The Contemporary World 1

The Contemporary World 2

GE 103: THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

GUIDE TO ANSWER THE MODULE

1. This module follows the 4A’s method – Activity, Analysis, Abstraction and
Application. Answer the Activity, Analysis, and Application sections. Follow
this sample format:

Name: ________________________________
Year and Section: ________________________________
Time Schedule: ________________________________

Activity
1. Cite the title of the Activity section (if there is)
2. Cite the test instruction or question/s
3. Write your answers

Analysis
1. Cite the title of the Analysis section (if there is)
2. Cite the test instruction or question/s
3. Write your answers

Application
1. Cite the title of the Application section (if there is)
2. Cite the test instruction or question/s
3. Write your answers

2. Place your answers in one Word file. Do not convert your document to PDF.
Name your file as: Surname, First name initial, and Chapter number
(example: Fabillar, F. – Chapter 1).

3. Use the standard format:

Font name: Arial Margins: 1”
Font size: 12 Orientation: Portrait
Spacing: 1.0 Size: Long

4. Upload your Word file to the corresponding topic section in the Google
Classroom. Observe the deadline when submitting your output.
 The Contemporary World 3

Chapter 4 | The Global Interstate System

“Sovereignty must be redefined if states are to cope with globalization.”

–Richard N. Haass

SUGGESTED TIME ALLOTMENT: 3 Hours

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. identify the attributes of contemporary global system;
2. differentiate the concepts of state and nation; and
3. distinguish the competing conceptions of internationalism.
 The Contemporary World 4

ACTIVITY

● The letters of the words below are jumbled. Figure out what the word is and
write your answers in uppercase format.

1 R T Y O I E T R R

2 C T S A I O S I L

3 U L P I O A P O N T

4 V G N E T N E O M R

5 B E A R L T L I S I

6 I E G Y T N V R E S O

7 N T O A N I - A T E S T

8 I T N O L R T E N I S I M A N A
 The Contemporary World 5

ANALYSIS

● One of the key terms enumerated in the activity section is the concept of
the nation-state. Discuss concisely the definition of the nation-state and the
elements that constitute it (i.e. 50-100 words only). List the latter in a bullet
format.

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 The Contemporary World 6

INTRODUCTION

Some scholars explore the deepening of interactions between states

which they refer to the phenomenon of internationalization. Internationalization
does not equal globalization, although it is a major part of globalization.
Globalization encompasses a multitude of connections and interactions that
cannot be reduced to the ties between governments. Nevertheless, it is
important to study international relations as a facet of globalization because
states or governments are key drivers of global processes. In this chapter,
internationalization will be examined as one window to view the globalization
of politics [4].

ABSTRACTION

A. Attributes of Today’s Global System

Claudio and Abinales (2018) stated that the world politics today has four key
attributes:
1. There are countries or states that are independent and govern
themselves.
2. These countries interact with each other through diplomacy.
3. There are international organizations, like the United Nations (UN), that
facilitate these interactions.
4. Beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international
organizations also take on lives of their own. The UN, for example, apart
from being a meeting ground for presidents and other heads of state,
also has task-specific agencies like the World Health Organization
(WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

B. Defining Nation-State

The nation-state is composed of two non-interchangeable terms. Not all

states are nations and not all nations are states [4]. In layman's terms, state
refers to a country and its government (i.e. the government of the Philippines).
Claudio and Abinales (2018) articulated that a state has four attributes:
 The Contemporary World 7

Population Territory

Elements of the State

Government Sovereignty

1. It exercises authority over a specific population called its citizens.

2. It governs a specific territory.
3. A state has a structure of government that crafts various rules that people
(society) follow.
4. The state has sovereignty over its territory. Sovereignty refers to internal and
external authority.
 Internally, no individuals or groups can operate in a given national
territory by ignoring the state. This means that groups like churches,
civil society organizations, corporations, and other entities have to
follow the laws of the state where they establish their parishes, offices,
or headquarters.
 Externally, sovereignty means that a state's policies and procedures are
independent of the interventions of other states. Russia or China, for
example, cannot pass laws for the Philippines and vice versa.

