show that it does - that nothing is universal, global, international or human, until we explain why it is. Broadly, philosophers take a stance between accepting that anything that is a noun c-xisi? (realism), or arguing that existence comes from a subtle interplay of experiences and mental events (nominalism). Some argue that nothing exists (nihilism).
Philip Dick proposes a basic test of existence, 'Reality is that which, when you stop" believing in it, doesn't go away."1 And John Searle makes a useful distinction:
• some things are 'observer independent1 - 'brute facts' that 'exist independently of us' (earthquakes, tides, weather);
• others are 'observer-relative' - 'institutional facts' that 'depend on us for their existence' (citizenship, laws, moral values).7
The Earth clearly exists 'independently', but nations only exist because of us. What about the 'world'? To decide, we first need to define 'world' - is it the physical planet drifting aimlessly in space, is it the planet with its peoples, places and systems, or is it a geopolitical region as delineated by the UN? (Figure 2.6)
As mentioned in the Introduction, Yuva! Harari's lucid argument that 'sapiens' are; the only animals that can create imagined realities - religions, financial systems, com-; panies - is very significant when analysing the social world. Money is clearly an ■ 'imagined reality' and this is very evident in currencies from cowry shells and paper. dollar bills to Bitcoin. Around 97% of world money now only exists in cyberspace. " Throughout this book, keep in mind that people exist objectively as a type of animal,
but when described in terms of 'nationality', 'race', 'religion' or 'ethnic group', these are imagined distinctions. Places, if described as a valley or sea exist objectively, but when a valley is a 'border', or seas become 'territorial waters', these are imagined places. The construction of these imagined things happens within social systems and related international institutions, which only exist in the human mind. These are constructed through the imagined knowledge in documents (C13), and now determine the future of the whole of our planet. Our Earth's climate, seas and ecosystems exist objectively, but their fate is now controlled by our imagined realities.9
Ontology can also help to address other fundamental questions: is something real or ideal (is or ought), actual or abstract, fact or opinion, empirical or reasoned, known or believed? What are the relationships (ties, causal chains, reasoned links - "if this then that") between entities, and what is the relationship and how do we know it exists?" How do we justify the existence of categories, which are often a European invention? Until the 19th century, East Asian countries had no direct equivalents for distinctions such as science, religion and philosophy.111
International discourse is often based on supposedly obvious facts that are very questionable and can fuel conflict." Development theories assume that improved development can come into existence through external intervention. But how do we know that countries would not develop, perhaps better, without that intervention? Within environmental economics, the idea of 'green growth' assumes that environmental constraints can be reconciled with economic demands. But is green growth just an alliterative oxymoron - can growth continue infinitely or are there limits and, if limited, how do we know when the limits are reached? The word 'uncertainty' is commonly used to describe our risk society era. Technology may have created new risks, but does that mean that our certainty about risk has declined? Arguably science has made human knowledge considerably more certain about world risks than in any previous generation. Are we certain that uncertainty is now less (or should that be more) uncertain? Within international relations, many mainstream theories depend on the idea that humanity is intrinsically chaotic, and this must be prevented by strong laws and aggressive policy. But how can we prove this 'ontology of anarchy'?12 Creating fear, without evidence, is an old political trick, but politicians with an academic background challenge it (Figure 1.2).
Cross-cultural ontology has distinct considerations,13 such as the cross-cultural aspects of relational ontology?'■' Ontology is associated with the affirmation of identity through interpersonal communication, particularly when identity is in question, as among Palestinians.15 International dimensions often demand a logical questioning of seemingly illogical claims. Logically, countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia must still have witches and sorcerers, because they have laws against witchcraft and sorcery, sometimes resulting in execution.16 But to what degree is the ontology of witchcraft just being used for social control, as throughout Europe until recently? Similarly, sexuality is accompanied by ontological claims, which are contested cross-culturally.17 When, in 2012, the Iranian president,
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Understanding world knowledge 13
The stated purpose [of the Immigration Bill] is to enhance the ability to deter people-smuggling to New Zealand...
...the Minister of Immigration was requested to provide the annual figures for the last 10 years showing the number of people listed in prosecutions confirmed to have been smuggled into New Zealand.
The Minister replied that The department's prosecution records do not record the number of people confirmed lo have been smuggled into New Zealand...'
This bill rests on a fear based on complete ignorance of the facts. But whatever they might be, the numbers will have been minuscule, and so the only real significance of this bill has to be in its symbolism.
Let us look at the symbolism. It is based on a misperceived fear, it succumbs to the temptation to dog whistle to certain segments of the population...
Kennedy Graham MP, Green Party. Speech on the Immigration Amendment Bill. New Zealand Parliament, 17 Apri! 2013
Figure 1.2  Challenging the ontology of anarchy
With permission: K. Graham
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed, 'In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country...In Iran we do not have this phenomenon.' He was discounting the fac; that Iranian law formally addresses homosexual acts by men (lavat- sodomy) and women (mosahegheli). His courts executed people for breaking these laws.18 If there' were no homosexuals in Iran, why would there be a need for laws and punishments to deal with homosexual behaviour?
Philosophers have now moved on from the age-old questions about whether gods exist independently of human existence, and whether the human mind exists hide- ■:■ pendently of its body.19 But the increasing global influence of violent religious or quasi-religious ideologies should prompt new discussions, because the problems are rooted in persuading people to believe that certain things exist, without obje< live, evidence. Once people accept, on the basis of belief but not evidence, that a god and a heaven exist, it becomes easy to persuade them that this god wants them to idli" non-believers and the reward will be anything they desire in another imagined' world. Scriptures can be misused to support this. Evangelical churches teach that ihe-Old Testament is the word of their God and is literally true. It therefore supports Ihc killing and torture of animals and humans,20 killing people who hold different views including family members who try to challenge religious views,-1 rewarding vic.r r -ous soldiers with virgins from the defeated enemy to rape,-2 and the ethic that children can be punished for the sins of their grandparents.23
Quasi-religious ideologies are very similar. The idea that children can be punished for the sins of their parents pertains in North Korea, where the late Kim Il-sung n'' exists as the 'eternal president'. (Should new ambassadors therefore present their
credentials to a corpse?) All ideologies are open to ontological questioning, including familiar grand world theories. Environmentalist Barbara Ward provides a realistic take on Marx's rhetoric:
Karl Marx derives his critique entirely from Western ideas and sources...Dialectical materialism, the scientific secret of man's history,...has the grandeur and excitement of a great work of art - the somber force of a Verdi opera, the flashing vision of Goethe's Faust. But like them, it belongs to the world of imagination, not of fact...
The Marxist vision of history, with its cosmic sweeps from slavery to feudalism to capitalism to communism, is not true in the sense that a scientific experiment or a plain record of dates and happenings is true. It cannot be tested. No predictions can be based on it. And it is contradicted by a large variety of facts.2'1
Comparing the ontological bases of religious doctrine and quasi-religious ideologies provides a way to question and challenge both.
Significant world issues arise within the 'ontology of nothing', which tries to establish whether nothing exists. In his book Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre explores nothing.25 Nothing was the basis for many creationist ideologies, because the existence of nothing provided a void that needed a god to fill it. For many religious advocates, God was The Creator who made the world out of nothing, but this requires them to prove that nothing existed. Secular philosophers such as Jacques Lacan argue that nothing does not exist, and so a god as 'the creator' does not exist.211 The deployment of nothing goes beyond creation myths and amusing arguments, and sometimes underpins major disputes.
thinking zone: what happens when
nothing exists?
deploying nothing
The concept of nothing is very useful in political discourse, because it creates an ^impression thatthere is a gap that needs filling^ which legitimates the actions of those who fill it. Consider:
• Power vacuum - an absence of political or other leadership.
• Democratic deficit - an absence of a Euro-American-style democratic government
• Terra nullius - Roman law, "Land belonging to no one' - Australian aboriginal history.
• A land without a people For a people without a land. - 'No other people, no other power, has ever created an independent state'in the land that is now Israel.*
• Desert - Latin desertům - 'an abandoned place' - The 'Great American Desert'. ■::.  Plains - fiat empty land. "American Great plains', and home to the 'Plains Indians'. ..>.. Empty Quarter (Rub' al Khali J^eJ*) - the large oil rich desert in Saudi Arabia.
• Namakwa (Kalahari Desert, South Africa) - a 'kind of vast, empty place', with large diamond and mineral mines. Namaland was the home of the indigenous Warns.
(Continued)
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Understanding world knowledge
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(Continued)
V Res nullius - Roman law,'Property belonging to no one'. . ..
• Void -housinglaw: accommodation without an occupancy agreement. Hence, the .'Occupy 'movement.
• Failed/collapsed state - a state that apparently has: no, or an. ineffective, government.
• Frigid zones - the Polar regions.
• Space - the place beyond Earth's atmosphere, containing everything except us. ;*Sc? inferences for fut-.er i-fcmat on.-"J.
Because of the large scale of world events, and the increasing use of big data (Ctí.5; C9.4), understanding how we, or others, know something is especially important within world studies. Epistemology - the study of theories of knowledge2" - asks questions such as:
• What is the origin of the knowledge?
• How did the empirical research (and other experience) and reasoned arguments ; contribute to creating the knowledge?
• How certain (valid and error free) is the knowledge?
• Was the knowledge created critically (sceptically)?
• How has, or might, the knowledge change as other knowledge and understandings change?
« To what degree would the knowledge be seen as generally true (as 'a theory')?29
An international perspective also raises questions about crass-atltiiral understandings of knowledge. Anthropologists would argue that 'traditional' or 'indigenous' knowledge might come more from practical experience, dreams and the spirit world, elders and other authorities.™ Whose 'knowns' count most, and why?
thinking zone: how do we know the unknowns? knowns
Former US Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld, concluded:
'There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now-know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.'
. .SO...
What are the significant'known knowns', 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' in: international relations, development studies, environmental politics, religion, war studies, human capabilities, International, organizations? .
information systems
Identify examples of direct primary data about states, i.e. the data does not reach you through indirect 'authorities'.
• From your persona! perspective, are there any certain "known knowns' about the examples you identify?
• Are there any 'unknowable knowns' in the examples - seemingly factual claims which cannot be known because there are no methodologies to discover the truth about them?
archive ..
If we could set up ä database of the misuse of'unknowns' in international politics, what would be in that archive and who should maintain and fund it?
Because of the distance and scale of events, international knowledge is often based on an 'argument from authority'?1 such as a government or commercial expert. The credibility of expert views assumes that:
1. the expert is usually correct about the subject,
2. there is a professional consensus that the expert is usually correct, and therefore
3. any further opinion from the authority on this subject is likely to be correct.
But the views of international experts are susceptible to the halo effects- We might judge an authority to be correct because the 'halo' of one particular above-average trait - wealth, tradition, position - can generate a perception that other qualities are above average - honesty, intelligence, diligence. These problems were recognized long ago by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. Like al-BTrunT, in 1377 he complained about unreliable authorities - 'Reliance upon transmitters' - and he recognized the 'halo' problem of'authorities' (Figure 1.3).33
People as a rule approach great and high-ranking persons with praise and encomiums [tributes]. They embellish conditions and spread their fame.
Students often happen to accept and transmit absurd information that, in turn, is believed on their authority.
Ibn Khaldun (1377) The Muqaddimah (Bk 1: Preliminary Remarks)
Figure 1.3  The 'halo effect' (Ibn Khaldun)
International knowledge is often created to deceive, in the form of propaganda?' from the 1950s to 1980s, Eisenhower, Nixon and other American leaders deployed
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Understanding world knowledge 17
the domino theory' to justify the Vietnam War - that if Vietnam became communist then other countries in South East Asia would also fall55 The claim had no evidence-base. More than 5 million Vietnamese died in a pointless war, which cost America around S165 billion. Misinformation is not just simple retrospective lies to cover up previous mistakes or misdeeds. It also comes in the form of pre-emptive deceit- political knowledge-creation that aims to get in first so that subsequent truth is less likely to be believed - as concerning Iraq in 2003.16 This is explained further on the website.
