International Relations Theory

Nemzetközi Politika Elmélet - Nemek közötti egyenlőtlenségek. Szuverenitás. Terrorizmus. Környezetvédelem.György László

egyetemi tanársegédBME GTK, Pénzügyek Tanszék, Gazdaságpolitika és Gazdaságtörténet Szakcsoport

4 Issues in IR

Gender Sovereignity

Terrorism Environment

Questions

1. Concrete content of the issue: what is it we should study and why?

2. Consequences of the issue for core problems in IR: war and peace, conflict and cooperation, wealth and poverty?

3. Nature of theoretical challenge: does the issue demand new approaches or can it be covered by traditional approaches?

4 Issues in IR

Gender Sovereignity

Terrorism Environment

Gender Inequality

Property

Heads of state and cabinet ministers

Work hours

Total income

Illiterates

Refugees

0 25 50 75 100

Women Men

Gender Inequality

• Have nothing to do with objective differences between men and women

• We presently live in a gendered world in which values associated with ‘masculinity’ (e.g. rationality, activity, strength) are assigned higher value and status than values associated with ‘femininity’ (e.g. emotionality, passivity, weakness)

Further Signs of Subordinate Position of Women

• Much work done by women is invisible and unpaid• $23 trillion recorded world output in 1993 plus $16

trillion hidden as household and community work. $11 trillion of it was accumulated by women (HDR, 1995)

• Workload differences burdening women• Japan 7%+• Austria 11%+• Italy 28%++

• India 69 hours/week (w), 59 hours/week (m)• Nepal 77 hours/week (w), 56 hours/week (m)

Alleged Causes

• Gendered thinking in world politics (masculine issue areas of realism and the economic system)

• Would there be bigger role for women, would there be less war and conflict...(?)

• What else? (Switzerland)

• Paul Kennedy: literacy and fertility

Theoretical Developments

• Liberal feminism (neoliberal republicanism)• Same access as men to economic activities and

education• More space in world politics and politics overall

(eliminate unequal access to power and influence of men and women)

• Examine IR ‘from below’• Marxist/socialist feminism: see woman as second class

citizens in capitalism (only solution is the overthrow of the capitalist system)

• Radical feminism• Structural violence: the oppression and hardship that people

suffer from political and economic structures that subject them to unequal positions

4 Issues in IR

Gender Sovereignity

Terrorism Environment

Terrorism

• The precise definition of terrorism raises several problems• Revolutionary violence or terrorism (Fatah)• Who is the sponsor?• Who are the victims?

• Most terrorism is national• "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group

called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity…the country behind this propaganda is the US" - Pierre-Henry Bunel, former French military intelligence

False Flag Operations

False Flag Operations

• Covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as carried out by other organizations

• Sir Frank Kitson: Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (1971)• Operations officer in Kenya• If you got a nationalist organization that you want to

discredit, set up your own nationalist organization with the same name, send them out, let them make tremendous atrocities, blame on the original one and gain political support to defeat them

• Pseudo-gang making

Global War on Terrorism

4 Issues in IR

Gender Sovereignity

Terrorism Environment

Climate ChangeTechnology

What can technology bring us?

Climate ChangeTechnology

Climate ChangeTechnology

• Passive house concept: heating less than 15 kWh/m2/year (normal house: 200-300 kWh/m2/year)

• Geothermal Energy: Kistelek. (Investment: HUF 500 million, 70% savings on heating, HUF 40 million/year, plus zero CO2 emission) • capacity: 50 PJ/year, current usage: 3,6 PJ/year

• Hydrogen economy: American Honda uses solar panels to extract hydrogen from water (July 2001) in its plant near Los Angeles, producing hydrogen to drive a single fuel cell vehicle for one year.• Even Hydrogen from fossil fuel will reduce CO2 emission by 40%

• Methanol economy (György Oláh): to make methanol from CO2 and Hydrogen• At the envisaged plant, about 150-160 tonnes of CO2 emitted from its plant

in Osaka, western Japan, will be combined with hydrogen to produce about 100 tonnes of methanol a year. ($13,4 million investment)

Climate ChangeTechnology

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Station

Climate ChangeTechnology

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

AT SE LV PT SL FI SK ES DK IT FR EL IE DE UK NL CZ PL LT BE CY LU EE MT HU

%

2004

Cél 2010

Green energy production (2004) and expectations (2010) in the European Union

Climate ChangeTechnology

Climate ChangeSolution

Politics + Technology

Climate ChangeThe Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will•Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the

pump•Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150

billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.

•Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.

•Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.

•Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

•Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

• $4400 billion into clean energy until 2030• 88% of energy production covered by wind, solar and

geothermal energy in 2030• 90% of new sold cars and 42% of al cars would be

hybrid• 48% CO2 emission reduction in 22 years

Climate ChangeGoogle: Clean Energy 2030

• Is $4400 billion a big amount or not?

• 1 % of US GDP

• $1500 billion was spent on bailout within 1 month!!!

Climate ChangeGoogle: Clean Energy 2030

Climate Change

Conclusion

We have the resources to build a sustainable society with less rivalry and scarcity

and more peace...

4 Issues in IR

Gender Sovereignity

Terrorism Environment

What Is Sovereignity?

• Sovereignity = external independence + domestic authority

• State enjoys political independence from other states• Sates are juridically equal under international law• The government has supreme authority to give and

enforce the law within its territory

Challenges On Sovereignity

• Global market forces, environmental concerns, global communication systems

• Development of norms, international protection of human rights

• Domestic monopoly of violence is challenged