According to Anderson (1983), the nation is an "imagined community.” It is

limited because it does not go beyond a given "official boundary” and because
rights and responsibilities are mainly the privilege and concern of the citizens
of that nation.
 Not everyone can simply become a Filipino. An American cannot simply
go to the Philippine Embassy and “convert” into a Philippine citizen.
Nations often limit themselves to people who have imbibed a particular
culture, speak a common language, and live in a specific territory [4].

 Calling it “imagined" does not mean that

the nation is made-up. Rather, the nation
allows one to feel a connection with a
community of people even if he or she will
never meet all of them in his or her
lifetime. When you cheer for a Filipino
 The Contemporary World 8

athlete in the Olympics, for example, it is not because you personally

know that athlete. Rather, you imagine your connection as both
members of the same Filipino community. In a given national territory
like the Philippine archipelago, you rest in the comfort that the majority
of people living in it are also Filipinos [4].

Most nations strive to become

states. Nation-builders can only feel a
sense of fulfillment when that national
ideal assumes an organizational form
whose authority and power are
recognized and accepted by “the
people.” If there are communities that
are not states, they often seek some
form of autonomy within their “mother
states.” This is why, for example, the nation of Quebec, though belonging to
the state of Canada, has different laws about language. They are French-
speaking and require French language competencies for their citizens [4].

There are also single nations with multiple states. The nation of Korea is
divided into North and South Korea, whereas the “Chinese nation" may refer to
both the People's Republic of China (the mainland) and Taiwan [4].

There are states with multiple nations. The

nation of Scotland, for example, has its own flag
and national culture but still belongs to a state
called the United Kingdom [4].

Nation and state are closely related because it is

nationalism that facilitates state formation. In the
modern and contemporary era, it has been the
 The Contemporary World 9

nationalist movements that have allowed for the creation of nation-states.

States become independent and sovereign because of nationalist sentiment
that clamors for this independence. Sovereignty is, thus, one of the
fundamental principles of modern state politics [4].

C. The Interstate System

The origins of the present-day concept of

sovereignty can be traced back to the
Treaty of Westphalia, which was a set of
agreements signed in 1648 to end the
Thirty Years' War between the major
continental powers of Europe. After a brutal
religious war between Catholics and
Protestants, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, and the Dutch
Republic designed a system that would avert wars in the future by recognizing
that the treaty signers exercise complete control over their domestic affairs and
swear not to meddle in each other's affairs [4].

The Westphalian system provided stability for the

nation of Europe, until it faced its first major
challenge by Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte
believed in spreading the principles of the French
Revolution –liberty, equality, and fraternity– to the
Napoleon Bonaparte
rest of Europe and thus challenged the power of French Military Leader and Emperor
kings, nobility, and religion in Europe [4].

The Napoleonic Wars lasted from 1803-1815 with Napoleon and his armies
marching all over much of Europe. In every country they conquered, the French
implemented the Napoleonic Code that forbade birth privileges, encouraged
freedom or religion, and promoted meritocracy in government service. This
system shocked the monarchies and the hereditary elites (dukes, duchesses,
etc.) of Europe, and they mustered their armies to push back against the
French emperor [4].

Anglo and Prussian armies finally defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo
in 1815, ending the latter's mission to spread his liberal code across Europe.
To prevent another war and to keep their systems of privilege, the royal powers
 The Contemporary World 10

created a new system that, in effect,

restored the Westphalian system. The
Concert of Europe was an alliance of
“great powers” –the United Kingdom,
Austria, Russia, and Prussia– that sought to
restore the world of monarchical,
hereditary, and religious privileges of the
time before the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. More importantly,
it was an alliance that sought to restore the sovereignty of states. Under this
Metternich system, the Concert's power and authority lasted from 1815 to
1914, at the dawn of World War I [4].

The Metternich system, also known as the Congress

system, was a series of meetings called among the great
powers of Europe to discuss problems and attempt to
resolve issues without violence. Klemens von
Metternich was the architect of the Vienna Congress of
1814 that initiated the Congress system. He viewed
disputes between the great powers of Europe as
dangerous, ones that could lead to war or revolution if Klemens von Metternich
Austrian Diplomat
they were not dealt with in a diplomatic manner. The first (The architect of the Concert of Europe)
five meetings of the Congress were the most fruitful, but it
soon became apparent that the most powerful countries
of Europe had difficulty agreeing on many issues. Many
of the participants found themselves in open war with one
another. The system continued to unravel through the rest
of the 19th century, until it collapsed completely on the
eve of World War I [2].

