Review: Evaluating Political
Globalization
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Is political globalization good or bad?
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A system of genuine cooperation?
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Or a mask for domination (by the
U.S., the West, the North, etc.)?
Review: Evaluation
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There’s a huge rise in democratically
organized cooperative forms, which to
some extent level the playing field
among nation-states.
But to some extent cooperative forms
enhance the capacities of the
dominant to dominate (by making
domination cheaper and easier).
Review: Evaluation
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Military spending remains wildly uneven,
with the U.S. far ahead of rivals.
But maybe military spending is so high
because the U.S. is losing its grip….
Application: Hotel Rwanda
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 1, we said a global polity is:
-a global system to defend public
goods – peace and security
-a global system to advance public
interests – economic and social
development
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Movie suggests failure of global polity
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At least 800,000 killed
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Neither peace and security nor
economic and social development
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 2, we stressed the defining features of our
present-day global polity:
– It is stateless (and thus powerless)
– It is democratic
– Its primary constituents are sovereign
nation-states (political units consisting of
autonomous states make up of peoples
sharing a common culture, history, and/or
language)
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Rwanda does not fit definition of
“nation-state;” it was created by
Belgian colonialists
In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic
group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several
years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in
neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel
group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990.
The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated
ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in the genocide of roughly 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and
ended the killing in July 1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania,
Uganda, and Zaire.
(CIA World Factbook 2009)
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Even “Hutus” and “Tutsis” may be
colonial/racial constructs (Tutsis lighter skinned,
taller, with bigger skulls)
The ideas surrounding real and supposed ethnic groups
in Rwanda have a very long and complicated history.
The definitions of "Hutu" and "Tutsi" may have changed
through time and location….When the Belgians
colonists conducted their censuses, they desired to
classify the people throughout Rwanda-Burundi with a
single classification scheme. They merely defined
"Tutsi" as anyone with more than ten cows or a long
nose.
(Wikipedia 2009)
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Nation-state sovereignty means world
cannot/will not intervene in “internal
affairs”
Was it civil war or genocide?
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 3, we discussed political globalization
at the organizational level
– International treaties, IGOs, INGOs
– UN forces, not US forces
– International Red Cross
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 3, we also discussed political
globalization at the country level
What “nation-states” are, what they can
do, and how they interrelate
Utterly conventional in form…
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications
/the-world-factbook/geos/rw.html
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 3, we also discussed political
globalization at the personal level
The world affirms the citizenship status
of all persons
The world imbues all persons with
human rights: civil, political, social
Application: Hotel Rwanda
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Day 4, we conducted an evaluation
Is the global polity a system of
cooperation or a system of
domination?