Ontology and epistemology are often confused. Roy Bhaskax calls this the 'epistemic fallacy'.37 But although they are not the same, they are linked, and should both be kept in mind throughout a whole study, particularly when data is being reported, lo avoid repeating questionable discourse. Where did the idea of an 'axis of evil' and 'good and evil' come from? The source is probably the Persian prophet Mani (^) (circa 2t6-276AD).is So when, (then) US president G.W. Bush deployed his 'good and evil' rhetoric about the 'axis' of supposed US enemies, including Iran, he was repeating an Iranian ideology.
1.2 Reflexivity
When the two Wright brothers were developing their ideas for the first aeroplane, if they argued about something, at some point they would deliberately swap sides in the argument.3" This is an ancient Greek technique called Dissoi Logoi. Philosophers analyse how false logic arises, and an awareness of this can help to avoid weaknesses in arguments. Material on the website explains the familiar problems.
There are many relevant approaches to reflexive or reflective thinking - turning our mental processes back upon themselves. When developing intelligence tests in 1904, Binet assessed 'auto-critique' - the critical understanding of oneself.4" Bourdieu provides philosophical arguments for reflexivity in sociology,41 and many writers . develop the methodological implications.'12 Organizations or groups use sense-making or mindfulness.** But these ideas are not new. The Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in ■ Governance (Síffeilíg) by Ssu-ma Kuang (BJiijfc) (1018-1086), provided a history of China from 403BC to 959, and aimed to help subsequent rulers reflect (in the 'mirror' ; it provided) on the mistakes and success of their predecessors.44
Techniques for reflective thinking are not complicated. Using simple words - if, : but, or - can expand thinking. Sociologists often talk of viewing events through dif- i ferent lenses. Materials to explore these techniques are on the website.
Arguably, complete objectivit)' is impossible,45 so researchers should aim 'to understand the effects of [their] experiences rather than engaging in futile attempts to eliminate them'.4* It is helpful to consider the strengths and weaknesses of positionality" - the exogenous I etic perspectives as an outsider, or the endogenous/
ernic perspectives as an insider/'9 But assessing personal identity is not always straightforward, particularly for international students and scholars who return to a "home" country to do research.4'J Would a Pakistani student from a middle class family in Islamabad be an insider or outsider if she did research among the Taliban in North Eastern Pakistan?
Most reflexive methodology is not specific to international research but geographers provide useful insights about fieldwork, feminist perspectives5" and researching elites.51 Careful consideration of the implications of working across languages52 and using translators53 is clearly important for much international work, but is also increasingly relevant within multicultural countries. There is discussion concerning international collaboration in research,54 and cross-cultural management studies,55 but international relations has 'lacked a sociology of itself'56 and is arguably less internationally reflexive in its approach to research than might be expected.57
Research diaries or ethnographic notes can provide a basis for reflexive thinking. Notes might be based on self-reflexive contextual impressions, which may later become data or help to explain data (Figure 1.4). Alternatively, they can be structured more formally as: observational notes (a purely factual account), methodological notes (what happened during data collection), theoretical notes (what might be the broader explanations) and analytic memos (initial comparisons of data, theory and literature).5" Notes might also include how researchers and others are feeling - tired, angry, stressed - because later this might warn of unreliable data.
lots of concrete, beautiful mountains in the ery warm,  people are so polite and hospitable;
MA.Y 3 - Ficst impression distance. The welcome is it makes me feel very welcome.
MAY 4 - Outside of the home,   things are a bi" different.   I had to change my shirt before going out as it is s little see through  {I had never noticed that before!).  So that put me on my guard. But people are very friendly.  It is interesting seeing how people dress. Men can get away with more and many dress in  'Western' styles. Girls all wear hijab. Some vjomen do wear clothes that reveal the outline of their body shape, but hair,  arms and legs are always covered.  There are both cultural and legal aspects to this.  The head being covered draws you to their faces, and particularly the eyes.  I never noticed so many different subtle shades of brown,  green,  blue before.
W\'z  6. As a foreign man,  you must be careful.  There is no physical contact with a 'woman if you are not family,  iou can shake their hand if it is offered,  otherwise you simply say Assalam o Alaiku.m.  T bumped into a woman in a shopping mall,  and quickly said vsorry',   reaching out in a reassuring way  (something I would do at home).  The woman looked shocked, and A. said that if I had touched her it would have been very offensive.
Figure 1.4 A self-reflexive contextual diary
(By n European man in a Muslim country)
MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Fakulta sociálních studií
60200 BRNO CID
IS
Understanding world research
More broadly, the UN concept of international understanding provides a framework for reflecting on world research.59 A Deputy Director General of UNESCO, W.H.C. Lewis, provided a nuanced explanation:
International Understanding is the ability to observe critically and objectively and appraise the conduct of [people] everywhere to each other, irrespective of the nationality of culture to which they may belong. To do this one must be able to detach oneself from one's own particular cultural and national prejudices and to observe [people] of all nationalities, cultures and races as equally important varieties of human being inhabiting this earth.™
To transcend nationalistic and other divisive approaches, the concept of thinking and trying to act without borders, which derived from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MS1:), is now applied to over 60 world organizations including musicians, reporters, monks and clowns.61 The idea reflects the formation of international organizations in the 19th century/'- and the present-day movement is assisted by books such as Activists Beyond Borders/'' initiatives like the Reporters Without Borders and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But, as George Orwell reminds us, progress does not intrinsically lead to international understanding or a borderless world:
We were once told that the aeroplane had 'abolished frontiers'; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. The radio was once expected to promote international understanding and co-operation; it has turned out to be a means of insulating one nation from another."
Understanding world knowledge
• Peter I wanted to grow them in Russia but farmers didn't know how. They ate potato tubers and died. The potato became known as the 'Devil's apple' and people refused to grow it.
• Belarus and Ukraine were under Russian domination at that time, and Beiarusians grew them instead.
potato politics
• Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food crop, after rice, wheat and corn.
• The UN International Year of the Potato (2008) promoted the idea that the potato Is crucial to avoid global food shortages.
• In Europe, only a quarter of potatoes are now eaten by humans. Half are fed to livestock. The rest is used to produce alcohol and starch used by food chemical and paper industries.
• GMO-Compass.org claims that 'extending the benefits of potato production depends on improvements in...potato varieties that have reduced water needs, greater resistance to pests and diseases, and resilience in the face of climate changes'.
• In 1998, Hungarian researcher Árpád Pusztai claimed on British TV that rats fed with GMO potatoes suffered damage to their intestines and immune systems. The next day he was suspended by his employer, the Rowett Institute, his research team was disbanded, and data seized. UK government officials, Monsanto and (then) heads of state Blair and Clinton were implicated in the actions.
Where, and what, next for the potato - what is its global future? [See References for further information.65]
Note: Most online information about GM potatoes stems from the GM industries.
Genetvatcfi.org provides alternative views.
(Research: Belous Daria, Minsk State Linguistic University)
thinking zone: potatoes without borders
Potatoes are now grown in more than 100 countries around the world, but:
Belarus
• Beiarusians eat the most potatoes - 335 kg per year. The world average is 33 kg. .
• The average potato production in Belarus each year is 865 kg per person. In the .
. USA - 69 kg per person.
• Belarus is the 10th largest potato producer in the world. .
• Beiarusians know more than 300 recipes for potatoes. \
• There is a Belarusian national dance called Bul'ba - ^potatoes'.
• In the Soviet Union, Beiarusians were sometimes called bulbashi. .
■  In January 2014> Russia accused Belarus of potato smuggling from the EU.
global potatoes
• Potatoes came originally from Peru and Bolivia, not Belarus. So how, and why, did the potato get to Belarus, and become so popular? .
; •  Potatoes came to Spain from South America. Peter I brought a small sack of potatoes from Spain to Russia in the 18th century.
-————•—- main ideas--------—----------
The construction of international knowledge needs to consider:
• how we can prove that relevant things exist (ontology). ■ how we know about things (epistemology).
• cross-cultural understandings of existence and knowledge,
• why the authority for any source of information is credible.
• how we detect propaganda and pre-emptive deceit.
• whether definitions and assumptions are clear and international.
A reflexive approach should aim to avoid:
• bias caused by ethnocentricity, nationalism, or worldviews.
• bias caused by human psychological traits.
• simplistic conclusions from complex data.
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And should aim to achieve:
.  an examination of the research design, date and analysis from different perspectives -
self, others, mirrors, eyes, lenses. ■  contributions to international understanding. .  researchers and readers who think without borders.
key reading
Audi, R. (1997) Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Eagleton, M. (2009) 'Examining the case for reflexivity in international relations: insights from Bourdieu', Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, 1: 111-123.
Effingham, N. (2013) An Introduction to Ontology. Cambridge: Polity.
Keck, M.E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in
International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Woolgar, S. (1988) Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge. London and Beverly i-iills, CA: Sage.
.—-—— online resources-.--
To access the resources - search on the name in italics or use the http. International knowledge
Future of Humanity institute - do we exist, and will we continue to exist? - existential-risk, org
Ontoiogy.com - ongoing discussions from an American perspective
Epistemology for dummies - a good start - www.epistemologyexpress.com/efordummies.
htm
Interdependence Movement, citizens Without Borders
Electronic Frontier Foundation - protecting the freedom of electronic communication across borders
Theories and concepts in world research
2.1 Peoples
2.2 Places
2.3 Systems
2.3.1 Political violence
2.3.2 Development
2.3.3 Environment
A stoiy from the Silk Road tells of an argument between wine, tea and milk. Wine claimed he was most important because he made people happy, ten claimed the same because tea made people calm, and milk argued that she was best as babies would not survive without her. But then water said, 'You are all wrong. I am the most important, because all drinks depend on me.' Water won the argument, with a theory.
This chapter outlines relevant theories (a system of ideas that helps to predict things, such as a proven hypothesis) and concepts (a general idea) under three headings - peoples, places and systems (see Figure 2.1). It does not (and could not!) provide an in-depth critical discussion of all world theories, and the synopses should be followed up through the references. Experts in particular fields should probably ignore the sections they are familiar with, and investigate the relevance of other
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Theories and concepts in world research 23
app„ad«, Coo, ^^»«3"
European-American bias, and are often ethnocentric.
Figure 2.1   World theoretical frameworks
creates the notion of outsiders who do not belong, and world research has often generated worldviews of others as representing a threat because of appearance, race, religion, nationality, class, gender, civilization and similar perceived differences,3 The study of different peoples has been central to:
. religious studies, which wanted to prove the content of religious texts, and that the
peoples of some religions were better than other religions. » anthropology and ethnology, which often constructed others, and rationalized
colonial policies to demean and control.
• scientific racism, ethnic nationalism and eugenics, which tried to prove that peoples were different and some were inferior.
o  historical studies, which tried to understand the rise and fall of civilizations, but also gave rise to nationalistic views.
• cosmopolitism, and the idea that everyone is a 'citizen of the world'.
• modern ethnography, which tries to understand different cultures, of many forms. . social stratification, elite and crowd studies.
. human rights, which aim to protect all individuals equitably.
. human biology, which now proves the common genetic roots of all peoples, considers the future of the human race, and provides understandings of the 'global brain'.
Although many of the unethical approaches to world research seem to be part of past eras, understanding the failings of the past can help to avoid repeating past mistakes.
The understanding of others has a problematic history. Even Hippocrates used racial descriptors such as 'industrious' versus 'sluggish'.4 The outcomes have been:
ethnocentric - promoting the centrality and paramount importance of one's own people, xenophobic - creating a fear strangers or foreigners, supremacist - claiming a right to rule "inferior" groups,
exceptionally - believing that one's own group is different from, and better than, others.
The biological explanation is that hostility towards other groups seems to be a 'human universal'.5 But this is made worse by social manipulation because human instincts can be exaggerated to reinforce political interests. For example, young children will tend to eat what their parents eat because that is an evolutionary mechanism to avoid being poisoned. But this can then be turned into a cultural food taboo and a life-long habit, which keeps the young within the group, and alienates others.6
Jacques Derrida provides a psychological explanation - if there is a perception of 'self, there must also be a perception of others to define that self.7 But this may not always have been the case." European exploration by ship emphasized difference - to sailors voyaging East from Lisbon, Japanese people would look suddenly different. But travellers on land, for example along the Silk Road, would see diverse similarities across the whole continent, from Tehran to Nara.9 Silk Road researcher al-BIrunl was again progressive, and tried to understand how those he studied viewed others (Figure 2.2).1,1
Understandina world research
Theories and concepts in world research
25
...all [the Hindu] fanaticism is directed against those who do not belong to them - against all foreigners. They call them mleccha, i.e. impure, and (orbid having any connection with them, be it by intermarriage or any other kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating, and drinking with them, because thereby, they think, they would be polluted. They consider as impure anything which touches the fire and the water of a foreigner...They are not allowed to receive anybody who does not belong to ihem, even it he wished it, or was inclined to their religion.