D. Internationalism

The Westphalian and Concert systems divided the world into separate,
sovereign entities. Some, like Bonaparte, directly challenged the system by
infringing on other states' sovereignty. While others imagine a system of
heightened interaction between various sovereign states, particularly the desire
for greater cooperation and unity among states and peoples. This desire is
called internationalism. Internationalism comes in different forms, but the
principle may be divided into two broad categories [4].

Liberal Internationalism Socialist Internationalism

 The Contemporary World 11

Liberal Internationalism
 The first major thinker of liberal
internationalism was the late 18th century
German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
Kant argued that without a form of world
government, the international system
Immanuel Kant
would be chaotic. Therefore, states must German Philosopher

give up some freedoms and “establish a

continuously growing state consisting of various nations which will
ultimately include the nations of the world.” In short, Kant imagined a
form of global government [4].

 British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (who

coined the word “international” in 1780),
advocated the creation of international
law that would govern the interstate
relations. Bentham believed that objective
global legislators should aim to propose Jeremy Bentham
English Philosopher
legislation that would create “the greatest
happiness of all nations taken together” [4].

 To many, these proposals for global

government and international law seemed
to represent challenges to states. “Would
not a world government, in effect, become
supreme? And would not its laws
Giuseppe Mazzini
overwhelm the sovereignty of individual Italian Politician
states?” The first thinker to reconcile
nationalism with liberal internationalism was the 19th century Italian
patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. He believed in a Republican government
(without kings, queens, and hereditary succession) and proposed a
custom of free nations that cooperated with each other to create an
international system. For Mazzini, free, independent states would be
the basis of an equally free, cooperative international system. Mazzini
was a nationalist internationalist, who believes that free, unified nation-
states should be the basis of global cooperation [4].
 The Contemporary World 12

 Mazzini influenced the thinking of United

States President (1913-1921) Woodrow
Wilson, who became one of the 20th
century's most prominent internationalist.
Like Mazzini, Wilson saw nationalism as a
prerequisite for internationalism. Because
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
of his faith in nationalism, he forwarded the 28th U.S. President

principle of self-determination – the belief that the world's nations

had a right to a free, and sovereign government. He hoped that these
free nations would become democracies, because only by being such
would they be able to build a free system of international relations based
on international law and cooperation. Wilson became the most notable
advocate for the creation of the
League of Nations. At the end of
World War I in 1918, he pushed to
transform the League into a venue
for conciliation and arbitration to
prevent another war [4].

 Ironically and unfortunately for Wilson, the United States was not able
to join the organization due to strong opposition from the Senate.
The League was also unable to hinder another war from breaking out.
It was practically helpless to prevent the onset and intensification of
World War II. On one side of the war were the Axis Powers – Hitler's
Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan – who were ultra-
nationalists that had an instinctive disdain for internationalism and
preferred to violently impose their dominance over other nations. It was
in the midst of this war between the Axis Powers and the Allied
Powers (composed of United States, United Kingdom, France, Holland,
and Belgium) that internationalism would be eclipsed [4].

 Despite its failure, the League gave

birth to some of the more task-
specific international organizations
that are still around until today, the
most popular of which are the World
Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization
 The Contemporary World 13

(ILO). More importantly, it would serve as the blueprint for future forms
of international cooperation. In this respect, despite its organizational
dissolution, the League of Nations' principles survived World War II [4].

 The League was the concretization

of the concepts of liberal
internationalism. From Kant, it
emphasized the need to form
common international principles.
From Mazzini, it enshrined the
principles of cooperation and
respect among nation-states. From Wilson, it called for democracy and
self-determination. These ideas would re-assert themselves in the
creation of the United Nations in 1946 [4].

Socialist Internationalism
 One of Mazzini's biggest critics was
German socialist philosopher Karl Marx
who was also an internationalist, but who
differed from the former because he did not
believe in nationalism. Marx placed a
Karl Heinrich Marx
premium on economic equality. He did not German Philosopher

divide the world into countries but into classes. The capitalist class
referred to the owners of factories, companies, and other means of
production. In contrast, the proletariat class are those who did not own
the means of production but instead worked for the capitalists [4].

