Introduction to International Relations

Non-state actors are individuals or organizations that have powerful economic, political or social power and are able to influence at a national and sometimes international level but do not belong to or allied themselves to any particular country or state. According to Pearlman and Cunningham, non-state actors are defining as “an organized political actor not directly connected to the state but pursing aims that affect vital state interests” (Pearlman & Cunningham, 2011) Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) are one of the International Organizations (IOs). IGOs are organizations whose members consist of three or more nations-states. IGOs are created and joined by states to solve shared problems which give them authority to make collective decisions to manage problems on the global agenda. In these organizations, the states’ representatives gather to discuss issues that are of mutual interests to the member states

Political thinkers have attempted to explain the origin of the state in various ways. When, where and how the state came into existence have not been recorded anywhere in history. Therefore, the political thinkers were compelled to adopt various hypotheses, many of which are now discredited in the light of modern knowledge. Among the many theories which are concerned with the origin of the state the following are explained in this chapter.

Elements of international society may be found from the time of the first organized human communities. Early forms of diplomacy and treaties existed in the ancient Middle East. Relations among the city-states of ancient Greece were characterized by more developed societal characteristics, such as arbitration. Ancient China, India, and Rome all had their own distinctive international societies. Medieval Europe’s international society was a complex mixture of supranational, transnational, national, and subnational structures. The Catholic Church played a key role in elaborating the normative basis of medieval international society. Islam developed its own distinctive understanding of international society. The main ingredients of contemporary international society are the principles of sovereignty and non- intervention, and the institutions of diplomacy, the balance of power, and international law. These took centuries to develop, although the Peace of Westphalia (1648) was a key event in their establishment throughout Europe. The Napoleonic Wars were followed by a shift to a more managed, hierarchical, international society within Europe and an imperial structure in Europe’s relations with much of the rest of the world. The League of Nations was an attempt to place international society on a more secure organizational foundation. • The United Nations was intended to be a much-improved League of Nations but the cold war prevented it from functioning as such. Decolonization led to the worldwide spread of the European model of international society. The collapse of the Soviet Union completed this process. Globalization poses serious problems for a sovereignty-based international society. These include the challenges emanating from new forms of community, failing states in Africa, American hyper-power, growing resistance to Western ideas, and global poverty and environmental issues.

“The state,” Lenin writes, ” is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where and insofar as class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled.” According to Lenin this fundamental Marxist principle means that where we have state power– that is wherever we find societies based on classes — we will find that the education system, the mass media, and the political system in general is dedicated to the view that “the state is an organ for the reconciliation of classes.” The class in power knows better but, at least in modern times, their pundits, press, and propagandists preach this doctrine incessantly.
“According to Marx,” however, “the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another.” No harmonious society here. If you have ever wondered why the government can’t (or won’t) control the banks and big corporations, why it doesn’t end fracking, why it won’t act on climate change or really protect the environment, why food companies and restaurant chains can sell us junk to eat, why women, workers, immigrants, minorities and the poor always get the short end of the stick, the cops always bust up the strikers and protestors demonstrating for their rights, why the interests of the 99% can’t democratically get anywhere with respect to the interests of the 1% and whistleblowers go to jail and hypocrites to the state house all you need remember is that it’s the 1%’s state not the 99%’s.