AbuRayhan al-Biruni, India (circa 1030)
Figure 2.2  Researching 'othering' (al-Biruni)
An 'Asylum Mongol"
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_ J
A Kirghiz man (Racial Mongol)
Religious ideologies often undeqjinned hatred. Arab historian Ibn Khaldun was vitriolic in 1377 (Figure 2.3).11 Compte de Gobineau's Essiti siir I'iitegalite ties races huma'mes promoted 'our white species'.'" The South African Dutch Reformed Church (NHK) justified apartheid on Biblical grounds - that the non-Israelite Gibeonites were to be 'slaves, and hewers of wood and drawers of water'.11 The old Jewish texts appear to justify many other evils against peoples. Moses condoned rape as a reward for victorious soldiers.14 Deuteronomy justified genocide - 'Of these peoples...you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them',15 and stoning on suspicion of adultery - 'the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help'.16 The doctrine of present-day evangelical churches still supports these views. Paradoxically, Iran's penal code still maintains the Jewish ethic of stoning women,17 as does Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Most UN codes now preclude racial discrimination; the UN Genocide Convention (1948) now covers acts that intend 'to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...';18 and sexual violence became a war crime in 2008."
To the south of this Nile, there is a Negro people called Lamlam.They are unbelievers..,Beyond them to the south, there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings
Ibn Khaldun (1377) The Muqaddimah (Bk 1: Preliminary Remarks)
Figure 2.3  Theological 'othering' (Ibn Khaldun)
Ethnology became the study of races, and the comparative method assumed that other races represented "living fossils" which Europeans could use to study their origins. Theories of ethnic nationalism legitimized nations,2" and scientific racism conflated race, mental disability and animals using meticulous comparative method ology (Figure 2.4), Eugenics then aimed to improve the genetic make-up of Europ populations. Although associated with Nazi Germany, the ideology was expressed 1 ■'. many elites including Thomas Jefferson21 and Winston Churchill.-
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A young Orang-utan
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A "black" woman
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A Japanese priest
■Pils
-
A "yellow" woman (Chinese)
Hand-print of "Mongolian" imbecile Hand-print of a Tonkinese sailor Figure 2.4  Scientific racism
Full version on the website
"-a*. use .l,eSL. photographs responsibly. Do not send digital versions.
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Hand of an Orang-utan
26
Understanding world research
Theories and concepts in world research
Ethnicity23 traditionally meant national identity, and Amartya Sen argues that the construction of identity can fuel enmity and violence.24 Ethnic theories continue in relation to IQ,2S but the general conclusion among psychologists is that although certain tests may show differences between ethnic groups, this is because ot the linguistic or cultural insensitivity of the tests, not racial differences.26 But now 'ethnicity' usually implies a less specific ancestry or cultural heritage. The term ethnic background is often used in relation to minority groups ('minority' usually meaning power not size) and terminology is confusing. Chinese people in New York might be described as a minority etlmic group, but in the world Chinese people are clearly not an ethnic minority. Although racial distinctions have often been harmful, there are arguments that a 'denial of difference' can also be problematic.27
Within historical studies, the concept of civilizations is used to understand large groups of peoples, but is hard to define.28 Studying the main legal traditions of the world can help.2" Success and failure has been a common theme, since Ibn Khaldiin's Muqaddimah (1377).30 In 1911, G.G. Rupert's The Yellow Peril; or, the Orient vs. the ':. Occident promoted a fear that the Biblical 'Kings from the East'1' - China, India, Japan, and Korea and Russia - would attack England and the United States, but Jesus would stop them.'2 The evidence for Rupert's rhetoric was the Bible, and he promoted a German worldview to construct American enmity, which prefaced the destruction of : Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War against 'Russia', the 'axis of evil', and ongoing . mistrust of 'Arabia', 'Persia' and 'Afghanistan'. Rupert's ideas and map seem a prototype for Huntington's clash of civilizations?'1
thinking zone: are'clashes' between or
within civilizations?
'clashes'
Huntington, warns of'the clash of civilizations'. How do the following events fit that concept?
World War I,: within; Europe.
• The'troubles' between Catholic and Protestant Christians in Northern Ireland.
»  Imperialism and enmity among states that share Confucian values - China, Japan, Korea. .;;
Disagreements and war within. Abrahafnic religions -Judaism, Christianity, Islam. «  Conflicts between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, e.g. Iran and Iraq.
Since 1945, when has large-scale political violence occurred between:
• Asia and Europe? ;
• /Asia and Africa? :.
• . Africa and Europe?.
• America and anywhere else?
Are wars between civilizations, or between powerful people who use ordinary people to f'qht their v:h-s?
[See References for further information.M]
Nationalistic ideologies of "them and us" continue and research continues to study how different groups are represented, for example in films and video games/5 and the government funding of film and video game research.'" Games are often contrived to reinforce enmity between peoples. The US Homefront game is based on a fictional invasion of America by North Korea, and the theme was mirrored in the story of the film Olympus is Fallen, and The Interview. Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising presents the Chinese People's Liberation Army as hostile, and the Chinese Glorious Mission, which was originally created for military training, presents the enemy as American.
Present-day ethnography (C6.1) is often described as a study of culture - a 'design for living'.37 Cultural lag proposes that social problems arise because culture does not keep pace with technological innovation.3" Cultural relativism argues that there are no clear relationships between culture and race, nor absolute standards for judging different cultures. Many disciplines adopt cross-cultural approaches, including philosophers3" and psychiatrists."1" Cultural imperialism41 has been a means to increase colonial and neocolonial power. But cultural diplomacy^2 builds on cultural exchanges to improve relationships between nations, and political arts is becoming an academic field of study.43 Cultural studies (which is distinct from area studies) is an interdisciplinary approach using critical theory and literary criticism, which considers the political aspects of modern culture, it makes distinctions such as 'high cultural production' (film, literature, theatre, art, music, new media), and 'cultural identities' (ethnicity, gender, language, social organization), but not necessarily from the perspective of formal governmental politics,'14 Studies often combine ethnographic and other approaches, for example in relation to cross-national research about the politics of food.'5
MOOCs
thinking zone: are MOOCs educational
imperialism?
,.Jhe Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide free or cheap access to American and other English language university courses.
why?
. MOOCs are good advertisements for universities, and countries. But are they also a ■ form of:
cultural imperialism?
• cultural diplomacy?
• soft power?
What is the likely future of MOOCs, and how might other countries, and universities teaching in other languages, respond?
[See References for further information."6]
28
Understanding world research
Theories and concepts in world research
All peoples seem to give rise to elites.47 Classical elite theory is rooted in the work of Italian sociologists Pareto (1848-1923) and Mosca (1858-1941), who argued that personal characteristics, such as organizational skill, create an inevitable distinction between select groups of powerful people and others. Traditional theorists often claimed that elites are morally and intellectually superior.411 International perspectives include The Comparative Study of Elites (1952), which aimed to 'reveal the significance of the vast revolution that is reshaping our contemporary world', on the assumption that, 'by determining what is happening to the elites of societies around the globe...we can test the underlying hypothesis...that a world revolution is under way during our epoch'.4* Future developments may include updates of national elite . studies - including South America,5" Russia,51 Europe52 and East Asia53 - and studies of'global elites'.54
Elites usually perceived crowds - the masses - as a threat. From the Greek notion of oclilocracy (mob rule), tnajoritarianism carried negative implications, as did the Roman word demokratia - rule of the people. J.S. Mill warned of the 'tyranny of the majority' in 1859,i,s and the idea was perpetuated in books such as Extraordinär}' Popular ; Delusions and the Madness of Crowds56 and The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.*7 Following World War I, the concern about crowds continued, for example a Spanish perspective in The Revolt of the Masses,™ and a German view in The Menace of the Herd.''1 Theories evolved to represent polarized perspectives of bad crowds1'" and good crowds.1'1 The advent of the internet revealed the potential of the crowd as a resource, and Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds argued the value of crowd perspectives.''2 The word 'crowdsourcing' was coined by Jeff Howe, a writer for Wired magazine, in 2006, as analogous to outsourcing (2009),":i and crowdsourcing is now becoming an excit-:: ing new research framework (C6.4)."4 But the fear of crowds has not disappeared, and is often manipulated to create a fear of crowds of others, based on race or nationality.. The lesson from history is that, when it suits the interests of elites to present peoples as crowds that threaten security, they will always find supposed research that supports? their views.
Social stratification, whether based on race or other factors, was not a European i invention.135 Jewish tradition delineates judges, kings, priests {Kohen) and prophets:: Korea had five classes - intellectuals {yang-bang), professional and military (jung-in),'-farmers and commercial (nong-sang-inin), untouchables (chun-min) and a slave class (nobi). The Indian caste system divided people into hereditär}' groups - Brahmins,. Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Slutdras, and the alienated 'untouchables'. Stratification is stilli intrinsic within honorifics in languages such as Burmese, Korean and Japanese. Within European sociology, class systems evolve as societies change. In Britain, a 'technical,; middle class' and 'new affluent workers' have been added to traditional categorizations which reflect new forms of cultural capital.'"' Classes may now have greater: international than intra-national affinities - the well-educated middle classes of India,? China, Europe and the Americas may have more in common with one another thaa with the poor, rural or marginalized people in their own countries.
A cosmopolitan''7 perspective promotes an undivided view of humanity and power.';s The cosmopolitan Greeks apparently considered themselves to be 'citizens of the world'. And the Stoics declared allegiance to universal ideas of justice rather than to the city state - 'we should regard all human beings as our fellow citizens and neighbours'."" This concept of global citizens7" and global etliics7' parallels ideas of global justice - a fair distribution of 'goods' and 'bads'.72 Many cities celebrate their diversity, multicultural7* populations, and cross-border families.7' The term social cohesion7* develops previous ideas of cultural assimilation and melting pot.7'' Many individuals see themselves as having multiple identities,77 and Rumford talks of a 'strangeness' as globalization blurs community boundaries and identities.78 Appadurai proposes viewing globalizing society in terms of relationships between 'public worlds' comprising ctlmoscapes, teclmoscapes, fmancescapes, mediascapcs and ideascapes.7'1
When the UN Charter used the phrase, the 'peoples of the United Nations', it prefaced an era of codifying the rights of everyone, and formalized this in the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights (1948). The website explains more. The first international agreement was probably the Declaration of Geneva, which affirmed children's rights and was accepted by the League of Nations in 1923. But tights are not a European invention. The Code of Hamurabi (circa 1790BC) limited the power of ruling elites, and the Persian Cyrus Cylinder (539BC), often called the world's first human rights code, gave religious freedoms and abolished slavery. (It seems that the Iranians abolished slavery 2293 years before the Americans discovered it.) A few Islamic countries objected to the 'universality' of what they saw as a European-American imposition of moral standards, and created the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam in 2000.