 Marx and his co-author, Friedrich Engels

(The Communist Manifesto) believed that
in a socialist revolution seeking to
overthrow the state and alter the economy,
the proletariat “had no nation.” Hence, their
Friedrich Engels
now-famous battle cry, "Workers of the German Philosopher

world, unite! You have nothing to lose but

your chains.” They opposed nationalism because they believed it
prevented the unification of the world's workers. Instead of identifying
with other workers, nationalism could make workers in individual
countries identify with the capitalists of their countries [4].
 The Contemporary World 14

 Marx died in 1883, but his followers

soon sought to make his vision
concrete by establishing their
international organization. The
Socialist International (SI) was a
union of European socialist and
labor parties established in Paris in
1889. Although short-lived, the SI's achievements included the
declaration of May 1 as Labor Day and the creation of an International
Women's Day. Most importantly, it initiated the successful campaign for
an 8-hour workday [4].

 The SI collapsed during World War I

as the member parties refused or
were unable to join the
internationalist efforts to fight for the
war. As the SI collapsed, a more
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
radical version emerged. In the so- Russian Revolutionary and Politician

called Russian Revolution of 1917,

Czar Nicholas II was overthrown
and replaced by a revolutionary
government led by the Bolshevik
Party and its leader, Vladimir
Lenin. This new state was called the
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics or the USSR. Unlike the
majority of the member parties of the SI, the Bolsheviks did not believe
in obtaining power for the working class through elections. Rather, they
exhorted the revolutionary “vanguard” parties to lead the revolutions
across the world, using methods of terror if necessary. Today, parties
like this are referred to as communist parties [4].

The Russian Revolution was a period of

political and social revolution across the
territory of the Russian Empire,
commencing with the abolition of the
monarchy in 1917 and concluding in 1923
with the Bolshevik establishment of the
Soviet Union at the end of the Civil War [1].
 The Contemporary World 15

 To encourage these socialist revolutions across the world, Lenin

established the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919. The
Comintern served as the central body for directing Communist parties
all over the world. This international was not only more radical than the
Socialist International, it was also less democratic because it followed
closely the top-down governance of the Bolsheviks [4].

 Many of the world's states feared the

Comintern, believing that it was working in
secret to stir up revolutions in their
countries (which was true). A problem
arose during World War II when the Soviet
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
Union joined the Allied Powers in 1941. Georgian Revolutionary and Soviet Politician

The United States and the United

Kingdom would, of course, not trust the Soviet Union in their fight
against Hitler's Germany. These countries wondered if the Soviet Union
was trying to promote revolutions in their backyards. To appease his
allies, Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, dissolved the Comintern in
1943 [4].

 After the war, however, Stalin re-established the Comintern as the

Communist Information Bureau (Cominform). The Soviet Union took
over the countries in Eastern Europe when the United States, the Soviet
Union, and Great Britain divided the war – torn Europe into their
respective spheres of influence. The Cominform helped direct the
various communist parties that had taken power in Eastern Europe [4].

 With the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, whatever

existing thoughts about communist internationalism also practically
disappeared. For the postwar period, however, liberal internationalism
would once again be ascendant. And the best evidence of this is the
rise of the United Nations as the center of global governance [4].
 The Contemporary World 16

APPLICATION

● Answer the following questions concisely (i.e. 100-200 words only per item).

1. Do you think that internationalization erodes the sovereignty of states? Justify your
stance.
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2. Discuss the competing perspectives of internationalism. Differentiate liberalist and

socialist internationalism.
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3. In relation to item no. 2, provide one (1) example for each perspective evident in the
modern period.
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 The Contemporary World 17

REFERENCES

[1] “Russian Revolution”. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Russian_Revolution
[2] “What Is the Metternich System?”. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.
reference.com/world-view/metternich-system-4e7b4f648202bf7a
[3] Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and
spread of nationalism. London and New York: Verson.
[4] Claudio, L. E. & Abinales, P. N. (2018). The contemporary world. Quezon City:
C & E Publishing, Inc.

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