Ce cours apparaît dans les formations suivantes :
• ESPOL - Licence 2 de Relations Internationales - S4 - 3 ECTS

Pré requis

A general background in IR theory, international law, and global history is important.

Warning: This is a reading-heavy class based on class interactions, rather than a conventional lecture course. Be sure you are up for the required work load before signing up for this class.

Objectifs du cours

This is an optional course for highly motivated students with a background in International Relations (IR) and the willingness to read several academic articles per week and engage in active class discussions. It is focused on the system of sovereign states that is the basic starting point for international relations. The states constituting ‘the international’ as well as their sovereignty are usually taken for granted in IR, international law, and, more implicitly, other social sciences. But where do states come from in the first place, how has the model of the modern territorial state spread across the world, and how do new states still emerge today? The course introduces students to key questions of state creation in international relations, from early state formation through the demise of colonial empires to struggles for national self-determination. It then turns to contemporary challenges, including of state creation and recognition, intervention and the suspension of sovereignty, state collapse and state building, and contestations of the state system as a whole.

Contenu du cours

Course structure

PART I: PRELIMINARIES

1 Introduction

No readings.

PART II: RECONSTRUCTING THE SOVEREIGN STATE

2 Sovereignty and the state

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1994. “Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field.” Sociological Theory12(1), 1-18.

Osiander, Andreas. 2001. “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth” International Organization 55 (2), pp. 251-287.

3 Empire and decolonization

Adelman, Jeremy. 2008. “An Age of Imperial Revolutions.” The American Historical Review 113(2): 319-340.

Anghie, Antony. 2006. “The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities.” Third World Quarterly27(5): 739-753.

4 Territory and self-determination

Lalonde, Suzanne. 2002. Determining Boundaries in a Conflicted World: The Role of Uti Possidetis, Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, chapter 2 (“Uti Possidetis in Latin America), 24-60.

Koskenniemi, Martti. 1994. “National Self-Determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 43(2): 241-269.

PART II: CONTRADICTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES

5 Recognition and State Creation?

Crawford, James. 2006. The Creation of States in International Law, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 1 (“Statehood and Recognition”), pp. 3-37.

Caspersen, Nina. 2012. Unrecognized States: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Modern International System, London: Polity, introduction, 1-25.

Debate 1: Is Somaliland a state?

Note: Additional readings for the group debate are available on iCampus.

6 Military Intervention and Protection?

Weber, Cynthia. 1992. “Reconsidering Statehood: Examining the Sovereignty/Intervention Boundary” Review of International Studies 18 (3), 199-216.

Bellamy, Alex J. and Paul D., Williams. 2011. “The New Politics of Protection? Côte d'Ivoire, Libya and the Responsibility to Protect. International Affairs 87(4), 825-850.

Putin, Vladimir. 2022. Address by the President of the Russian Federation, 21 February 2022. URL: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

Debate 2: Should the coalition of NATO countries (not) have intervened in Libya in 2011?

Note: Additional readings for the group debate are available on iCampus.

7 State Collapse and State Building?

Krasner, Stephen. D. 2004. “Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States” International Security 29(2): 85-120.

Figueroa Helland, Leonardo, and Stefan Borg. 2014. “The Lure of State Failure: A Critique of State Failure Discourse in World Politics” Interventions 16(6): 877-897.

Debate 3: Is South Sudan a failed state that must and can be rebuilt by international organizations?

Note: Additional readings for the group debate are available on iCampus.

8 Contestation and Transformation?

Simpson, Audra. 2014. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life across the Borders of Settler States. Durham: Duke University Press, chapter 1, pp. 1-36.

Vu, Tuong, and Patrick Van Orden. 2020. “Revolution and World Order: The Case of the Islamic State (ISIS)” International Politics 57(1): 57-78.

Debate 4: Was the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” a state or not?

Note: Additional readings for the group debate are available on iCampus.

PART IV: CONCLUSIONS

9 Sove