The concept of rights usually implies related responsibilities, fulfilled reciprocally by other people, or by states through public services or remedies for wrongdoing. But political leaders often fail to fulfil their responsibilities, and many try to avoid being bound by the same rules as the people.™ Rights are sometimes restricted on the basis of an apparent inability to fulfil responsibilities. Full rights were often denied to indigenous groups, who were perceived as too "primitive" to understand their responsibilities. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) now guides the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and introduces the concepts of collective rights and cultural rights, but the idea of group rights is often questioned.81 Similar arguments delayed giving people with mental disabilities equal rights. The Christian church talked of the 'grave mistake of treating human-looking shapes as if they were human, although they lack the least vestige of human behavior or intellect'.82 The Catholic Church only extended its right of Communion to disabled people who could not state their belief in the Eucharist, in 1983. Even the UN Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons (1971) talked of 'restriction' or 'denial' of rights 'whenever mentally retarded persons are unable...to exercise all their rights in a meaningful way' (Art. 7). This has practical implications, such as
Understanding world research
Theories and concepts in world research 31
the denial of justice to victims with disabilities.*3 The rights of the unborn child, in J relation to toxic environmental impacts, have also been hard to establish, because t they are hard to reconcile with a woman's Tight to have an abortion.81 Paradoxically, | the rights of future generations - intergenerational riglits"' - are also impeded by argu- I ments that unborn people cannot fulfil any responsibilities, as are arguments against J animal rights.8S But distinctions are evolving. Philosopher John Gray reminds us that j humans are just another form of animal.87 § In parallel with these social constructs of humanity as a planetary whole, j advances in science - human biology, psychology, evolutionary theory, archae- § ology - are increasing the understandings of humanity. Mithen's Prehistory of the :| Mind explores the common roots of art, religion and science.as Taylor provides j convincing arguments that Homo sapiens evolved as artificial apes, all humans are intrinsically a technological species, and the use of simple technologies shaped the ) modern brain."5 Bioom envisions the Global Brain as a 'complex adaptive system' of ;l which all human endeavours, including the internet, are interrelated components.5" '| There are now good understandings of why humans tend to be overoptimisfic,91 jf and why positive illusions cause military and political leaders to be overconfident.vz f Kahneman explains why it is useful to understand the difference between the 'fast, | intuitive and emotional' and the 'slower, more deliberative and more logical' use of | the mind.KI | Practical insights for international research are also coming from neuroscience. I Susan Greenfield addresses questions about how the pervasive use of recent technolo- ^ j gies, principally IT, may change the way human minds work,'4 including our sense ;| of identity.''5 Brain imaging shows not only that we share common thought pro- | cesses, but researchers are starting to explain how our brain addresses world problems.. | Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain has been used 'to investigate the . | central problem of distributive justice: the trade off between equity and efficiency'.'6 ?| The researchers examined brain responses while participants considered an aid see- f nario about distributing food equitably in a famine stricken region. The dilemma J was, should they strive to be equitable and distribute food fairly even if it becomes ..f rotten, or be efficient and distribute the food to those nearest to the distribution net J works before it goes bad, but leaving some people to die? In the experiment, a similar:,; scenario was about distributing money and food to children living in an orphanage ;, in Uganda. The study found that two different regions of the brain respond to effi-... ciency and inequity, but a third area 'encodes a unified measure of efficiency and , inequity'. This experiment does not provide instant answers to the problems of global-justice, but it shows that human beings across the world, from government ministers to school children, have the same mental equipment to try to reconcile dilemmas,. like these. '-.
Advances in science increase the understandings of humanity, and raise new.-, questions. Will human enhancement create transhuman generations and then a.:, posthuman condition in which humans cease to exist?"7 Would that amount to,.
rieo-eugenicsT1* Could present-day genetics and neuroscience mutate into another unethical use of science for world research?9' Might humans suffer dysgenics because of changed reproductive or survival behaviour,100 or regressive evolution of the brain because of adaptation to environmental changes?11" Is Cambridge cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, correct ivhen he predicts that a biological virus, or the development of self-replicating artificial intelligence (AI), could mean the end of the human race? How, as he suggests, might exploration beyond Earth help to solve these problems? The Institute for Interstellar Studies considers how human societies would exist in space, and the Centre for Astrobiolog}' works to understand 'life in extreme environments on the Earth and beyond', which may also answer the question: Is there life beyond Earth?
But the most pertinent outcome from recent science is to show that the genetic differences between "races" are marginal. Evolutionary theorists now conclude that all modern humans almost certainly have genetic roots in Africa.1"2 Even culturally distinct peoples, such as Palestinians and jews, share a genetic heritage.10'1 Their conflicts are wars between imagined histories. Neuroscience shows not only that we share common thought processes, but that our brain addresses world problems in a common way.lw Science is also underpinning an extension of human inclusiveness to animals?"15 A court ruling from Argentina, in 2014, concluded orangutans are 'non-human persons', and have basic rights to freedom. However although it seems that we share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, Steve Jones provides a reality check - 'We also share about 50% of our DNA with bananas, and that doesn't make us half bananas.
2.2 Places
'Humanity is decidedly a territorial species...Territorial expansion and defence by tribes and their modern equivalents the nation states is a cultural universal', concludes biologist E.O. Wilson."17 Theories of place (a specific space) consider: the creation of territories, the legitimacy of claims to land, international organizations, non-nation global commons. In practice, claims to territory reflect three justifications: historical, "It's ours because we've always lived here" - passive, "It's ours because we were given it" - or imperialist, "It's ours because we took it." A sense of territory is politicized by demonizing the peoples of other places.
Geography explores the physical and political characteristics of territories.108 In Europe, geographical methods emerged in the 3rd century BC, and focused on physical aspects until the 19th century. Islands were probably the first places to develop a sense of territory' on a large scale. Elsewhere, borders were marked by physical features such as rivers and mountains. Boundaries subsequently became political rather than physical constructs, and diverse 'geographies' have emerged.""
32        Understanding world research * Theories and concepts in world research
in continental regions, castles expanded into walled city states - Ur, Uruk, Canaan. Linked city states appeared around 4O0-S00BC. From the 7th century BC, the Great Wall of China evolved apparently to enclose the emergent states of the Chinese Empire. Present-day city states include Monaco, Singapore, the Vatican,"0 and arguably Pyongyang. Walls remain significant in constructing cities and ; state territory. j City states often merged into empires. The Holy Roman Empire (which was not j Holy, Roman or a true Empire) comprised a string of self-ruling, but loyal, 'Free .; Imperial Cities'. Powerful rulers controlled their domains by giving land to loyal i subordinates - ftefdoms to warriors, principalities to family members and bishoprics ,j to religious leaders. Expansionism entailed moving borders forward into other "j lands, as did China. The ancient Chinese name for the Roman Empire was Daqin j CfcH) - Da suggesting that the Roman Empire was part of the extended 'greater' : ,j Qin state."1 j But as maritime technology improved, strong navies appropriated distant :| colonies, as did Portugal, Spain, Holland and England. These were often populated ! by exporting surplus citizens. Britain was still exporting its unwanted children to : i its former colonies in the 1970s. But colonial theory was not an invention of the s| Renaissance Europeans. Plato's vision of a Republic and its Laws envisaged a state from ;i which any 'surplus' person could simply be exported to the 'colonies' - albeit, 'with >j mutual goodwill between the emigrants and their mother-city'.112 *| Postcolonial writers explain how colonizers legitimized colonial rule,113 including iif collusion with missionaries and anthropologists,"'1 and abused indigenous peoples,.i|j particularly through slaveiy.^ Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth"6 and Edward I Said's Orientalism are seminal postcolonial texts."7 Conversely, Occidentalism consid- !| ers the view of 'the West'."" Neocolonial theories describe how former colonies used | economic, commercial and political influences to prolong their power.11" This con-fl tinues in the form of soft power, by superpowers such as America and the EU,l2l> and. I China's international activities provide a further dimension.121 The concept of softi power was originally Chinese - li (soft) versus fa (hard).122 I Early nations originally comprised people of the same ethnic group, but were ,| not always confined within territorial borders.123 But the concept of 'nation' is not'j precise. Companies, notably the Dutch East India Company, tried to claim the rights j and power of nations, by making laws and signing treaties. Many national claims j are 'invented',124 or 'imagined',125 and conflated with religion.126 Muslims still talk of j their 'nation' or Ummali (^Vi), as meaning the world community of Islamic peoples j who are united by a common history. What is the legitimacy of the Islamic State J (ISIL, ISIS)? : Large historical populations - Egypt, India, China - claim sovereignty on the basts i of being civilizational states.'27 In Europe, the affirmation of the sovereign state is~ usually attributed to the Treaties of Westphalia (1648). These were largely symbolic,125;?! but they provided the bases for the Congress of Vienna (Wiener Kongress) (1S14-1815).....
which tried to affirm borders following the Napoleonic and other wars, the Concert of Europe, and then the League of Nations (1919). (Wikipedia provides a List of sovereign states.) States were often constructed in relation to war, and land rights gave powerful people certain land.12'' Land reform requires the redistribution of land from powerful to less powerful people."" But in reality, the concept of property is arguably always based more on power than claims of ownership.131 The CIA World Factbook maintains a list of territorial disputes.
State theory"2 argues that states should exist in fact (de facto), and in law (de jure). The de jure view135 requires a sovereign state to have a legal personality - it should be accountable in courts such as the ICJ or ECHR. Declarative theory maintains that a state must have a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and be able to have formal relations with other states. Constitutive theory argues that a state is a state if it is recognized as such by other states. State governments claim a national interest (raison d'Etat - reason of the State), reflecting the security and cultural aims of a state.13' Hegemony explains how nations position themselves in relation to the power of other nations. Pluralism describes a mixed-actor model, and a less state-centric view of world systems. In the light of the rise of the BRICS and MINT countries, Kupchan talks of a 'global turn' creating a 'no one's world' in which there are no constant superpowers.135 And what of the self-declared micronationsV3" The legitimacy of states is not as clear as it seems.
thinking zone: how is state status constructed?
Vatican
Vatican City was created by Mussolini and his fascist government though the 1929 latere/? Treaties, It claims state privileges about diplomatic relations, banking Irregularities and child abuse. Yet it has no permanent, independent population. It is a non-member state of the UN Genera/ Assembly, which set a precedent for Palestine to gain the same status.
precedent
How might the case of the Vatican create precedents, about the potential statehood, or . city statehood, of:
• Kosovo
• Taiwan .•Kabul.
• Jerusalem
*. The Gaesong industrial region in Korea (the 'Hyundailand' territory inside North Korea, .. but run by South Korean industries)?
• Islamic State (ISIS, ISIN)
[See References for further information.137]
34        Understanding world research
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35
The United Nations (UN) recognizes around 193 'member' states, two 'observer' and 11 'other', but many are disputed. The territories of discontiguous states -Angola, Argentina, Palestine, Croatia and the USA - are divided by land claimed by other nations. Some regimes have been dubbed collapsed states,'3" fragile states,'3'1 or failed states but the last has no meaning in international law, and seems to have come from the CIA State Failure Task Force. The UN programme on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is increasingly relevant in the context of sea level rise and other changes.14" Protectorates are small countries that have political and military protection by larger countries, in return for political favours.141 Attempts to legitimize these lands include spurious explorers and dubious coats of arms (Figure 2.5). Wikipedia provides Lists of countries and territories and a List of national institutions and symbols.
Sir Francis Drake's arms, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth I in1582.
The "Falkland Islands" arms, created by the British government in 1948.
A sea captain o( Queen Elizabeth I, John Davis, is said to have "discovered" the Isias MaMnas in 1592. But there is little evidence about his existence or voyage. The (British) Falklands' coat of arms reflects that of Francis Drake, but it was only created in 194B.
Calling the Falklands, a 'British Overseas Territory; strengthens the British claim to the nearby 'British Antarctic Territories'. But this is also disputed because the Antarctic Treaty (1959), signed by Britain, precludes sovereignty rights. The British government renamed the Antarctic region 'Queen Elizabeth Land' in 2012, after Queen Elizabeth II, and labelled it a 'British Overseas Territory' on government maps. These claims are therefore spurious.
The creation of nation states also created stateless peoples, who have been recognized by the UN since 1954.142 Some are considered to be refiigees under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refiigees (1951). Environmental refiigees are a new aspect, which is not formalized.'4'' Discussions also continue about unrecognized states - non-nation states, non-self-governing territories and stateless nations - ethnic groups with no territory which claim the status of 'nation'.144 The International Roiuani Union represents 12 million people, talks of becoming a 'non-territorial nation' with its own government and court.
The continents are usually divided into Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia. But Europe and Asia are sometimes called Eurasia. Kegion can mean small local districts and prefectures, or large land masses embracing many countries. The BBC delineates - Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, the US and Canada. The UN M.49 codes comprise nine regions (including 'world'), and sub-regions, for administrative and statistical putposes (Figure 2.6).145 UNSTATS also uses regional categorizations based on development - 'developed and developing regions', 'least developed countries', 'landlocked developing countries', 'small island developing states' and 'transition countries'.
