Diego Alejandro Almonacid Lovera

Session 05 (February 27th – March 03th): From the end of the cold war to a new
global era?

The Cold war marked an important milestone in the history of the humankind, and it was a
starting point to see the world as we know it today, especially, because of the unipolar
moment on which we live due to the victory of the United States’ ideology. Additionally,
Japanese economic growth reached a highest point as being part of the group of the
economic powers, this association was named the Triad Countries. ‘The triad is U.S., the
nations of the European Community and Japan’ (Ohmae 2002: 23). Having this in mind, I
will focus on the relationship between the United States and Japan in terms of economic
and diplomatic affairs. On the one hand, the United States and Japan are closely
interconnected in the economic sphere. In Cohen’s (1990: 19, 122.123) words, in the late
twentieth century, ‘Japan is one of the most powerful competitors of United States [but at
the same time] the most important foreign market for Japan is United States’. Nowadays,
the situation has changed, because todays, ‘U.S. has become one of China's largest
trading partners. This has been a double-edged sword politically, creating high levels of
interdependence, while also aggravating economic imbalances. (Clark 2011: 21). Another
example to explore this relationship, is the ‘help provided by United States to manage
Japan’s re-entry into the international community during the post-war years, opening its
market to Asian exports’ (Cox, 2014: 72).

On the other hand, they have another important relationship which is in the diplomatic
sphere, on which ‘Japan has worked closely for years with American diplomats to resolve
disputes in various parts of the world’ (Vogel, 1992: 50). Despite of the great role of United
States’ international relations around the world, is evident that USA saw huge advantages
working hand by hand with Japan, even if in the past, the were severe enemies. The
relationship with Japan represents a relevant alliance for United States, and this
partnership charged not only by economic and diplomatic links, also military and
technological affairs, can show us how Japan is a significant part of this unipolar era.

Session 06 (March 06th – March 10th): Rising powers and the emerging global order

The Westphalian norms set the inviolable principles of the international political order of
many modern states. Principles such as ‘national sovereignty and non-intervention, a
country's right to self-defence, international law molded by the logic of a balance of power
(Tokatlian, 2014) which born in Europe after the Thirty Years War and reach many corners
of the world with an unprecedented spreading due to the decolonization of European
empires. But, are those principles inviolable in an international sense, considering the
complexity, diverse interconnectedness and multilateral consequences of each one actor
in the modern world? In my opinion those principles are not completely inviolable, due to
the emergence and globalization of global politics. Deepening on this concept, Global
Politics are ‘the extension of political power and political activity across the boundaries of
the modern nation state’ (Held et al.1999: 49). Having this in mind, the Westphalian order
is threatening by the continuous growth of the modern, technological and globalized word,
which have to deal not only with domestic problem, but have to address global problems
too such as the climate change, drugs challenges, violence and war issues among
countries and so on. Issues that involve international responsiveness.
On the other hand, Westphalian norms are vulnerable facing with the great activities of
other actors beyond nation states too, actors such as ‘intergovernmental organizations,
international agencies and regimes, quasi-supranational institutions and so on, whose
activities often spill over into the international arena’ (Held et al. 1999: 51). Even more now
with the participation of emerging powers such as the BRICs, ‘playing in functional
institutions created to deal with ever more pressing sets of challenges’ (Hurrell, 2014: 90).
These actors and their activities across international boundaries display a huge way on
how the international order are moving on an ongoing process of evolution. Finally,
considering the above, will the Westphalian idea in the long term (or even in the near
future) become an obsolete or pointless concept in order to engage to the modern and
globalized world’s needs, affairs and issues?

Session 07 (March 13th – March 17th): Realism

Realist theorists converge and share ‘a core assumption that the international state system
is anarchy i.e., a system [with no supreme regulator authority involved in]’ (Jackson and
Sorensen, 2010: 66) where each estate is in the ongoing process of seeking for security,
self-interests or increase its own power in comparison of other states. The learning log on
this session, will be focus on the struggle for power and the necessity of pursuing security
of those units in international relations which are the states, both great and small. In my
own words, I agree with classical realist concept animus dominandi provided by
Morgenthau (1965:192) who said that ‘men and women are by nature political animals:
they are born to pursue power and to enjoy the fruits of power’. In my opinion, this pursue
for power can spread even in the arena of international relations between states, because
states, unlike Waltz’s (1979) opinion, they are not merely units, they are controlled and
managed by people, men and women whose decide the course of their state and how
respond to the anarchical environment among other states, managed by people too.
According to this perspective, and in Mearsheimer (2001: 21) words, ‘Great powers strive
to gain power over their rivals and hopefully become hegemons... Become global
hegemony is impossible, but it’s possible to become a regional hegemony’ -i.e. United
States in the Western hemisphere. Taking this in mind, I suggest that small states only can
focus on ensure its own security leaving aside other self-interests and the pursuit of power
growth, why? Because If the small nations’ survival is threatened by great states’ desire of
power, ‘they should join forces, establish formal alliances, and seek to preserve their own
independence by checking the power of the opposite side’ (Dunne and Schmidt, 2014:
101), which means that small states must set aside their own interests and give priority to
the interests of the great power on their side in order to be protected, if it is not done, they
can remain vulnerable or threatened on both sides. In other words, small nations
(defensive realism) and great nations (offensive realism).

