Syllabus, Beyond Political Culture, graduate course, Rutgers (taught last time: Spring 2013) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Does ‘Culture’ Explain International Relations? A Critical Perspective
Culture it is argued influences values, world-view, and the structures of human relationships. To quote Hudson (1997 b, p.8), ‘culture tells us what to want, to prefer, to desire, and thus to value.’ Culture as an explanatory variable is gaining wider appeal among the International Relations scholars. It acquired plausibility especially in the post- Cold War period. The post- positivist critiques or Alternative theories (as Robert Cox dubs them) emphasize the role of “culture” in comprehending International Relations more strenuously in the last fifteen years. Culture has also become the focus of foreign policy scholars who try to grasp the cultural influences on the decisions of leaders of various states. With globalization’s flexing arms compressing the world into a “global village” (as is often presented by its proponents), scholars increasingly attribute rise of a global culture, which renders enquiry and explanation revolving around “culture” necessary. Social Constructivism has reached its pinnacle with cultural explanation of international relations in Richard Ned Lebow’s book, A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Interest in studying culture has also increased after works like Clash of Civilizations and Soft Power gained popularity. This makes us infer culture is a relevant field of inquiry in International Relations. The unanswered question is whether culture can explain or predict actions/decisions/policies of states in the international system. This paper will attempt to critically reflect on culture and its role or otherwise in international relations. Keywords: culture, international relations, social constructivism, soft power, clash of civilizations
Culture, Globalisation and International Relations
2010
Culture, Globalisation and International Relations 1 The International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy 2010: Culture, Globalization, and International Relations over the next Two Decades (Berlin, 23-30 May 2010) Arnold Groh, Technical University of Berlin The research institution “Structural Analysis of Cultural Systems” (S.A.C.S., headed by the author) at the Technical University of Berlin pursues the investigation of culture and the mechanisms of globalisation in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissariat of Human Rights.
Political Psychology, 1999
The literature on international relations frequently refers to culture in broad, macro-level ways to explain what cannot be explained by economic or military power. The assumptions that culture is simple, uniform and the opposite of power are, in the view of the authors, erroneous. Also, the authors note that there is a lack of scholarly interaction among psychologists interested in cross-cultural phenomena and international relations specialists interested in questions of identity and foreign policy. As an introduction to a special section on culture and foreign policy, this article calls for more communication among these scholarly communities; provides a set of observations about foreign policy and culture understood as a complex, dynamic concept; and calls for specific kinds of studies to better understand foreign policy in the context of cultural complexity and richness. KEY WORDS: culture and foreign policy, cross-cultural psychology and foreign policy decision-making, cultural dynamics and international relations.
Culture and International Relation
Culture is a popular and powerful, though often unacknowledged, idea in international relations. However, where it was once used to foster mutual understanding, in the post-Cold War era it became synonymous with ways of life that clashed.
Suggesting cultural analysis of the phenomenon of globalization needs to take into account more than studies of subjectivity and communications technology, the author suggests a deconstructive methodology that seeks reconciliation of postmodernism with structuralism and idealism with materialism. Demonstrating points of contact between various social actors in the globalization arena, a sketch is made of the state as a pluralist agent articulating the process of globalizing capital. Motivations to globalize are said to point to a real social by which the political structure of the state is revealed. Subversion of the dominant discourse through self-determined practices of liberty are suggested as a means of constructing alternatives to global capital.