World
Americas
Northern America
Greenland.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Caribbean \ ■ Central America South America
Europe
Northern Europe Western Europe Eastern Europe Southern Europe
Africa
Northern Africa Western Africa Eastern Africa Middle Africa Southern Africa
Asia
Central Asia Western Asia Eastern Asia South-Eastern Asia Southern Asia
Oceania
Melanesia Micronesia Polynesia Australia New Zealand
Figure 2.5   Legitimizing overseas territories
Figure 2.6 The UN regions
S'lime: UNSTATS
36        Understanding world research
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37
Political regions comprise groups of nations with shared economic and political interests - the European Union (EU), African Union (AU), Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Commonwealth (of Nations) is united by a common history of British colonial rule. Similarly, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (CoapyjisecTDo HesamtcriMbix TocyaapcTB, CHT) comprises former Soviet Republics. Academics also use groupings based on shared culture - MENA (Middle East North Africa), WANA (West Asia and North Africa), NAVVA (North Africa-West Asia). The innovative EC concept of Euroregions describes contiguous or non-contiguous areas, based on common interests - environmental problems, fishing stocks, or economic development.148 The United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (TJNU - CRIS) develops regional analysis.117
The concept of global commons extends the tradition of common land to areas : of the Earth and its biosphere (CIO.5), as discussed by the Coalition for the Global Commons, and is acquiring meaning in international law."8 Agreements about the use of cybecspace,lw and the exploitation of minerals on asteroids150 and other planets are -becoming significant. A prognosis by cosmologist Stephen Hawking indicates how : territorial claims may evolve in the future:
I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space..it will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have ail its eggs in one basket, or on one planet.151
Without knowing of Hawking, 'draw and tell' research showed this was already in the ■■ minds of Chinese children, in 2010.
2.3 Systems
The history of international systems is confusing, and significant innovations are | often forgotten.152 The idea of forming 'the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body, to be govern'd by suitable good and wise rules', came from Benjamin.: Franklin, in 1731.153 Kant proposed a 'General Congress of Nations' in Perpetual Peace:} (1795). The Vienna Summit (1815) tried to establish permanent institutions across, Europe.154 A little-known American Consul to England, Elihu Burritt (the Teamed blacksmith'), organized the International Conference of the Friends of Peace in Brussels > in 1848,153 and spoke at similar conferences in Paris chaired by Victor Hugo (1S49), ; Frankfurt (1850) and London (1851) (Figure 2.7). The website provides a brief history of international organizations.
I present to this assembly a proposition [for]...a Congress and High Court of Nations for the regulation of the intercourse and tor the adjustment of Ihe difficulties which may arise between them, according to the principles of justice embodied in a well-defined code of international law... The measure proposed is not American, either in origin or argument. It had taken shape and form in the pubiic mind before America was discovered as a world or born as a nation...The idea of international law ...has come down to us...through Egyptians and Persians, through Greeks and Romans...[Around 1650] a French author, in a work entitled "Le Nouveau Cygne"...proposed the convocation and establishment of a great International Senate, composed of a representative from every recognised kingdom or Government in this world - a body which would not only serve as a perpetual Court of Equity and Arbitration, but also as a standing convention or congress to project and propose great international works of improvement.
Elihu Burriit, Speech at the Peace Congress at Frankfurt,
24 August 1850
Figure 2.7   Elihu Burritt and a Congress of Nations
Itorttelt. E.S. (1897) 'Hilm liiiriltt - The learned ItlackwnlW, New Ea&md W<«.iz*w, June, XV«4): 386.
Within the United Nations (UN),156 organizations have differing status and abilities to create international agreements (Figure 2.8). The Security Council has the greatest power, but its legitimacy is questioned. The Genera! Assembly deals more democratically with world issues, but its decisions are less binding. The UN International Law Commission is the main authority, the system is explained on the UN International Law site, and documents can be found through the UN Documentation Research Guide. The International Bar Association provides professional insights including press analysis.
International law1" is not easy to define, and law internationalizes in different ways:
• international court charters and decisions at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC) and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
• multilateral UN and sister organization {jus gentium) agreements among nations (treaties, conventions, trade rules).
• bilateral (Jus inter gentes) agreements between nations (ODA, border agreements, extradition).
• regional human rights and law (EU, AU, CIS).
• incorporation of international agreements into national law (torture, corruption, human rights).
• national law that extends its jurisdiction to create international reach (international paedophiles, abuse of vulnerable people, pollution abroad, the US 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act158).
America argues that it creates international doctrine through unilateral acts such as the invasion of Iraq, the extra-judical killing of Osama bin Laden and use of drones in other countries. Understanding the differing legal traditions helps to understand the arguments about differing cultural perspectives.151'
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Theories and concepts in world research 39
Resolutions
Any UN body Security Council - generally binding General Assembly - generally non-binding Other-moral obligation
Conventions
UN organizations Binding on states that ratify
Treaties, agreements
Bilateral or multilateral among states or international organizations Binding on signatories
Declarations
UN organizations, conferences Moral obligation, especially on signatories
Statements, frameworks for action, etc.
UN organizations, conferences Mora/ obligation, especially on signatories. Informs national pohcy.
Figure 2.8  The status of UN codes
The UN is only partially democratic, and its future form is not certain."'" It is nei thcr ' truly international nor global, and its decisions are limited by the national interests! of the member states. It therefore has difficulty addressing many issues, such as state crime.161 There are ongoing arguments for UN reform, "'2 and the Centre for UN Reform provides information and a non-state view. I
Theories of globalization describe systems that poten tially affect the whole world, and seem to transcend national boundaries - communications, economic, trade,,,' arts, politics.103 But these systems usually only affect sectors of the world population ; (often the richest) and are usually legally based in nations. So far, there are no
global governments, banks, courts, or companies which completely transcend nations. Gordon Mathews argues that low end globalization - the trade in cheap, 'knock off goods', mainly from China - is the real driver of global change because the effect percolates into the masses in less wealthy countries.""' Emerging global governance1''5 arises from agreements about global problems such as climate change"6and justice."'7 International civil sen'ants'm have a small but significant degree of autonomy. UN organizations demonstrate limited global powers independently of nations."'9 The INGOs,170 social movements171 and an 'international'172 or 'global'173 civil societymaIl contribute to developing international ethics"5 and global ethics.'76
The global or human security framework provides a basis to study international systems and conceptualize the relationships between them, in terms of:177
• political violence - the use of power, through 'soft' influence or 'hard' military force, by nations.
. development - the creation of resources and services to sustain human wellbeing, including humanitarian assistance in response to emergencies.
• environment - the benefits and limits of natural resources.
Across which theories consider human dimensions, agency and institutions."8
This framework is reflected in international agreements. The Helsinki Final Act, among the 57 states of the Organization for Securit)' Co-operation (OSCE), covers politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects of security, including 'arms control, confidence and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities'. This new securit)' framework encourages analysis across relevant areas, for example understanding how water resources are constrained by environmental factors, and that if disputes are not resolved, violence may result.
2.3.1 Political violence
International relations (IR) constructs, describes and studies the bilateral and multilateral systems and their interactions across national borders, principally about peace and security, trade and cultural activities.17- Although IR methods have traditionally been based on history, history is, as A.J.P. Taylor points out, just 'a version of events'.1™ At present the prevailing 'version' within IR is European-American, and asserted, as Wilkinson explains:
The main schools of general theory of international relations (IR) are not proven in any scientific sense: rather they constitute ways of perceiving international relations, metaphors or models which appeal to their adherents because that is the way they prefer to view the world.181
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Theories and concepts in world research 41
And the underlying problem is seen as methodological:
There are many different scientifically valid ways to produce knowledge. The field of International Relations should pay closer attention to these methodological differences, and to their implications for concrete research on world politics.18'
Much of the literature is based on an assumption that the purpose of IR theorization is to defend the "west against the rest".
The criticisms are that IR processes are rarely democratic,'83 are not fully based on international ethics,1"4 do not recognize increasing cosmopolitanism,185 do not include global issues such as health18" and gender,187 lack a self-critical reflexive per- ■■■ spective, ™ and It has been a less international approach than other fields of study.w> . Lewis Fry Richardson provided a rare example of a non-partisan empirical attempt i to measure the causes of war and conditions of peace, through differential equations < and probability theory.1'1" IR theories need to be viewed critically and developed from ' an evidence-based among nations, rather than a defensive between nations, perspec- $ tive. Methods are evolving.1"1
In traditional European-American discourse, there are two main approaches: real- ■? ism (classical-, neo-, offensive-, defensive-, neoclassical-) and idealism (rationalist, liberal, :\ neoliberal). Recent theories blur the distinction and merge ideas from both approaches, | for example liberal realism (English School). In practice, IR is often based on expedi- | ency and 'muddle through' policy. f
Realism (power politics) is associated with Machiavelli's The Prince (1513) and Hobbes' Leviathan (1651). But there are earlier examples from outside Europe. Within ! Hindu tradition, Chanakya (circa 350-283BC), a professor at Takshashiia University and Prime Minister of the Mauri Empire (India), is attributed with compiling the f Artlmshastra ('The science of polities'), which represents a realist manual for auto-! crats.1''2 The German term realpolitik originally meant well-focused policies that were J likely to succeed, and the meaning was not intrinsically negative. Structural realismi proposes that the dynamics of the world system, principally the relative power off states, more often determines political acts and policies.1"3 Neorealism also sees security as paramount, but points to the changes in a globalizing world, and that states are 4 no longer the sole, or most powerful, international actors. Neoliberalist writers argue, on the basis of methodologies such as game theory, that states should aim for absolute f gains - a win-win among nations - not ]ust relative gains to enhance one nation at \ the expense of others."-1 :|
The underlying realist assumptions are that other states are "guilty until proven ' innocent" of actions that are potentially hostile to the national interests of the "home" state, and that the world would become anarchical without forceful national j stances.1"5 Much of the realist debate depends on an 'ontology of anarchy',1'* (! igure : 1.2) which reflects the old 'madness of crowds' ideologies (above), scaled up to apply ' to a global population. Do power elites maintain fear in order to maintain their control? The threats may change their persona - barbarians,1"7 religions, nationalism,
cults, terrorism, cyber-war, environmental and other liberal concerns1011 - but public fear has often been deployed to make the masses easy to govern. Military Keynesianisin argues that politicians use wars to pump money into their faltering economies,1"" and into their own pockets. Is perpetual war, in some form, necessary to all forms of world order? George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four provides the most famous expose,-™ but in earlier writings he questioned the concept of anarchy, and invented the term 'cold war':
...looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity... [T]hat is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of'cold war' with its neighbors.-01
Idealism (utopianism) is based more on moral values and international Jaw, and is reflected in ideas such as ethical foreign policy. Realist critiques argue that the idealist approach ignores "what was and is" (the positivist view), and emphasizes "what ought to be" (the normative view). Functionalist perspectives arose mid-20th century, and saw the common interests of states and non-state entities as of increasing importance.202 Neofiinctionalisiu returned towards a realist view, and argued for integration, rather than unification, within international systems.203 Neo-Gramscian analyses examine power relations more historically, in terms of agency and structure, which circumvents the realist versus stalemate.20'1 Nation states are significant, but so are many other non-state actors, particularly economic institutions and INGOs, and regime theory argues that cooperation between non-state entities influences how states operate.2"3 Neoliberalism provides a more inclusive approach which builds on, and questions, the traditional realist-idealist dichotomy.2"6
Diplomacy should enable 'states to secure the objectives of their foreign policies without resort to force, propaganda, or law'.2"7 The continued use of the term 'foreign policy', and not International policy', by nations reflects the ongoing adversarial ethos of diplomacy. Theories of state diplomacy are also being used by others who work internationally and cross-culturally within states - INGOs, financiers, tourist companies, commercial negotiators. Skills include: negotiation, conflict resolution and cross-cultural communication, which are used for pre-negotiations (talks about talks), around the table discussion, maintaining diplomatic momentum, packaging agreements and following up. Techniques such as constructive ambiguity avoid contentious specifics until there is broad agreement about aims. Mediation among nations is increasingly important, and also between governments and non-state actors.2"8 Strategic moral diplomacy moves forward from the traditional adversarial style and encourages diplomats to acknowledge the 'moral universe' that underpins the vital interests of others, which is especially relevant when religion and similar ideologies are factors.2"' Public diplomacy, through a range of social networking, is of increasing importance, as is cultural diplomacy (above). China's resource diplomacy provides new dimensions.21"
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Theories and concepts in world research 43
Diplomacy often involves trade-offs ("if you do this, we'll do that"), but also tries to f
find coincidences of interest Water shortages in West Asia and North Africa, which are J
more important than minor ethnic disagreements, can provide a basis for agreements j
and systems around which other issues can also be resolved. But alliances can be sur- f
prising. In 2013, a declaration proposed by the UN Commission on the Status of Women, |
to end violence against women and girls, was opposed by Vatican City, Iran, Russia and |
Egypt. A year earlier, when Germany proposed banning circumcision on the grounds I
of child abuse, Muslims and Jews joined together to object. The old quip that diplomats j
are "sent to lie abroad for their country" has taken on renewed meaning in the light of §
Wikileaks,2" and the Independent Diplomat site provides interesting insights. ..§
Regional collective defence agreements are based on the idea that an attack on one .§
country would be treated as an attack on all. The North Atlantic Treat}' Organization f
(NATO) is probably the most active, and the NGO Nato Watch provides critical per- \
spectives. The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Tratado Interamericano de 4
Asistencia Reciproca - T1AR) is based on a 'hemispheric defence' doctrine across the f
Americas. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) (Oprairmamm fl,oroBQpa o ;
KojmeicTHBHoii EesonacHocrn Organizatsiya Dogovora o Kollektivnoy Bezopasnosti) í
has similar aims for Central Asia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ■.