Session 08 (March 21th – March 24rd): Liberalism

Colombia have been breathing for very long period a tainted oxygen of an anarchical
atmosphere within its borders. The most relevant example of this atmosphere is the long
and deep conflict between the government and the guerrilla groups such as the FARC and
the ELN. Colombia was cited by (Dunne, 2014: 122) as a reminder for us. ‘that in many
parts of the world, anti-liberal values of warlordism, torture, intolerance, and injustice are
expressed daily’. In spite of this period, in last years, Colombia have embraced a real
possibility of reach peace. Colombia’s pace treaties with the FARC are a clear example of
the arduous work provided by national political actors and also, international institutions
and cooperation with other counties.
Liberalism is one of the most important theoretical frameworks of international relations
analysis, which for Jackson and Sorensen (2010: 102), ‘it is useful to divide post-second
world war liberalism in four main strands of thinking, such as sociological,
interdependence, institutional and republican liberalism’. In the case of the analysis of the
peace process in Colombia, this Learning Log will be focus on the institutional liberalism,
which can give us a liberal perspective about this process. Liberals argue that the
regulation and support activity done by institutions is crucial to foster collaboration and
preserve peace between counterparts. ‘Cooperation among rational egoists was possible
to achieve it properly coordinated by regimes and institutions’ (Dunne, 2014: 120). Alther
(2006: 289) expose one of the roles executed by institutions specially NGOs promoting
peace in Colombia during the president Alvaro Uribe’s government (involved in military
philosophy), in which NGOs ‘have supported peace communities in Colombia in
collaboration with local partners […] engaging with the national and international context,
and being committed to learning’. These activities of the NGOs in Colombia give an
overview of how institutions can be a relevant actor in international affairs, boosting
collaboration not only between states, but among different actors, in this case,
communities. The example above provides a reference of the influence of liberal thinking,
and a frame to analyse and assess the validity of this IR theory.

Session 09 (March 27th – March 31th): Contemporary mainstream approaches: neo-

realism and neo-liberalism

Absolute or relative gains? According to Lamy (2014: 136) ‘[n]eo-liberal institutionalists

consider that all will benefit from absolute gains, [but on the other hand] neo-realists
remind us that the world is still a competitive place’. In spite of this competitive world,
states can find mutual interests and can achieve mutual cooperation, finally the nations
involved could gain from this cooperation, but, the real importance is not the cooperation,
‘for neo-realist the important question is: who will gain more?’ (Lamy, 2014: 135). In this
competitive reality ‘as is implicit in traditional arguments, states seek "power" rather than
"plenty” (Snidal, 1991: 387). Based on this, I believe that states can tend toward a relative
gain rather than an absolute, because absolute gains can mean empowerment of one of
the actors within the cooperation system, which means, supremacy of one, and
vulnerability of others, on this sense, it would may create lack confidence among those
actors. As Powell (1991) assert, ‘gaps in otherwise mutually positive gains from joint action
will detract from a state's utility (and perhaps cause it to choose not to cooperate)’

On the other hand, I have been developing my academic skills, in the last learning logs I
feel more sure of myself in the writing and reading time, even, I have been getting fluency
in the speaking sense. Recently, I have improved the quotation skills, such as mention
once an author per quote, do not forget to state the year and page each time it is
necessary, add square brackets in the quotation when I want to mention what I understood
of the text and how to mention more than two authors on the same quote. Additionally, I
have progressed my search skills, such as finding books and specific information in
amazon or google books, for instance Ohmae (2002). Besides, I have improved a lot the
search for new academic references on specific web sides, the most relevant of this skill is
jstor.org. To sum, the previous weeks gave me a lot of practice and adjustments to refine
my academic and English skills, which allow me to learn more about IR and express in a
better manner my ideas
Bibliography

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