Discussion Questions: China Mieville

China Mieville: The City

1) Who is the true Tyador Borlu? Why does he keep the anonymous caller a secret from everyone, including his own colleagues? Do you think his attitude changes toward Ul Qoma and its people after his visit there? What do you think happens to Borlu after he becomes a Breach agent?

2) What model do the cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma fall into?

3) How does the structure of Beszel and Ul Qoma fit into the city state model we discussed in class?

4) Why do the two cities have disputes with each other?

5) How are the cultures of Bezel and Ul Qoma different but at the same time very similar? How does that lead to their status as separate city states??

6) Discuss the culture of each of the cities--Ul Qoma and Beszel. What impact does the culture have on the characters of the novel? How does it motivate them and how does it derail their lives?

7) What modern ultranationalist or militant groups does “breach” resembles? (Taliban, al qaeda, al shabaab, lashkar e tiba)

8) The American corporation stole artifacts from an archeological site. How is this indicative of how multinational corporations behave today?

9) How is the border between Beszel and Ul Qoma described in the book? Why is it so significant? What is orciny?

The Death of Empires

Nexon and Wright define unipolarity, hegemony, and imperial orders in the context of international relations. To define these positions within the world order, they examine the ties between the predominant power and the lesser power. In an imperial rule, the central authority exercises power through the local intermediary (which represents the central authority) in a formal manner, which in turn exercises power over the local interest keeping every imperial periphery mutually exclusive so as to prevent a coalescing of power to overthrow the central authority. The authors argue that the United States is not an empire, although it may have tendencies of an empire such as the occupation and rule of Iraq. In today’s world it is difficult to find any single country that fits a clear cut definition of its standing in the international community. I agree with the authors that even though the United States may have empirical tendencies in the international community, the country is nowhere near an empire since the end of the Marshall Doctrine of Theodore Roosevelt.

In the case of Iraq some authors may claim that Iraq is a semi autonomous protectorate of the US, but the Iraqi government has no choice but to comply, because the consequences of non compliance are too high which is effectively a relationship between an empire and ruled. In the case of Iraq, the US has appointed representatives in Iraq that acts as an intermediary within the country to represent the interest of the US (the CPA), and the US has unique contracts with Iraq (heterogeneous). But this case of US empirical rule is not typical, mostly due to the fact that in today’s day and age it is nearly impossible to isolate a country to ‘divide and rule” that is so critical with the creation of an empire. Furthermore, the US does not have semi autonomous representative that report back to the US government as a central authority. According to the authors the height of American imperialism was the Spanish-American war in 1898, after which the US adopted a mostly isolationist stance until WWI and WWII (I believe that the height was the enactment of the Monroe Doctrine by Teddy Roosevelt and the influence of Panama and other South and Central American countries in that era. The United States was reluctant to enter into WWI and WWII due to a non interventionist belief possibly because of a sluggish economy, but when the US did enter the war it was with a coalition. We see in this era the US did not act in the capacity of an empire but the world was more like a hegemonic constitutional order (if we ignore the cold war that started immediately with the end of WWII and the bi-polar tension of the world) that acted through the United Nations.

In the post world war world where Europe was rebuilding, we see the US interfering in European politics most visibly through the Marshall Plan, but this interference did not translate to empirical rule. One could argue that this was a heterogeneous contract with various European states, but the intent was to rebuild the world economy through loans and mass removal of trade barriers, not to colonize European states by ruling through intermediaries. Most importantly, international cooperation was encouraged and political ties among the peripheries were not seen as a threat to US power. This cooperation among the different states would fly in the face of any empire, because empires by nature must maintain a “cross periphery divide and rule” to prevent uprisings.  According to the authors, the mixed bag powers held by countries and the informal ties closely resembles this picture. The UN played the pivotal role of the institutional site that where countries gave and received formal authority, which makes the hegemonic order a hegemonic constitutional order. This bipolar (with Russia and US being in competition for power) and hegemonic constitutional order continued until the end of the cold war when the world arguably shifted to a constitutional order. Seeing this through the lens of human history, this is a significant shift from when the world was covered by empires.