(LMaiŤ4MK) links China and Central Asia, and also fosters economic and cultural ':
interaction. The Community of the Sahel-Sahara States (CEN-SAD) demonstrates that ■■ collective security now includes environmental threats, such as desertification.
The idea of a security regime may be agreed by non-allied countries, such as the US and USSR during the Cold War.21- The League of Nations (above) formalized the idea
of international collective defence, and the UN Charter provides for collective military „,
action, if agreed by the Security Council. Difficulties arise when a nation is in more than . one organization. When Argentina tried to liberate the Falklands (1982), should the US
have assisted its NATO ally, Britain, or its TIAR ally, Argentina? But perhaps the untidy i. plurality of regional defence alliances prevents a major war between power blocs. The
significant hypothetical question is, would any form of attack lead to an agreement • about collective action from the whole world? What if hostile aliens landed?
Traditional conflict resolution methods assume symmetry in the type of violence used,, in international aggression, but asymmetrical relations and conflicts can be much harder to conceptualize and resolve. This was foreseen by George Orwell in 1945:
A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon - so long as there
is no answer to it - gives claws to the weak...But [recently] every development in mili- 1
tary technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised ''■'
country as against the backward one... '
The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon - or, to put it more v.S broadly, of a method of fighting - not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant,213
Digital power groups, such as Luiz Security and Syria Electronic Army, challenge state systems and other digital power elites through hacking and disrupting organizations such as the CIA.21,1 Cyber-war could include attacks on hospitals, water supplies and other vulnerable entities of the high-tech nations. But it could also be a progressive revultionary force against tyrannical regimes which, from some perspectives, might include the US. Nye explores the changing role of technology in state power.215 Novel robotic weaponry2"' - Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) 'Drones' - may cause new dilemmas, particularly Lethal Autonomous Robots (LAU). These could 'track and recognize non-cooperative targets (people of interest) in urban or rural environments',217 through 'Future Attribute Screening Technology' which could detect 'mal-intent' such as terrorist activities.21"
thinking zone; would killer robots
start a war?
killer robots
Smart weapons are now able to take autonomous decisions to kill human beings, without any control by a human being. Some can "eat" bio matter to provide energy to power themselves.
war law
Killer robots could also be programmed to obey the international agreements about war. SO...
1 mould killer robots ever start a war?
• would their autonomous decisions be better or worse than decisions made by humans?
• might they decide to wipe out all humans on the basis of 'pre-emptive action', because we threaten to destroy the planet? If so, would that be ethical?
[Search: Nobel Women's tnitiative. Jody Williams. Killer robots.] [See: film, WALL-E, 2008.]
2.3.2 Development
Short-term humanitarian assistance21" follows wars, disasters and emergencies, which interrupt or impede development. This reflects the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since 1863. The concept of neutrality has been central to the ability of the Red Cross to provide assistance quickly and equitably during wars and other disasters.220 There was an assumption that assistance should cease as soon as possible to avoid disrupting local economies and cultural systems. The UN Office
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for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) now coordinates international |
humanitarian responses to avoid duplication of effort or significant gaps in assistance. |
The term complex emergencies describes the compounding factors of natural and i
human-made threats and vulnerabilities,22' such as the damage to a nuclear power {
station by a tsunami at Fukushima (Japan) in 2011, and the cross-border nature of j
disasters.222 There are no finite definitions of what constitutes an emergency or disas- 1
ter - should it be above a certain size, speed or complexity? Consequently, the level, :l
or absence, of responses is often political rather than needs-based.223 Individual and |
collective resilience is often stressed to redress the impression that people are simply |
helpless victims of emergencies.224 Words such as rehabilitation, reconstruction and res- ;|
toration are also common. But these stem from the postwar reconstruction in Europe J
(see below) where the aim was clearly to return nations to their former condition. In §
present-day emergencies, basing a response on a return to a former condition is often 1
less straightforward.225 Arguably, many humanitarian organizations now function as j
businesses.22" The Humanitarian Futures Programme provides wide-Tanging discussion j
of developments. j
Longer term economic development assistance, to reduce poverty, was initially §
conceived to reconstruct Europe after World War II. The Marshall Plan was quickly j
successful, and the concept was then applied to the so-called Third World countries, M
mainly the former European colonies. Early theories reflected a modernization view |j
of development, which was often inappropriate elsewhere, and did not question the j
assumption that the development of non-industrialized countries could be achieved §
in the same way as the reconstruction of industrial European countries. The ethics of I
Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has to balance helping others in other coun- I
tries, and helping people at home. Peter Singer framed the argument in 1972: |
...there is a conditional duty "to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good...[but] ; j
only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, j
comparably important". This ethic should take "no account of proximity or distance". It is f
therefore a duty to prevent people starving in another country, but not if our "immediate |
group" - family and friends - starves as a consequence.227 I
But that does not consider the complicated ethics of the relationship between donor . and recipient. '
Bilateral aid - ODA from wealthy to less wealthy countries - became a tool of \ the Cold War powers to gain allies around the world. Aid was usually conditional and tied through agreements to buy goods and services from the donor countries. Dependenq> theories argued that the less powerful countries were being made reliant f on the powerful nations, but a few countries, including Tanzania and North Korea, proposed that self-reliance was important. Often funds were wasted or usurped by corrupt politicians.228 Multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, only started to insist on accountability for the money they were spending at the end of the Cold War after 1 1989,22" Structural adjustment programmes then aimed to create stricter controls and si better governance, but often made the daily lives of poor people worse.
The differing donor rationales for aid are rooted in national interests. Harry S. Truman set the ethos of European-American ODA in 1949.23,1 Less is known about Soviet motivation, for example in Afghanistan.23' But by 1994, Soviet premier Boris Yeltsin was planning a Russian Agenc}' for International Cooperation and Development, and Russian ideas became more tangible in 2007 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs paper 'Russia's participation in international development assistance'.232 Other BRICS countries are evolving similar plans. China's large-scale assistance is not in the form of traditional ODA, and Euro-American writers often conclude that the Chinese government provides finance in return for promises to support China in UN discussions about Taiwan and other contested claims, the long-term lease of agricultural land, and access to mines and other resources.233 In 2011, the Chinese government explained its own perspective.234 Whatever the rhetoric, it is clear that in ODA, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".
Assessments of donor contributions are also problematic,235 and politicized. It is often unclear whether or not military aid is included, and aid is increasingly used to remedy the impacts of military interventions, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to achieve NATO security goals, as in Pakistan. Levels of ODA are compiled by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD.236 This index only includes official government donations which promote economic development and welfare, or loans on reduced terms, for DAC members. Private donations are excluded, and in 2009 the top donor countries, in absolute amounts, were: the USA, France, Germany, the UK, Japan and Spain. But if calculated as a percentage of Gross National Income, this becomes: Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain. And if figures from Global Humanitarian Assistance (2010) are used, which includes countries outside the DAC, the top six are: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Russia, India and South Korea.237
Many UN organizations contribute to development, and there is considerable overlap among them. Development concerns reflect the usual public sendees of any country, and there are many common cross-cutting issues such as gender23" and disability.23" The justifications for Education for AH (EFA) include economic-based human capital theories, which see universal education and skills training as the key to poverty reduction. The EFA Global Monitoring Report provides assessments. But is the purpose of education only to improve employability, or is it a basic human right because employment outcomes depend more on economic contexts than individual achievement, or is it essential to ensure positive sun'ival and human security?14" How do schools create and redress conflict,241 including extremism?24- Perpetration theoiy argues that many schools do children physical and mental harm.213 The World Health Organization (WHO) assesses and prioritizes international health demands244 - the spread of infectious diseases, resistance to antibiotics, cheap generic drugs for HIV/ AIDS, the environmental health impacts of war - which often requires complicated international agreements. Global health245 and global public health246 consider world pandemics such as lifestyle diseases (obesity, diabetes, alcoholism), genetics247 and health impacts from environmental change.248 The UN and World Intellectual Property
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Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) work to get agreements about the development implications of intellectual property,2'1' including pharma-ceuticals,2SU and the patenting of traditional knowledge and resources by powerfuL organizations.251 Demographic and lifestyle changes increase the need to consider energy and resource security - including oil,232 land253 and food25'1 - in relation to demand, concentrated production, new producers, new interdependencies, new consumers, short-term flashpoints, policy choice matters and long-term instabilities. The UN-Industiia! Development Organization (UNIDO) assesses mined resources and utilities,255 which are often overlooked within development studies. The Resources Futures website provides visual data,256 and the BBC Global Resources Stock Check an overview.
Since, 1990, European and American donors have emphasized improving democracy and governance through capacity building in ministries, including anti-corruption and accountability systems.257 But this often means the imposition of western-style voting and other systems, and does not account for the fact that 'democracy' simply means 'government by the people', not necessarily a European-style voting system. This can be achieved in many ways, for example, in Japan, by consensus - goi means a 'putting' + 'together' of 'opinions'.25" What would happen if a 'democratic' country agreed to be undemocratic through democratic processes? Of young people in Pakistan, a 2013 study found that 29% believed in democracy as the best political system, 32% preferred military rule, and 3S% Sharia law,251' Many aspects of imposed governance are not truly democratic, for example the creation of constitutions. In. contrast, in 2012, Iceland became the first country to 'crowdsource' its new constitution through Twitter and Facebook (C6.4).
Small countries often provide interesting models. Iceland claims the oldest parlia-; ment in the world, and the Isle of Man's Tynwald is the world's oldest continuous: parliament, existing since 979AD. The International Institute forDemocracy and Electoral Assistance has excellent materials about differing democratic systems across the world.:" China's recent involvement in international development questions the idea of inter-: vention in the governance of countries (above), and this new resource diplomacy.: does not fit the prevailing European-American models.26"
Traditional models for delivering aid reflect polarized top-doivn versus bottom-up:: approaches.2"1 Prescriptive policies argue for a staged approach based on the history: of Euro-American progress, moving through agricultural development, industrial! and technological improvement, to modernity.2''2 This entails involving govern-f ments, and research about capacity building in ministries to ensure there is ability: to 'absorb' aid efficiently.263 Conversely, perspectives that advocate channelling aid' to local people and NGO projects, and avoiding government interference, are usually based on participatory needs assessment research about the micro-problems of poor people.26"1 Strategies such as microfinance - notably the Grameen Bank - aim to empower poor people. Encouraging local initiatives is becoming more significant, for example within the context of atrocities,2'"'5 and the Global Enuepreneurship:.
and Development Index provides ways to assess local business endeavours.266 Put more simply by a British official from UKAID the broad decision is 'whether to give all the money to governments and later wondering where the money has gone, or to fly a helicopter over poor villages throwing dollar notes out of the back, and later wondering where the money has gone'.