2011
Suggesting cultural analysis of the phenomenon of globalization needs to take into account more than studies of subjectivity and communications technology, the author suggests a deconstructive methodology that seeks reconciliation of postmodernism with structuralism and idealism with materialism. Demonstrating points of contact between various social actors in the globalization arena, a sketch is made of the state as a pluralist agent articulating the process of globalizing capital. Motivations to globalize are said to point to a real social by which the political structure of the state is revealed. Subversion of the dominant discourse through self-determined practices of liberty are suggested as a means of constructing alternativesto global capital. Keywords: culture; state; globalization; resistance; social change An opportunity exists for communications and cultural scholars to contribute more poignant critiques to the discourse of globalization of capital and suggest
Globalization and Cultural Conflict: An Institutional Approach
Conflicts and Tensions Conflicts and tensions, 2000
Introduction What is the impact of globalization on social cohesion and political integration? Does globalization nourish social and political integration and tear down cultural barriers that divide people? Does it signal a 'vital step toward both a more stable world and better lives for the people in it' (Rothkop, 1997)? Or does it hasten social disintegration and exacerbate social conflict? Is there really a link between globalization and cultural conflict or harmony? If so, what is it? Migratory flows, the tidal wave of global information, and the imperatives of economic liberalization and fiscal reform-the markers of globalization-have reshuffled social relations all over the world. As the flood of immigrants to the industrial West has given birth to a nascent multiculturalism in previously homogeneous societies, social pressures and plummeting income levels accompany it. In some European countries, a spike in hate crimes against foreigners seems to correspond to the influx of immigrants. And people have watched in horror, as a few Islamic radicals have committed brutal acts of violence, justified as revenge against cultural oppression. Although globalization has been called an integrating force, cultural conflict has became the most rampant form of international violence as globalization has accelerated. Of the 36 violent conflicts raging around the world in 2003, the Iraq invasion was the sole international war. The remaining 35 were internal wars within the territory of 28 countries, and all but four of these were communal conflicts, inspired by ethnic, sectarian, or religious grievances (Marshall, 2005). Nonetheless, the number of those conflicts has begun to decline, and many have ended. Indeed, in vast areas of the world, conflicts are resolved peacefully, and different cultures live together or side by side without hostility or prolonged violent conflict. But as some conflicts ended, new conflicts ignited. Despite the end of the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, continued violence plagues Kosovo and Bosnia. Even in the presence of foreign peacekeeping troops, violence in Kosovo took between 4,000 and 12,000 lives between 1998 and 2004. And between 1999 and 2004, Chechnya erupted in a war of secession, causing the deaths of close to 30,000 civilians. Attacks on dark-skinned people, often identified as Chechens or Dagestanis were reported in Moscow and other major Russian cities beginning in 1994, and escalated as the conflict continued (Human Rights Watch). Between 1989 and 2003, more than 65,000 people, mostly Muslim civilians were killed in Kashmir and the conflict there continues to take over 2,000 lives per year. These examples suggest significant differences in the kinds and levels of cultural violence and the conditions under which it breaks out. In this essay, I present a conceptual framework for understanding these differences. It relies on the role of economic forces triggered by globalization that drive both 'cultural conflict' and cultural integration. It looks to the role and strength of political institutions as the key to conflict provocation, exacerbation, and mitigation. It focuses on those institutions that channel economic forces to create cultural winners and losers in the globalization process, and those that channel political participation and treat group 'rights' in ways that mitigate or intensify the violence that members of one culture perpetrate against those who belong to another.
Rethinking Culture and the State in International History
When I started my studies in international history, I quickly noticed that the field seemed to be in a constant state of crisis. Listening to the alarmism, I had anxieties about the field's disciplinary and theoretical marginalization and the effect that the loosely defined, often sticky concept of "culture" might have on our work. 1 But as I worked on the history of the social sciences in America, the newness and threat of culture began to seem less unique to my field alone. As a result of the clumsily defined "cultural turn", the social sciences have all had to face what Anthony Giddens has called the "double hermeneutic" inevitable in this line of work: the notion that language, what we choose to work on, and how we approach our research are deeply interrelated to our findings. Only recently, however, has this realization taken hold in foreign relations and diplomatic history, moving the field to reflect on the possibility that what we find in history is more often a reflection of what we are looking for than a discovery of what was once actually there. 2 Unfortunately, the field has been slow to consider what are, arguably, mandatory questions stemming from this realization. Principally, how will it deal with the changes ushered in by the "cultural turn"? Has the cultural history that has already made its way into international history helped us see the contingency of our analytical categories? Has a truly historicist position been embraced by the new cultural histories in the field, and can it be sustained? I would like to propose that, when we begin to ask and answer these questions, we find that culture has been embraced rather weakly by the field. Initially feared, cultural analysis and the cultural turn have since been all but absorbed into existing ways of thinking and doing international history. This movement from fear to assimilationwhich I will posit as two distinct phases in the concept of culture's relationship to * Brian M. Foster is a PhD candidate in History at Carleton University, and a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellow. His dissertation explores how the professional shape, methods and institutional histories of the social sciences in America reveal a deep, historically rooted commitment to a narrowly liberal and nationalist vision of global order. Brian is also the Editor-in-Chief of NeoAmericanist, an open access, online journal for the study of America published by the Center for American Studies at The University of Western Ontario. He can be reached at bfoster@connect.carleton.ca