Since the end of WWII the US has engaged in imperial activities the Bay of Pigs, the War on Drugs (which includes interfering in sovereign South and Central American nations), proxy wars with Russia (Afghanistan for example), bur these actions were not performed through local intermediaries on behalf of the US and more importantly these countries were not cutoff from the rest of the world in an increasingly globalized world. The only exceptions to US not exercising full imperial power are the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In these instances legitimacy in the international community and domestically (support for the wars) was tarnished because of the distribution of violent images. This free flow of information makes it nearly impossible to isolate a country and also keep legitimacy of empirical rule. Finally, no matter how the US interfered in other countries it was done through the government that previously existed.

Contemporary Empire

            The American government main goal is to expand access to the world’s market using significant economic and political power. The more imperial logic it uses, the more it’s considered a contemporary empire. Weak states do not have the right to being autonomous and sovereign even when the U.S. motto is the world wide spread of democracy. The tactics and characteristics of an empire are obvious to the world; the only defense against it is the spread of free and open markets.

The differences between the Roman and American Empires are that Romans did not have property rights and their territory had no boundaries. The American Empire is similar to the Roman Empire due to the use of intermediate representation in the world, military power, and amount of money spent on security.

The interaction of states is influenced by the significant economic power of the American Empire. In the Third World, the extraction of resources and profits distribution is controlled by the United States. Since the governments are not effective, it’s obvious to the world the American Empire is really in control. Many countries wish to be autonomous and sovereign, but the fear of being alienated from the global market is very likely to happen. The biggest consumer in the world has designed strategies of trade that work in favor of the U.S. national interest. The national interest is not spread economic equality, the main goal is to spread their power and continue to control. Based in the history of the Vietnam War, the United States claimed that Vietnam required help to become a democracy. However, the real reason to interfere in the conflict was to expand the United States market. Vietnam’s right to be autonomous and sovereign did not match with the U.S. national interest. Therefore, Vietnam was divided and a new form of government was implemented. These events are clearly the strategies used by an empire.

The relationship between the use of intermediaries and the distribution of resources describes the American government as an Empire. Intermediaries have to role to promote more business for the United States. The control and power distribution relies in the influence of political members that work to get the desired deals. When countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela formed ALBA, the United States sent the Peruvian president to meet the other leaders in order to convince them against working with socialist governments. The role of the Peruvian president in this occasion was to limit the chance of collective identification working against the American Empire.

The definition of “Empire” is manipulated according to the needs of the American policies. According to Washington, Empires used to kill their own people in order to keep control and expand their boundaries. However, the Contemporary American Empire works informally and directly when required. The American government has a tendency to manipulate definitions to their advantage, words such as genocide, terrorism, and empire.

It’s important to mention the extreme means the United States uses in order to distant itself from being seen as an Empire. During international events such as elections, the United States would give some recommendations and congratulate the exercise of democratic elections. In the event of genocide or the use of mass destruction weapons against civilians, the American government would refer to the United Nations for counseling, and would rather provide humanitarian aid instead of using military intervention.

The definition of the American Empire is a concept that can be critiqued or defended. The imperial logic can lean towards very imperialistic, somewhat imperialistic, or not imperialistic. It all depends on the type of business or resource dependency that can affect the national interest. After all the American government must show some flexibility, and not be stuck in a certain category.

My take on how states put their big boy pants on and became sovereign

After reading countless articles and books written by scholarly scholars with big

vocabulary and extremely long run-on sentences about their opinions on who, what, when,

where, why, and how of the relationship between sovereignty and states; I've pretty much

been able to decipher two simple words: it happened. That’s the great thing about history: it’s

really just a never-ending story of how long it took the whole entire human race to figure out

how to live with each other and as history should serve as a lesson for how to progress in this

world, we still can’t get along with each other. So what do we do? We do the noodle dance and

come up with ideas, we go to war, we exploit resources, we make profit from it, lose it all, and

then we make friends until we come up with newer ideas just to start a new cycle of

relationship problems. That is the fundamental bane of our existence. And so it is up to those

scholarly scholars to delve into history and write pages and pages of the most genius

explanations as to what started it all and why things are the way they are. The funniest part is,

even these intelligent accounts are at war with each other: I mean, these people actually call

each other out in their own written work; mind you, it’s done in the wordiest way possible so as

to stick to the whole scholarly framework of their hundreds of pages of how they think states

became sovereign.

