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# We live in a 'Global Theater' where every scene has a profound effect
on the world stage. Every action is documented and judged almost
instantly (thanks to the information age) where the panel comprises of
the entire world.
# No nation in the world can stay insulated from the effects of the
global politics as everyone is interdependent. Every person is directly or
indirectly affected by international policies.
So in order to analyze and explain these events in global politics, to
help in policy and decision making of the state come under the study of
International relations.
Reasons for studying international relations apart from it being
allotted to me can be grouped as below:
*Present World system
*Impact on a citizen
*An engineer's angle
World Today :
We are surviving in a world where everything is interconnected. From
the resources we gladly hog indiscriminately to the means through
which we earn our livelihood are heavily influenced by policies and
decisions made far beyond our nation's borders. An event which may
occur halfway across the world has profound impact on our daily lives
without us acknowledging it. In an age where every aspect of life is
globalized (for example the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the
technology we use are influenced by the trend changes happening
across the world) study of IR is a viable aspect.
No longer exists a power block which puppeteers the world politics on
an unchallenged scale. Bipolarity has been replaced with multiple
polarity hence giving more importance to individuality of states. Every
country strives to make its presence felt by utilizing its unique natural
and developed resources. States enter into alliances to compensate for
each others deficiencies such as raw materials, industrialization,
availability of cheap labor,technology etc.
Any conflict of interest among states is no longer dealt in a hasty
manner but through negotiation and compromise among the states. The
various theories studied as a part of the course give detailed insights to
how policy making is done dependent on the local interests of the state
as well as interests of the contesting state. Even if these things fail to
achieve a solution they definitely help in understanding and plotting a
further course of action such as trade and fund restrictions (the more
aggressive way), 'world pressure', and so on.
The differences in the way of life between nations are slowly
disappearing and a common world culture is in its wake. The ease of
adjustment and existence in harmony with the people of various
nationalities, races is supported by the transformation of the European
continent into a single community 'The European Union'. Such a
transformation is based on the principles of Liberalism.
Each nation has to take into account the backlash due to the policies it
makes from the entire world. The global issues such as environmental
and energy crisis are the important aspects of all the global summits
where the power blocks tend to act as the judges and deny similar
privileges to developing nations quoting the issues of environmental
balance where they themselves are leaders in contributing adversely to
the climate changes. An corelation can done to the behavior of these
nations to that of realist states who always strive for supremacy
through power and technology.
A CITIZEN'S PERSPECTIVE:
A common citizen may not be aware of how his day to day life is
affected by the vast array of changes occurring on the global scale. The
increase in the price of petroleum (now a essential commodity) may be
blindly used to accuse the government in power by the opposition. But
the truth may be a much deeper issue such as the turmoil in the middle
east which affects all the nations which are dependent on the region for
their basic energy needs.
A terminally ill poor person (in Pakistan) may be denied of better
health care and basic necessities based on the how his state's relation is
with a superior neighboring state (like India) due to the fact that
his/her mother nation has put all its resources into exhibiting its
military prowess and whereas issues such as medical
care,education,internal security take a backseat, a behavior similar to
a realist state.
The investments made by companies and the modes of trade are
influenced by the nation's policies towards foreign investors decides the
employment opportunities and social well being of the citizens.
However the survival of the fittest by suppressing the weakest comes
into effect when resource utilization is taken into picture i.e
exhausting ones resources while saving your own. Hence investments
done with a capitalistic intention though seem bright opportunities
may not be suitable if not regulated in the long run. Indiscriminate
capitalism should be examined and questioned on the basis whether
the opportunity of a better life arises in a nation which is mostly under
the influences of the core nations.
While nations such as the US have gained immensely from the inflow of
technical and scientific minds achieving great progress in many fields,
source nations such as India inspite of investing heavily has not been
able to achieve similar progress due to the inadequacy of very talent it
is producing. Outsourcing our own can be seen as a exhaustive drain of
our resources though the impact is not seen on the economic scale but
the intellectual drain is far more adverse than visible. It is kind of
indirect exploitation being allowed by our government which is
spending its resources to create technical pool for other nations. So
India's stand may be involuntarily be liberalistic while these nations
are imperialistic in this issue.
MY VIEW AS AN ENGINEER:
After almost two months of the course, I have started to apply and
correlate IR to that what i see on a day to day basis. Following
summarizes that
Everyday technology undergoes exponential changes due to continuous
effort put in by many in their respective fields. Some countries may
refrain from sharing it due to reasons such as military security and
technological domination. But technologies related to medicine, energy
generation,food production which are the basic necessities of any nation
can be shared with countries which suffer from deficiencies in these
areas. This takes place (if not at all) only in a small insignificant scale
today.
India for instance has some of the most brilliant minds working on
developing technologies which unfortunately or fortunately have
already been developed by the superior countries. In my opinion it is
wastage of resources as it is similar to trying to reinvent the wheel. A
nation which still majorly depends on its primary sector can be helped
by the advanced nations to overcome the food and basic amenities
shortages which are more important compared to requirement of a new
base for a MNC whose main job is to complete projects for a foreign
company thousands of miles away.
A world council is required which will be responsible for knowledge and
technology sharing without any strings or conditional clauses in its
operation. To support such an idea, the rise of opensource software
organizations such as canonical (Linux) and Google have made most of
their products open to development by anyone in the world by providing
the source codes for free lance developers. This has made the above
organizations the leaders in developing new softwares which are free
for public usage. This idea of freedom of distribution is similar to that
of Internationalism.
AS A SUMMARY I FEEL THAT STUDYING IR CAN GIVE US
INSIGHTS INTO HOW THE WORLD'S NATIONS SURVIVE IN
COEXISTENSE WHICH IS COMPLEX AND MULTI_FACTOR BASED
Finally coming to personal experiences in the institute, though all of us
get the wonderful opportunity to study in such a acclaimed institute I
feel that groups similar to the ones seen on the global scale though not
as complex are inherently formed. For example the 'concept' of RG
(relative grading) has been a major influence on the students. A person
in the fear of lagging behind or losing prominence in his class tries to
keep himself as reserved as possible when it comes to the matters of
important parts of the syllabus, solving assignments in secret so as to
have an advantage over others in the class. This occurs to me as typical
realist behavior where u need to be always cautious and on a lookout for
a person better than u.
Such a mentality if it occurs in small pockets may not matter much but
in some cases if majority of the class displays such a behavior,it may
lead to (in my view) incomplete learning as it is never possible for a
single person to workout everything all by himself. Mutual exchange of
ideas is important for the development of the subject itself as it will
give rise to the better and multiple solutions enabling better learning.
The standard of a branch if decided only on the basis of the toppers in
the branch may be incorrect in the sense that all the others who were
equally good continue to fall behind as they are unable to cope with the
brighter ones.
It is well known that some of us who tend to work alone face difficulties
when grouped up especially during jobs where team work is essential.
If the grading system changes for the better where hoarding knowledge
is not as important as it is now , we would have better graduates who
will bring more laurels to the institute.
*Not intended to degrade or criticize anyone. If it happens to do so, my
sincere apologies.
Assignment 1
EE09B025
Harsha Vardhan