CSS International Relations Notes

Changing Economic Circumstances

Since WWII, the world economy has undergone drastic changes brought about by changing political circumstances, industrial and technological changes, and changing trade patterns. The dominant economic order which prevailed for four decades after WWII is referred to as IEO.

IEO Subsystems

North-West System: referred to financial and trade linkages between developed nations of Western Europe, Japan and North America.

North-East System: referred to centrally controlled economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

South System: referred to developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America

Criticism of IEO

Economics based on nationalistic grounds has received a lot of criticism. It failed to function in the case of the North-east, leading to the collapse of the USSR.

The control of capital and use of neo-colonial and imperialistic tendencies in terms of trade resulted in large disparities around the world. The North-West system donated money to the South System, but it was not enough to remove widespread poverty. Many developing countries and segments of the population within the developed world called for a revision of the prevailing IEO.

Balance Of Power (BOP) Theory in International Relations | CSS Notes

Definitions of Balance Of Power

The equilibrium of power among members of the family of nations as will prevent any one of them from becoming sufficiently strong to enforce its will upon the others.
The power equation between states is based on an assessment of each state’s relative power capabilities and this assessment provides the basis for the conduct of relations between them.

Balance Of Power from a historical perspective

From 1648 (Peace of Westphalia) to 1789 (French Revolution) was a golden age of classical balance of power, when the princes of Europe began accepting BoP as the supreme principle of foreign policy.
Evident use of BoP is also noted in the mid-17th cent., when it was directed against the France of Louis
XIV. Balance of power was the stated British objective for much of the 18th and 19th cent., and it characterized the European international system, for example, from 1815-1914.