Personally, I like to think that a combination of all of their explanations justifies how and

why states became sovereign. Call me a philosophical hippy, but I believe that’s just the way

things work in the world. Take the human body for example: if we have too much or too little of

anything like say, cholesterol, we’re kind of screwed. And I know we all like to think of ourselves

as unique human beings but in the end, our lives are all about living in moderation. To me

moderation means balance and balance means a crap ton of everything coming together to be

whole. However, since life is pretty unfair and I’m not really allowed to opt for the grey area

explanation, I guess I have to choose which of these scholars really hit the spot or at least was

easiest to understand since I am, sadly, not as smart as these folks.

So how did states in fact become sovereign? Well out of all the viable explanations

available it seems that Robert Jackson has sort of a legitimate take on this topic in his book

Sovereignty: Evolution of an Idea. Jackson, much like his peers, focuses on Europe in answering

this question; long story short: he blames religious ideology and its faltering hold in politics.

While Jackson gives a pretty basic description of how the movement of ideas gave rise to

sovereign states, I think Rodney Bruce Hall gives more of a detailed layout of Jackson’s answer

in chapter three of his own book National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and

International Systems. Hall provides a step by step process of how this movement of ideas in

early modern era of European history came about. The trigger, according to Hall, was the

“Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century on through the end of the Thirty Years’

War in the mid seventeenth century” (Hall 52) in which we first see the rise of dynastic

sovereignty: the king is the state and his subjects are bound by his confessional status rather

than the pope’s religious decree. After the Treaty of Westphalia, the dynastic principle gives

way to territorial sovereignty in which the king must now serve the state. With religion pushed

to the side after seriously draining both Catholic and Protestant states of all reason and rhyme,

they finally decided to call truce and recognized each as “equal” and “autonomous”, focusing

on more plausible things like “the agency of the burgeoning state” (Hall 59). While he briefly

talks about the half step of the state-nation in which the nation serves the state, Hall skips

forwards to the final step, national sovereignty: the state finally serves the nation.

Hooray for sovereignty. I had to decipher twelve pages of this chapter to come to such a

simple explanation. Both Hall and Jackson argue that the driving force for states in becoming

sovereign was the strength of ideas and I happen to agree with them on that matter. Sure,

others can and have argued that state sovereignty is derived from wars or economic power.

These factors definitely play a role but they are essentially birthed by ideas. From the beginning

of time, wars have been fought over ideas being imposed over other ideas and economic power

was the result of someone or a collective group of people with good ideas. So isn’t it only

appropriate that ideas are the seed of state sovereignty? I know everyone is just dying to

answer this question and share their own explanations on the matter so I’ll just leave it at that

(mostly because I really don’t know how many more ways I can regurgitate scholarly words).

Work Cited:

Hall, Rodney Bruce. National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and

International Systems. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Ch. 3

Jackson, Robert H. Sovereignty: Evolution of an Idea. Cambridge: Polity, 2007.

The State Test....According to Bobbit

The realm of foreign policy has shifted from its conventional means in recent times however; the blueprint of what classifies foreign policy is constantly under debate. That debate according to Bobbit helped create what we know today as the state. For the past few weeks, we have discussed the ideas behind the development of state sovereignty and its impact on state legitimacy. As we have learnt the idea of state sovereignty is a relatively new concept and it was not until the Treaty of Westphalia that the true meaning of state sovereignty was created.  In the readings this week, Bobbit explained that the idea of the state and state sovereignty came out of the states’ need to improve their authority and security due to the threat of invasion from outside forces. Not only was the need for security crucial but a strong internal structure was essential to the birth of the modern state. While I agree that security was essential to the birth of the states I also intend to focus the internal sovereignty of the state as well as the concept of equality that help explain the birth of the modern state.