Assessing the impact and effectiveness of aid depends on whether the criteria are humanitarian aims - alleviating poverty, improving justice, ensuring gender participation - or political aims - gaining allies, improving trade, power over raw materials. Unsurprisingly, some analysts conclude that development theories have been flawed,267 and ODA is ineffective or harmful,3''8 The OECD Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008) provide a framework for the former, and many related approaches, such as the Development Progress project, are intrinsically optimistic. Counterfactual methodologies ask, would this outcome have happened had the intervention not been made? Amartya Sen talks of improving capabilities - equitably distributed, 'substantive freedoms' such as political participation, and living a full and healthy life. Poverty is measured by the degree to which less wealthy communities can convert natural resources (rubber, minerals, crops) into necessary activities, goods and services (medicines and hospitals, books and schools).26' The Human Development Index provides the relevant indicators, which try to accommodate social development, such as gender equity. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aimed to set an international political agenda for poverty reduction,270 but assessments find that economic growth does not intrinsically reduce poverty.27' The goals will be reframed as Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. The MDG Indicators Dashboard provides ongoing MDG data.
Development studies comprise many, often conflicting, theories.272 The World Bank, Development Stvdies Internet Resources and British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) provide access to documentation. The concept of development is still mainly associated with less wealthy nations. But, of course, development happens, in different forms, within all nations. The focus on less wealthy nations means that much research has studied failure rather than success. That approach can be useful, but there is also much to be learnt from wealthy countries which demonstrate successful development outcomes, such South Korea, which was the world's second poorest country in 1946. The development of Chtna27J should be a major interest, not least because China now deploys the lessons from that experience within its own form of ODA (above).271 The international concern should be that certain problems of development are currently more urgent in some places than in others, and that this is not only about economic issues. Arguably, the future conceptualization should be global development.275
International economics concerns trade, investment and the monetary system,276 and the study of legal277 and political27" aspects such as centrally planned economies and economic collapse. Indicators used to measure and compare national economies reflect the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. But this
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is problematic, and technological change provides challenges for traditional economics. | The distinction between goods and services is increasingly clouded, for example by I investment in software or systems design which does not show up as 'production' | in standard assessments. Macroeconomic measures, such as Gross Domestic Product } (GDP) and Gross World Product (GWP), do not show whether wealth is spread evenly I among that population. These indicators calculate the measurable market value of j transactions, and count the same cash many times. Microeconomic theorists argue | that these measures ignore significant economic exchanges such as barter transac- | Hons, and feminist theorists point out that non-cash labour, such as housework and | caring for children and elders, is not valued.2™ I
Environmental economists argue similarly that the negative costs of environmen- | tal impacts are deemed externalities and ignored (below). The standard indicators | measure flows of money but not whether that money adds true value, is wasted, f or simply pays to correct avoidable mistakes. In 1850 Bastiat proposed his broken J window fallacy?*" which argued that smashing windows could be seen as good for :j the economy, because of the wealth theoretically 'created' to mend them. Industrial j pollution, conflicts and car crashes can all increase GDP as money flows around for :| medical costs, legal fees and cleaning up environmental toxins (below). Similarly, J military Kcynesianism explains how war can be good for economies (above). §
International financial systems are managed by the UN 'sister' {Bretten Woods) f organizations. The World Bank was originally financing development projects through | loans or grants, initially to foster American and European Cold War allies, but soon | after 1989 it changed its emphasis towards being a 'knowledge bank' providing e.xper- | tise, advice and resources to improve development. The Asia Development Bank (ADB) J and African Development Bank are similar. The International Monetär)1 Fund (IMF) pools j money from wealthier countries, so that countries with financial problems can take j short-term loans, but assessing why countries takes loans, and the outcomes of con- 4 ditionality and austerity programmes, is complicated.-81 The more recent World Trade 1 Organization works to liberalize international trade, and replaced the old General <\ Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is based on five principles - non-discrimi- ; nation, reciprocity, binding and enforceable commitments, transparency and 'safety ä valves' - and has been a focus for activists and protesters, notably at the 'Battle of j Seattle' in 1999.282 World systems currently tend towards a neoliberalist perspective which promotes reducing the public sector and increasing the private sector, through privatization and deregulation, and free trade and open markets across the world.-'11 i
Perceptions of global capitalism scale up state-based concepts,281 and discuss dif- ' fering versions such as state capitalism in China,285 and why capitalism seems to work best in 'western' countries.286 Economists seem to understand global markets *; convincingly, but not the whole capitalist system. In the wake of the collapse of the..„. Soviet Union, Fukuyama erroneously predicted the 'the end of history' which would culminate in capitalist liberal democracy across the whole world,287 Mulgan argues that the balance of predatory and creative mechanisms must be maintained or the former
dominates through illusory financial mechanisms that do not create genuine wealth, and also make financial risk assessment very difficult. He cites Estonia, Iceland and Brazil as examples of a return to people-based economic systems which reaffirm human values and genuine productivity, and hold wayward politicians and commercial leaders to account. Sao Paulo has banned public advertising, and 1% of its GDP is ring-fenced for innovation that benefits the public.2™
The idea of cognitive capitalism2"" considers how highly intelligent physicists290 and mathematicians are employed within the financial sector to devise algorithms and IT systems that play the financial markets, using large sums of money to make significant profits in seconds. The experts are content because they enjoy playing an intellectual game on a world scale, and the managers are happy because they make a lot of money. The problem is that neither group understands what the other is doing. The result of High Frequency Trading ('algorithmic trading') is inexplicable financial crashes. During the '2010 Flash Crash', the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell around 1000 points (9%), and recovered, within a few minutes, because of erratic computer behaviour. The reasons are still not fully understood.2'11
Global financial crises-'2 have inspired innovative critiques of traditional economics and financial systems.2"3 Forecasting is very unreliable. An IMF study found that there was a 97% failure among economists to predict 60 national recessions in the 1990s, and the other 3% underestimated the severity.294 Yet philosopher John Gray's False Dawn foresaw the problems underlying the crashes of the new millennium, in 1998,™s Amato and Fantacci predict The End of Finance.'1"'' Acemoglu and Robinson assess Why Nations Fail and compare exploitative extractive institutions within which elites appropriate resources from the population, with inclusive institutions that are equitable and law abiding.(Other definitions of 'extractive economies' describe countries with a 'substantial non-renewable mineral and energy resource extraction activity', which can be related to national development and poverty.2"1) Keen asks why private debt is ignored by traditional economists.2'1" The global chief economist at HSBC warns that 'western' growth is a 'historical anomaly', and that the failure of current financial systems could lead to social upheaval.300 A fundamental question is posed by the NGO, Positive Money, where does money come from? It seems that even the Bank of England cannot answer the question. More importantly, where does money go, in the fog of 'inflation'? In the UK, in the years 2010-2013, inflation amounted to a 'stealth tax' on the whole population of 11%.30' About 97% of the world's cash now exists solely in cyberspace,1"2 which seems no more secure than Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), or Bitcoin and other global e-money systems.3"1
Although economic success has been predicted on the idea of infinite economic growth, many authors question the assumptions.3"4 In 1972 the Club of Rome warned of the Limits to Growth,™ and the argument has been continuously repeated and refined.2"''' There has been an assumption that the improved wealth of a nation equates with improved wellbeing. But in The Spirit Level, Wilkinson and Pickett provide convincing evidence that human wellbeing is correlated with the income inequality3"7
50
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between the richest and poorest people in a nation, not the gross wealth of the nation, 1
Therefore the child wellbeing in countries like America and Britain is lower than in I
some less wealthy but more equitable nations, such as Portugal.308 Stiglitz assesses the J
causes and economic impacts of inequality.30'1 The worldwide protests of the Occupy i
Movement operationalized public concerns about wealth inequity.310 8
Economic theories are clearly in need of fresh thinking, and linking with real-world " value in relation to environmental resources. In 1981, Nico Colchester provided an
example when he argued that Mars bars would be a better unit of account ('gold stand- ;;
ard'), for assessing and comparing economies over long time periods,3" than currency ..
which changes value because of inflation, or gold. In 2013, gold fell around 22% ■ in value, which put it in the category of 'bear market'. As the Mars bar comprises a
number of staple commodities - cocoa, vegetable fats, milk solids, sugar - the real- ■ world value was more consistent and genuine than that of currency or gold bars. The
theory could be applied to international convertibility, transatlantic arbitrage, and ; how consumption limits money supply. Colchester showed that, although a young
1CI employee would have earned £275 in 1940 and £5700 in 1980, that is not an 6 impressive increase. In Mars bars the increase would only have been from MB33.000
to MB3 8,000. The Economist Big Mac Index assesses purchasing power parity, and simi- ■
lar indexes are based on baked beans, popcorn, lipstick and dating agencies. The logic ;
is fun, but also thought provoking. i
thinking zone: should water be the "gold standard"?
value
Water is finite and chemically irreplaceable. Without fresh water (2.5%), there would be no life, and we would be dead within a week. Without sea water (96.5%), the Earth's life support systems mould collapse. Water is also vita! For industrial processes and hygiene. ;
price ......
The price of fresh water as a 'commodity' relates to its availability to a particular popula-tion, and is affected by factors such as pollution, desalination technology, temperature, i infrastructure costs.
the "LFW"
If an Australian earned AUD$100,000 in 2Q0B, and the same in 2013, and the cost of-: fresh water doubled in that period, at an 'exchange rate' of AUD$0.003 per litre, what is the change in the value of that salary in "Litre of Fresh Water" (LFW) currency?
[Answer: LFW333.333 to 166.66]
Are there any faults with this argument?
(See References for further information.312]
2.3.3 Environment
Meteorology provided the bases for understanding what we now call 'the environment'. The foundations were not only scientific, but based on the international systems of weather observation and UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The relationship between weather and climate became significant following Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orbit around the Earth in 1961, and the spaceship to Venus in 1969, as humans started to realize the fragility of their planet. Soviet innovation created the race for Cold War space supremacy, and the resultant US moon landing in 1969, which inspired the international environmental movement.
NGOs took the lead - the World Wildlife Fund (1961) in Switzerland, Club of Rome (19681 in Italy, Friends of the Earth (1969) in America and Britain, and Greenpeace in Canada (1970-1972).313 Adlai Stevenson used the term 'spaceship earth' at a UN conference in 1965, and Barbara Ward produced a book of the same name a year later.314 The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded by President Richard Nixon in 1970, Ward wrote Only One Earth with Rene Dubos following the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference) in 1971,115 and in the same year the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran a 'radio symposium on the environmental crisis', Balance and Biosphere.'"' In 1972, the Club of Rome produced its report, Limits to Growth, on 'The Predicament of Mankind'.317 As a result of the Stockholm Conference, the UTs! Environment Programme (UNEP) was founded in 1972, and the EC (later EU) created its first Environmental Action Programme in 1973.
After 10,000 years of warring human civilizations, the peoples of the United Nations had started to agree how to formalize the protection of their collective territory, within the short period of a decade. The concept of international envi-ronmentalism was born. Early conceptualizations were mainly Malthusian - that there were limits on the number of people that the Earth's resources could support. But subsequent theoretical frameworks were innovative, cogent and comprehensive, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring (1962) argued the dangers of DDT, and the unknown risks of environmental pollution.318 Lifton's Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967) warned of the hideous outcomes of nuclear war,3"'Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1973)32" provided the basis for environmental economics, and James Lovelock's Gain (1979)321 inspired a holistic Earth system science. In the late 1970s Green Parties in Belgium and Germany gained parliamentary seats.
But the originators of environmental activism were Japanese. Polluted wastewater, including mercury, had been dumped in Minamata Bay by the Chisso Company between 1908 and 1968.322 The response was activist fishermen's alliances and cooperatives, and large-scale protests winning compensation in 1926, 1943, 1958, and the movement is ongoing. This predated American and European environmental activism, and contributed to the democratization of Japan.121 But little was known of this outside japan. Language was a barrier, the postwar world did not provide the right context for perceiving Japanese people as 'victims', and
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postwar geopolitics dictated that everything progressive should be seen an originating in America.
