My international relations course (1)
This evening, I started a course at the City Lit in central London. The course – which will run for an evening each week for 12 weeks – is entitled “International Relations And World Conflict”.
Our lecturer is an American called Dr Dale Mineshima-Lowe. There are supposed to be 32 students but not all turned up for the first session. Of those who have so far made an appearance, I’m the second oldest.
This first session was very introductory and revolved around discussion of what we mean by international relations. Essentially IR is about the relations between states, but:
- States are very different in size and resources and in their political and legal systems.
- Some ‘states’ are not universally accepted as such – think of Palestine, Western Sahara, Tibet, Taiwan – while some ‘regions’ want to be states – think Basque, Kurdistan, Kashmir.
- There are important other actors in IR such as international bodies like the United Nations, international groupings like the European Union, and non-governmental organisations like Amnesty International.
- Many international problems – such as poverty, crime, climate change – transcend national boundaries.
It’s going to be a fascinating course.
Footnote: On my web site, I have a short essay discussing the nature of nationhood and specifically addressing the questions: How do we define a nation state? Who decides whether a territory is to constitute a state? How do we deal with those who do not identify with the state? You can read it here.