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INTT 463 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Dr. Osman Sabri Kıratlı

Theory Building in IR and the International System

Theory Building in International Relations

Theory: Set of hypotheses postulating relationships between variables; used to describe, explain, and predict; must be falsifiable and stand the test of time

  • IR theories are general ideas about world affairs
  • Theories influence policies and politics
  • Theories help us deal with complexity

Theories:

DESCRIBE

EXPLAIN

PREDICT

Theories reflect historical circumstances, personal views and experiences of those who write them

Theories are continuously being revised in light of changing circumstances

Theory Building in International Relations

Theory Building in International Relations

Scientific Method

  • Theories begin with assumptions
  • Theories offer falsifiable hypotheses
  • Theories offer causal relationships between dependent and independent variables
  • Theory is "the net which we throw out in order to catch the world – to rationalize, explain, and dominate it."

Karl Popper. Logik der Forschung, 1935: p.26

(The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Routledge Classics 2002, 2003, 2004)

A good theory should fulfil the following functions:

  • describe, explain and predict
  • verify and falsify (Popper) - by confronting accumulated knowledge with reality

“No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white”. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit

Theory Building in International Relations

Defining International Relations

Ontology: Philosophical study dealing with the nature of being, existence and reality

  • The kind of judgment over the nature of international politics
  • Debates along a continuum between anarchy and order:
  • Realists: Machiavelli: law of the jungle
  • Liberals: reality of conflict and cooperation
  • Constructivists: “Anarchy is what states made of it” Alexander Wendt

Defining International Relations

Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, esp. with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion, establishing the criteria of scientific knowledge

Debates between positivism and post-positivism/post-modernism

  • Positivists (Empiricism, rationalism) (e.g. Realism, Liberalism) accept the possibility to distinguish facts from values, with facts being neutral, objective in their essence, being the object of scientific knowledge. You know what you can see.
  • Post-positivists (e.g. Constructivism, Feminism) reject neutral scientific theory because there is no neutral reality, reality is a social construction; theory and its language contribute to construct a world and the research should denounce, de-construct its internal structure.

Three Levels of Analysis

International Level (“third image”)

Qualities of the International System

Domestic Level (“second image”) Qualities of the Political and Economic System

Individual Level (“first image”)

Qualities of Individual Leadership

International

Domestic

Individual

Three Images

Kenneth Waltz. 1954. Man, the State, and War. What are the causes of war?

First Image: Human nature

Second Image: The State

Third Image: The International System

Contemporary International System

Key concepts – state, nation, sovereignty, power, international state system, balance of power

Key historical moment – 1648, Treaty of Westphalia, ending Thirty Years War; emergence of modern state system

  • Secular authority replaced religious authority
  • Territorial integrity of states as legally equal and sovereign participants in international system

Nation-State

  • The primary unit of political organization.
  • Dates from 1648 and the Treaty of Westphalia.
  • 1945 – Sovereign equality of members accepted in United Nations charter
  • Explosion of new states in the 20th century:
  • In Middle East after World War I
  • In Indian subcontinent, Pacific rim & parts of Africa after World War II
  • In Africa after 1960
  • In former Soviet Union after 1990

Key Developments Pre-Westphalia

Greek city-states (circa 400 B.C.)

  • Classic power politics, diplomacy, economic relations, trade, and military conflict; precursor of modern state system

Roman Empire (50 B.C.-400 A.D.)

  • Larger, centralized political system through imperial expansion; empire united through law and language
  • Middle Ages (400-1000)
  • Disintegration of Roman Empire, emergence of feudalism in Europe and rise of Roman Catholic Church
  • Emergence of three major civilizations: Arabic, Byzantine, remains of Holy Roman Empire
  • Late Middle Ages (1000-1600)
  • Secular trends undermine decentralization of feudalism, universalism of Christianity in Europe
  • Commercial activity expands, communications and technologies improve
  • Emergence of transnational business community, revival of classicism, and European territorial expansion (principally due to new technologies and economic interests)

Emergence Of Westphalian System

  • Treaty of Westphalia (1648) ended Thirty Years War (1618-1648) in Europe
  • Thirty Years War – fought mainly in Germany; initially conflict between Protestants and Catholics (in Holy Roman Empire); grew into larger conflict involving major European powers
  • European states embraced notion of sovereignty
  • States established national militaries
  • Established core group of states that dominated world until the beginning of 19th century

Key Developments Post-Westphalia

  • Sovereignty
  • Small states in central Europe attain sovereignty (demise of H.R.E.)
  • Monarchs inherit religious authority over people (sovereign authority, exclusive rights within given territory)
  • Territoriality, territorial state legitimized
  • Right of states to choose religion, determine domestic policies free from external pressure with full jurisdiction; right of noninterference

  • State leaders establish permanent national militaries and centralize control producing ever-more powerful sovereign states with national armies

  • Core group of states – Austria, Russia, Prussia, England, France, United Provinces (Neth./Belgium) emerge as dominant players
  • In the West, capitalism emerges: private enterprise, infrastructure, trade
  • In the East, feudalism remains, economic change stifled
  • European politics marked by absolutist regimes, multiple rivalries, and shifting alliances

Sovereignty

  • The supreme governing power of a state. A powerful force in international relations. Even the smallest nations claim to have sovereignty. It has 2 components:
  • Power over internal affairs with freedom from external interference.
  • Political and legal recognition by other nations
  • Although absolute, not without limits; leaders limited by:
  • Divine law or natural law (laws of God and nature)
  • Type of regime, constitutional laws of the realm
  • Covenants, contracts (with people within commonwealth), and treaties with other states (with no supreme arbiter in relations among states)

19th Century Europe

  • American and French revolutions against absolutist rule, Enlightenment thinking and social contract theorists
  • Absolute rule subject to limits imposed by man
  • Locke: political power rests with people; monarch/leader/government derives legitimacy (moral and legal right to rule) from consent of governed
  • Nationalism: people share devotion and allegiance to nation based on shared characteristics, common religion, language, historical experience, etc.