The collaboration between NGOs and the UN in the 1970s had taken national ; governments by surprise and, as industrialists realized that this movement was ■; likely to reduce their revenues, pressure was put on governments to reassert :; national interests and subvert summit conferences about environmental threats.321 i In 1987 the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) introduced the pragmatic concept of sustainable development, and the need to balance 5 development needs with environmental limitations was affirmed in the Brundtland j Report, Our Common Future. But this was often interpreted to equate 'develop- j ment' with unhindered industrial and economic growth. The UN Earth Summit | (1992) produced the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the Forrest Principles315 and Agenda 21 which could be implemented locally, and the Convention j on Biological Diversity was opened for signature. The South Africa follow-up in 2002 ::| created agreement about fisheries,32(1 but the virtual boycott by the US frustrated j efforts to move forward. The 2012 follow-up in Qatar seemed to achieve very little, *j except to formalize the idea that environmental services should be incorporated into |I economic measures. Only seven agreements started, 'We commit', whereas 50 used j 'We encourage'.327 § In parallel, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and subse- s| quent Kyoto Protocol (1997-2005) created binding obligations on countries to reduce J emissions of greenhouse gases.32S It was supported by all major countries except the US, | which usually signs but rarely ratifies international agreements. 3211 In 2011, Canada,?! Japan and Russia withdrew. Although Canada had shown a lead in environment j awareness in the 1970s, it might, like Russia, gain access to new resources if the cli- A mate warmed and ice melted. Although radical change to the agreement was arguably | needed,33" the efforts to amend and renew the agreement in 2012 were fraught. The -J Alliance for Climate Protection and Wiki Portal Global Wanning provides ongoing data, j The outcomes of these conferences in terms of international environmental 1 law are complex,331 but the main international principles include sustainability, | polluter pays, precautionary principle, transparency and freedom of information andj intergenerational justice."1 Mechanisms include quotas, tradable emissions permits % and taxes on pollution. A practical problem, from an international perspective, ( has been how to extend principles and practice across borders, regionally and | globally,333 for example about transboumlan1 pollution. Areas of domestic law are j internationalizing by extending common law on homicide and injury, health | and safety and damage.33'1 But victim nations, which suffer cross-border impacts, j such as acid rain and radioactive fallout, are reticent to seek redress, because they j might set precedents that are later used against them. Nation-based law cannot create internationally equitable environmental law. There is a need for a legal mechanism that can, when necessary, supersede national interests, and reflect a 'common', global or planetary interest/"'5
Theories and concepts in world research i3
In America, the idea of environmental justice started in the 1980s. Initially it related to activist groups, but later became an academic field of study,336 assessing issues such as market mechanisms.337 The US EPA formally recognizes the movement. In parallel, the concept of green criminology,"6 and discussions of environmental victims analyse the human outcomes of events such as the Union Carbide poisoning in Bhopal, oil pollution in the Niger Delta and the Chisso mercury poisoning at Minamata Bay (C10.9).33'' Distinct problems include establishing causation, the legal status of the unborn child, victim syndrome and environmental blackmail. Justice systems are not well prepared to address these novel types of victimization.1'1"
Environmental economics assesses the effects of policy and human behaviour on the environment, which challenges traditional ideas.331 Since 2000, China has discussed theories of a circular economy, based on recycling.3'12 Population increase demands new economic theories.3'13 Environmental impact assessments (EIA) predict negative and positive outcomes of projects, on people and place, hopefully before they are implemented.3'4 Valuations of the environment can be assessed in terms of natural resources and ecosystem services,'"5 and the degree to which these are global/ public goods which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Traditional economics, based on measures such as GDP (above), has often discounted the environment as an externality.346 Arguably measures of wealth creation should include concomitant irreversible Toss costs',317 and the idea that less wealthy countries should receive aid for 'loss and damage from climate change' gained legal meaning for the first time at the 2012 Climate Change Conference in Qatar.31" Ecological economics builds on ecological ethics.1''-' It reverses the basis of traditional economics, and puts the ecosystem central and economics as a human subsystem,™' which makes environmental seivices, biodiversity and species loss more significant.
The ecological footprint is an ambitious measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems.331 Usage is compared with biocapacity - the ability of land and sea to produce and dispose of human-made resources. The 'overshoot', by 2007, indicated that humans needed 1.51 planets to sustain their existence. The National Footprint Accounts relate to 200 countries, but international trade makes conclusions difficult. If China manufactures American electronics, which then are bought in Europe, which country footprint should be debited with the environmental costs?-152 Ongoing debates are managed through organizations such as the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), International Society for Ecological Economics (1SEE) and Institute for Green Economics.
Ulrich Beck's vision of the risk society333 extends to global environmental aspects,351 particularly to uncertain concerns such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Many of the risks represent what Prins terms, 'threats without enemies' - new security problems which demand military scale responses, but radically different ideas such as the need to counter 'lock-in' and 'linear thinking'.355 The concepts of creeping disasters, slow emergencies, or long wave events35" describe problems that humans do not recognize because they are too slow or too vast, such as loss of biodiversity, air
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pollution and marine degradation. Our evolutionary mind3sr is attuned to hazards such as fire, but 'brain lag' means we do not readily perceive new threats such as UV : radiation. ■>5S
Philosophers now consider the 'threats to humanity's future' in terms of existential : risk and prevention359 and Cambridge University runs a Project for Existential Risk. The Club of Budapest argues for the creation of a holistic multidisciplinary international approach to survival studies, which links new understandings from brain science, ; ecology, economics, governance and ethics.-1''" Some theories seem counter-intuitive, for example that increasing diversity can increase risk, because there are more things ■■ to go wrong.361 Framing environmental risk in terms of security has the potential ; to create a problem-led, or solution-oriented, approach which precludes simplistic j mono-disciplinary approaches. The problem, as Prins (above) points out, is that 'You j can't shoot an ozone hole.'
The goal of preventing environmental harm has shifted to mitigating the worst J impacts. This has culminated in literature that is apocalyptic,^1 again reflected in J book titles. The authors are leading scientists, academics, politicians, from a wide j range of disciplines, not sensationalist amateurs. Canadian philosopher John Leslie's J The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996)363 was followed by biologist E.O. Wilson's warning about species extinction in The Future ofi Life (2002),3M and Our Final Century: Will Civilisation Swvive the Twenty-First Century?! (2003) from British Astronomer Royai and President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees.3"5 Australian philosopher Clive Hamilton explains, 'why it is now too late' in Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (2010).3fi* Jamesl Lovelock returned with a pessimistic postscript in The Vanishing Face of Gain: A Filiate Warning (2009).-'" The idea that the planet had entered a new historical period wasf reflected in Paul Dukes' Minutes to Midnight: History and the Anthwpocene Era from% 1763, ivhich took as its starting point the Doomsday Clock created by the Manhattan! Project physicists in 1947,™ a sentiment also reflected in the Doomsday Handbook}^ Existential risks include climate change, infectious diseases, nuclear war and vulnera^f ble e-based systems. But might apocalyptic information create a self-fulfilling prophecy^ as people either give up and live selfish short-term lives, or go into denial about environmental problems?370 j Contrasting perspectives came from 'deniers', who were often organized by the oil industry and other interest groups.371 Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist! (2001) questioned the whole environmental movement.372 A belief that there are tech-J nological solutions was demonstrated by Mark Lynus in The God Species: Saving the Planet] in the Age of Humans (2011),373 which advocated the potential of nuclear power and genetic engineering. Geoengineering aims to mitigate global warming dirough reducing j solar radiation, with technology such as space mirrors, and removing carbon dioxide [ with techniques including ocean iron fertilization.37'1 The proponents are often fioin industries that would benefit from developing the systems. In Earth Masters: Playing Gad with the Climate, Clive Hamilton raises the obvious concern - engineering on this scales cannot be tested before irreversible application, and the amount of technology and
energy to remove carbon would need to equal that which produces the carbon, which will itself produce more carbon.375 Philosopher John Gray argues the need for caution:
Late modern cultures are haunted by the dream that new technologies will conjure away the immemorial evils of human life...[But there] is no power in the world that can ensure that technology is only used for benign purposes. Partly that is because we cannot agree on what those purposes are. Partly it is because even when enough people are agreed there is no power that can enforce the consensus. The institution which we would have to rely on for such enforcement - the modern state - is not up to the job.376
The start of international awareness about environmental problems was optimistic and human-centred, but has ended in pessimism and advocating techno-fixes. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn famously argued that knowledge and research do not proceed in a neutral manner following their own internal logic and laws, but instead reflect scientific paradigms - widely accepted sets of ideas 'that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners'.377 'Paradigms' are often shaped by socio-economic demands and intellectual fashion. It is interesting to consider how he would have assessed the environmental literature.
Innovative ethics emerged in 2008 when Ecuador's new Constitution declared that 'nature...has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution'.378 The concept of ecocide,37" suggests that the planet Earth has rights, and raises the question, are all humans guilty of this crime? Whatever the disagreements, the recent realization is that the territory of the peoples of Earth is finite and entropic. We now know that sometime, the planet will die. The real politick questions for international research are how might we hasten or defer that end, how can we mitigate harmful effects on the species, and how do we respond to that inevitable decline fairly across the entire planetary population without violence? Alternatively, we can take the advice of English philosopher Bertrand Russell: 'The universe is unjust. The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.'™
thinking zone: what is your water footprint? industry
Industrial water use comprises:
• World: 22% of total water use. ••  High-income countries: 59%, ;*  Low-income countries: 8%.
:Annual usage will rise from 752 kmVyear in 1995 to around 1,170 km3/year in 2025. ■Source: UNESCO World Water Portal - World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP)
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footprint
'A water footprint, or virtual water, is the amount of water used in the entire production and/or growth of a specific product. For example, 1 kilogram (2.2 ibs) of beef has a water footprint of 16,000 liters (4,226.8 gallons); one sheet of paper has a water footprint of 10 liters (2.6 gallons); one cup of tea has a water footprint of 35 liters (9.2 gallons); and one microchip has a water footprint of 32 liters (8.5 gallons).' Source: Circle of Blue (2013) '10 things you should know about water'.
• should, but rarely, consider major changes.
• can be based on the global/human/dew' security framework - political violenc development and environment.
"throwing money down the drain"
It costs: 5 litres of Fresh Water (FW) to make a 1 litre plastic water bottle. So the FW cost of a. bottle: of water is FW6 litres.
: IrlJFW, that.isiike paying $6 to buy %\. (And in many countries the same water is virtually free, from the tap.) .....
; How can other arguments like this help us to save water?
-—•—-—-main ideas ——-----------—-------
When using international theories and concepts consider the European-American bias, and unsubstantiated assertions and rhetoric, Theories about peoples have often been used to promote:
• the demeaning of 'others' - ethnocentric, xenophobic, supremacist, exceptionalist, racist and eugenicist ideas.
• cultural imperialism to impose colonial culture on others.
But other approaches have increased understanding through:
• historical assessments of why civilizations come and go.
• ethnographic methods that create accurate perceptions of different cultures. ■  developing concepts of human rights and global justice.
»  explaining cosmopolitan views of humanity.
■>  evidence-based science which shows our common genetic roots, and can help to predict future changes.
Theories of place are based on geography and territory, and consider:
• the legitimacy of claims to land, including nations and regions.
• empires and colonialism.
• the governance of global commons.
Theories of international systems:
• reflect the work of the United Nations, and international law.
• consider the possibility of global governance.
— key reading _
Appiah, K.A. (2006) Cosmopo/jranisni; Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: W.W, Norton.
Hough, P. (2013) Understanding Global Security. London: Routledge.
Laszlo, E. and Seidel, P. (eds) (2006) Global Survival. New York: Select Books.
Malesevic, S. (2013) Nation-States and Nationalisms. Cambridge: Polity.
Seth, S. (ed.) (2012) Postcolonial Theory and International Relations: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.
Weiss, T.G. (2012) W/iat's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It. Cambridge: Polity.
------------------------------online resources —-—---------------
To access the resources - search on the name in italics, use the http, or search on the generic term in 'quote marks'.
Methods for assessing civilizations - www.ianmorris.org/docs/social-developmentpdf
NASA Landsat. Google Earth. National Geographic - satellite maps
Oymaxion Map - the Buckminster Fuller projection showing the continents as a near-contiguous land mass
Globaia - cartography of the anthropocene - maps of the human impact on the world -http://globaia.org/en/anthropocene/
UN structure and organization - explanations and links to most of the UN system UN International Law site - www.un.org/en/law/index.shtml UN Rule of Law - www.unrol.org
International Bar Association - professional legal perspectives
UN Documentation Research Guide - www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/index.html
CIA World Factbook
Wikileaks - open access to confidential and other government documents
Independent Diplomat- a dynamic non-state perspective - www.independentdiplomat. org/
MDG Indicators Dashboard - ongoing Millennium Development Goals data - http://esl. jrc.ec.europa.eu/dc/mdg_unsd/index.htm