            Bobbit’s progression of the state from a princely state to a nation-state is an interesting one because it showed the growth of technology and law both local and international. The state as we have learn exist in part to contain and control the monopoly of violence and as we discussed the progression of the state was not simply because of the need to monopolize violence but to protect the citizens within the state. In essence, the state became subservient to the people. While I agree largely with Bobbit I disagree with his premise that states mainly what he called the princely states were formed generally to protect the people. Rulers during this time were faced with the idea of losing their power to outside military forces so to protect themselves they needed to establish a security force. The only way these rulers would be able to raise a standing army was to acquire willing patrons or tax the people to build up that security force. (Soldiers, stronger walls) Protecting the people seemed like an added benefit especially since a few of these pre-states recently broke away from the church so if enemies immediately overran them their freedom was for naught.

Similar to Tilly who recognized that Europeans relied on technology advancement, Bobbit also believes that technological advancement was essential and largely ignores the economic aspects of growth that aided in the in the expansion of the sovereign state however; I believe and agree that he intentionally excludes economics because maybe it was not such a major factor as originally thought. To solidify his point he identified that great wars such as the battle for Constantinople have shaped states as they evolved from princely to territorial to nation-states. Perhaps without the threat of outside forces coupled with the suppression of the Roman Catholic Church, the modern state would have never taken shape. However, an interesting fact Bobbit mentioned was that great empires such as the Mughal empire which did have military capability was not able to take a solid hold in their region like the church, and that was because the lack of strength in their internal bureaucracy. This lack of solid internal structure is the second aspect of Bobbit’s argument which helps tie his readings together. Without structure (i.e. rule of law, government) states would be unable to maintain their stability and thus fall to internal uprising or external pressure hence the progression from princely to nation-states. Vital to the success of any state is the ability to protect their external sovereignty and control their internal sovereignty and it is these two aspects that I believe help solidify a state as a sovereign entity.

If we take these two aspects of Bobbit’s argument, we can apply it to what we today constitute as sovereignty. Nevertheless, with the idea of sovereignty brings to question the idea of equality. In our discussion we could not come to a consensus on what aspects help quantify what is equality. The treaty of Westphalia gave all states equal standing in the international arena however as we know, no state is ‘necessarily’ equal. Whether it refers to economic, military or social strength, we can still see an uneven tradeoff between the capabilities of different states. According to Bobbit, the birth and subsequent development of the state can be linked to the ability of a state to protect and serve it citizens however; depending on your definition of equality, you may not see states as being equal. Regardless of what your definition of equality is, in today’s society states that have the means i.e. money, military have the power to determine who is legitimate as is the case for many unrecognized states (ex. Somaliland). Therefore, while a state may have the aspects Bobbit indicates, in today’s society much more is required. 

Statehood

This week we read and discussed the pathology of how states are formed which relied heavily on European history relying on three different authors and theories. Jackson relied heavily on the reformation and the relationship between the church and state to explain the rise in statehood, Spruyt focused on the relationship between the local institutions and the monarchy, while Tilly believes that coercion (war and force) were the only things that mattered in explaining how states became the norm. Sometimes while reading it is important to keep in mind why these concepts are important to understand where the author is “going” with his thesis and also understand how these concepts fit into the larger picture of what we are learning in class, which I would like to address here.

During our discussion in class we had at least two people comment on how all of these readings were very narrow in focus, whether it is because all three authors only write on Europe’s history of becoming a state or because the authors all seemed to only cover so much and neglected to mention many other facts and circumstances that lead to the formation of the state. Each author observes the formation of the state through a given lens and fits the given facts and circumstances that led to the formation of the state to the author’s thesis. This means that all three authors write about essentially the same history and set of facts but manage to come up with three different theories on how the state formed. We can take and apply these concepts to other non European states and see the pathology of how the state formed through each lens. I believe that the ultimate test does a theory hold water would be to apply them outside of the given example that an author uses. For example we could look at the formation India’s state under the British rule that created a lasting state structure that would stick around until the twentieth century.

