POLS 078. Order, Empire, and Domination (IR)

The international system is defined by anarchy - no state “is entitled to command” and none are “required to obey.” However, look anywhere and you’ll find commanding and obeying. From the British Empire, Ming Hegemony, and America’s stint as leader of the free world to global governance institutions, neo-imperialism, and persistent inequality along the lines of race, class, and gender, we see a system defined by hierarchy. While anarchy is a useful starting point for theories of international relations, this class proceeds on the assumption that it obscures more than it reveals. After surveying anarchy’s place in mainstream scholarship, we turn to the alternative ordering principle of hierarchy. The first section defines hierarchy, authority, and status. Section two looks at international orders and empires: what are they, how do they start, how do they shape international relations, and how do they fall? Here, we pay special attention to historical empires, the beleaguered liberal international order that the US presides over, and the question of whether the US is an empire. Section three looks at networks of domination, and the ways in which race, class, and gender shape the system.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Spring 2025. Casey.
Catalog chapter: Political Science
Department website: swarthmore.edu/political-science

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