WEEK 6
ORGS #1
Intro to Conflict/Cooperation
It started out with people fighting the other person and the toughest winning
o
Then it turned into tribes fighting each other and nations fighting each
other
o
Then nation states fighting each other
o
And now states fight each other
Increasingly in today’s world, the 21
st
century, the states are working
together with each other like never before
o
This is a product of the last 60 to 70 years
o
These groups of states working together are called Supranationalist
Organizations
Supranationalist Organizations
Supra is a Latin word means across
National is nations
o
Supranationalist = across nations
o
These organizations are over, and above, and supersede simple
boundaries
o
These are sovereign states working together to do something
What motivates a sovereign state to get together with another state?
o
Money, security, cultural commonality
o
Everyone one of these organizations has some sort of mission which
binds the states together
A mission which all of the states in the club feel as if they can
achieve better in the group than if they went at it alone
So many different acronyms for these organizations
o
EU
o
AU
o
UN
o
NATO
o
NAFTA
o
APEC
o
OPEC
What do the acronyms mean and what are their goals and how are they
changing the way that events on the international stage are unfolding?
o
These groups really affect today’s world much more so than individual
states do anymore
State to state conflict is not a thing of the past
o
We are still alarmingly armed and attacking each other
o
The nature of how wars are conducted and who are conducting them
are changing
o
Let’s sort out this international soup of international groups (country
clubs)
The Changing Nature of Cooperation
Why are these things happening right now?
o
This is kind of a very new phenomena
o
They are gaining in popularity and in number
o
He personally believes these organizations will soon supersede the
concept of the sovereign state in its entirety in the next 100 years
o
In the last few years, all states have joined at least 1 of these
organizations
These are the entities that are going to be going to war with
each other and doing economic business together
So Why Now? These are a product of the modern era (the start – end of world
war 2 1945)
o
Humans had been fighting and have been having conflict with each
other for forever