Tilly might argue that the institutions that were necessary to support the coercive forces that ruled in India led to the creation of the state. In order to colonize India the British needed a monopoly of power over the fragmented Indian local rulers which was easily achievable because of the technological advantages that the British had, a point that Tilly emphasized. Furthermore, the British Empire profited from the colonization of India which led to them becoming an even greater force making them a capitalist coercive trajectory because they had the perfect mixture of capitalism and force. In the end when India became independent, many of the governmental institutions that the British Empire created to support the rule over India remained intact and the institutions that were created after British rule were modeled after the British system.

            Jackson’s argument comes up short when applied in India which may prove that it is too narrow to be a solid thesis. In India we do not see the power struggle between the secular and religious worlds that led to the creation of the state, religion in India was not unified like the Catholic Church to be considered a central actor. The British may have used religion to legitimize ruling India by spreading Christianity, but the driving for really was economic therefore the religious aspect came second. India did not have its own “Protestant reformation” that led to the state.

            Spruyt may argue that the political deals between the local rulers and the British played a central role in the creation of the state. The British could not have had the rule over India that they had without the aid of the local rulers. Volumes of books could be written on the relationship between the local indigenous rulers and the British Empire which would support Spruyt’s theory of how the state was formed. Because of these deals, the British were able to create the institutions to rule over India.

            Truthfully each author must remain narrow in his or her thesis in order to not take on too much which does leave holes in the argument and while examining the rise the state in any given country it is probably best to see different aspects and combine different arguments as a reader. In the case of India Spruyt and Tilly's thesis complement each other to give a solid perspective. The rise of the state was an important concept to study because it reminds us that internationally recognized states are a relatively new concept in the eyes of human history. Also it helps define what a state is and how a state becomes a state, which helps answer are certain territories today sovereign states.

Sept 11 2013 Response You know the day we played awesome jeopardy

 *Note* Feel free to skip the first paragraph as it is just a summary of the readings. Read the last sentence though.

Andrew Sandor

Poli480

               During last weeks class we discussed the history and founding of the sovereign state. The three readings by, Jackson, Spruyt, and Tilly, all had mostly differing views from one another. Jackson believed that it was the power struggle between the church and secular leaders, who used political and theological ideas to come out on top, caused ideas to mold and change eventually leading to the Protestant Reformation, and the victory of the secular authorities over the the church authorities. As warfare reigned constant throughout Europe, with no single entity controlling a monopoly on the use of violence at the time, boundaries and lands constantly were changing hands under the feudal system. Tilly suggests that the birth of the sovereign state was a product of the growth of military technologies, as they changed the shape of warfare, and made a need for a central authority to act as the protector of their current realm. He does too emphasis economy, but sees warfare as the most major contributor. As we all know Spruyt had strong objections to the warfare aspect, and instead hammered home his belief, using the French Carpathians as his example, that the sovereign state came from the secular rulers alliance with the towns and merchants; who favored neither the church nor the aristocracy. He also believes that the French Carpathian King's heavy use of Roman Law over church law, also systematically helped him weaken the churches grasp in the region. At the end of the day, when the readings are all said and done, I believe that all three of them are wrong, and that all three of them are right at the same time.

               Each individual argument is massively flawed from the start for one simple reason: it fails to take account of any non-European viewpoint. During the time periods covered by each writer, sprawling sovereign kingdoms ruled in the east; namely China and India. Though these eastern dynasties would change hands from time to time, and their boarders would grow from conquests or recede from failures, this was no different from European sovereign states once they developed. The Chinese in particular maintained a solid central government in its dynastic emperor, ruling by the “mandate of heaven” over the peoples of the land. The emperor was the peoples protector and problem solver when it came to violence, pestilence and famine, and justice within China's boundaries. I would argue first that the Chinese may have actually had the first true sovereign state in its own form.

               Still, we are looking at the rise of the sovereign state through the eyes of Europe, and the three writers of these readings. Each of these writers make very interesting valid points. The problem is, is that each author relies solely on one primary reason for the rise of the sovereign state rather than admitting that it was all of these areas they mention and more, that were equally responsible in their own way for the rise of the sovereign state. I would argue that were one piece of these three authors arguments missing from the equation things may have turned out much differently, but we are not discussing hypotheticals; nor will it help us to do so in our current purpose.

               Jackson is correct in his belief that the political and theological arguments, that secular powers and church powers used to one up the other for power, contributed greatly in the push in new ideas. He is also correct that the secular powers took advantage, as in the case of King Henry the VIII, of the reformation theology of personal access to God, and that by doing so secular powers grew into the idea of the sovereign state. However, I believe that he is wrong that it was this push and pull between these two entities that lead to the reformation. He is missing the truly pious hearts that lead to the theology that caused people like Martin Luther, to stand against wrongs seeking to truly please God and grow the faith. Though German princes and a European king would embrace his ideas, whether in piety or for self gain, the Reformation itself was a spiritually driven occurrence. The genuine spirituality of the people is not the only thing left unaddressed by Jackson. He mentions changing boarders and wanton warfare by numerous parties, but fails to show at all how they may have effected or hindered the sovereign state birth in any real meaningfully ways.

               This is where Tilly comes in to help. Tilly recognized how warfare fundamentally changed life for all Europeans as technology advanced. Fortified castles and advanced weaponry fundamentally changed how people lived their lives, and in what ways they looked to find protection from the numerous dangerous peoples all around them. This indeed lead to a further dependence, of the many peoples in Europe, on their rulers and helped pave the way for the sovereign states that began to pop up all over Europe. Though he emphasizes the importance of economy during this time as well, he still makes it take a back seat in the level of importance to changing warfare.

Tilly altogether fails to mention the religious institution and ideas that controlled the way in which practically all parties in Europe sought to problem solve. This alone is a grievous short sight, and leaves the reader with an incomplete, skewed, picture of the true nature of many of the problems that faced Europeans at the time that lent to the shaping of the sovereign state. Did the change to warfare and technology have a drastic role in the shaping of the sovereign state, yes, but like Jackson's argument it was simply only one piece to the puzzle of the sovereign states birth.

               Here is where we round off with the most aggressive of the writers, Spruyt, who, almost unfairly, paints Tilly as a dimwit in his theory. Using earlier France's Carpathian dynasty, he systematically undermines each of Tilly's, and others, arguments. He basis this on the fact that the French king, using Roman law and allying with the mercantile towns, built up his weak power economically, controlled the aristocracy with bribes, and weakened the hold of the church by secularizing the inner workings of France's government, justice system, and economy. He does this haughty argument for the true source of the sovereign states origin, all while ignoring the fact that he only looking at one single small part of Europe, when as Jackson pointed out, the entirety of Europe was in constant chaos and upheaval. While I would give Spruyt an 'A' for effort, he is sadly as narrowly focused as his peers; if no the worst of them all. Still his point about using economics to financially empower the central government, and the savvy it takes for a ruler to cow so many antagonists at once, should not go ignored as being an integral piece to the state sovereignty puzzle.

               Ultimately, each authors argument falls short of proving there was on truly exclusive cause, over all others, that lead to the birth of state sovereignty. Instead, it is clearly a combination of them all, all sharing an equal piece of the pie, but they are also not alone. There are countless other reasons state sovereignty came into being that non of these authors addressed. Each had far to narrow a view on the subject, which is in itself massive. Like a large majority of Western claimed ideas, technologies, and things in general, the Chinese still currently hold the right in claiming that we stole these things from them. Maybe it is about time that they get on board the 'the intellectual property rights' train.