19th Century Europe

  • Concert of Europe (Napoleon defeated in 1815, Congress of Vienna), establishes period of relative peace
  • Great powers meet periodically (Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia) to reach agreement on problems threatening peace among European states
  • Initially aimed at containing France, achieve balance of power; maintain territorial arrangements made at Congress of Vienna (1814-1815); kept relative peace for about 40 years
  • Major economic, technological, and political changes
  • Populations and commerce grew
  • Italy and Germany unified; Holland split (Netherlands, Belgium); Greece, Moldavia, Romania achieved independence

Nationalism

  • Political ideology advocating national self-determination
  • First developed in 19th Century in Europe, but spread world-wide
  • Nationalism is one way to legitimate states and/or separatist movements.
  • Particularly dangerous to empires

19th Century Europe

  • European solidarity
  • European elites united by fear of revolution from below
  • Preoccupied by German and Italian unification
  • European states engaged in territorial expansion, colonialism; “Gold, God, Glory” (hence, competition exported to Africa and Asia)
  • Congress of Berlin (1885) divided Africa
  • European states controlled 4/5 of world (1914)
  • Balance of power
  • Out of fear for emergence of hegemon, states with relatively equal power formed alliances to counteract any potentially more powerful faction
  • Breaks down when alliances solidify, two camps emerge – Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Italy) and Dual Alliance (France and Russia) – and conflict between allied states leads to World War I

Contemporary International System

  • Absence of Strong Political Institutions that Provide a Monopoly on Coercive Force and Legitimacy to the Political Process
  • Anarchy is the Central Condition of International Politics.
  • Rising Role of Non-state Actors
  • Debate about significance
  • Importance varies by issue area
  • Nations
  • International Organizations
  • Multinational Corporations
  • Non-governmental Organizations

Realism

Main Assumptions:

  • States are most important actors
  • Unitary-Rational Decision-making
  • International system is anarchic and conflict-prone: often zero-sum situations
  • All States must pursue power to survive
  • States balance against threats
  • Morality has no place in international politics
  • International politics more important than domestic politics.
  • Value Relative over Absolute Gains

Realism’s Tenets (1 of 2)

  • People are selfish and ethically flawed and compete for self-advantage
  • People have an instinctive lust for power
  • Eradicating this instinct is not possible
  • International politics is a “a war of all against all”
  • The prime obligation of the state is promoting the national interest

Realism’s Tenets (2 of 2)

  • Anarchical international system requires states to acquire military power
  • Military power is more important than economics
  • Do not trust allies
  • Resist international efforts to control state protection and institute global governance
  • Seek flexible alliances to maintain a balance of power

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Realism

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War
(5th Century BC)

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer
what they must.”

“Of gods we trust and of men we know, it is in their
nature to rule whenever they can.”

“What made war inevitable was the growth of the
Athenian power and the fear that this caused
in Sparta.”

“So far as right and wrong are concerned…there is no
difference between the two…”

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Realism

Machiavelli
1469-1527

  • The Prince
  • ‘it is much safer to be feared than to be loved, if one must choose’

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Realism

  • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
  • Leviathan (1651)
  • State of Nature:
  • Humans live in a perfect state of liberty
  • Humans live in a perfect state of equality
  • Humans are essentially self-interested
  • Humans, therefore, are born into a natural state of war

with one another…..chaos and conflict

  • In the absence of a sovereign authority, life of the individual is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’

  • The only law of nature is that of survival of the fittest, each

person striving after that which will maximize his/her own

chances at survival

  • The only real public good that can be conceived of is order….

and so individuals will give their consent to be governed by a force

with ultimate and sovereign power: an absolute monarch

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Realism

Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980)

  • Politics Among Nations (1948)
  • Context of US hegemony
  • Objective: ‘Scientific study of IR’ (apply natural sciences to IR)
  • Distinction between liberal utopianism & realism (Different conceptions of human nature)

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Realism

Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980)

Six Principles of Political Realism:

  • Politics is governed by objective laws

  • Centrality of the concept of interest defined in terms of power (national interest as the guiding principle of international politics)

  • Nature of power can change, but the concept of interest remains consistent

  • Universal moral principles do not govern state behaviour, but interest

  • No universally agreed set of moral principles

  • Politics is a separate sphere of human activity

Critiques of Political Realism

  • Understanding of human nature
  • Reification of the state (regards state as a real thing)
  • Limited notion of power (military power is primary)
  • Weak notion of change and transformation in world politics
  • Disregards ethical principals
  • Focuses on military might at economic and social expense of states

Critiques of Political Realism

What factors make a state powerful? The three tables above list the top states in three different categories that might be used to assess power.

Variants of Realism

  • Balance of Power Theory
  • Hegemonic Stability Theory

The Balance of Power

  • To deter aggression by others, states balance against each other so no one country becomes too strong.
  • Realists typically focus on the balance of power, which may be regional or sometimes used to discuss a dyad of two countries.
  • The Concert of Europe that emerged after the Napoleonic Wars is a good example.
  • Problem: The balance of power seems bound to fail in the long-run and could be said to only delay war. Some Realists would disagree.
  • Realists believe that power imbalances lead to war since powerful states, unchecked, will try to acquire more power.
  • Balancing by forming alliances with other states is the quickest way to check the power of potentially aggressive states.

Rules for an Effective Balancing Process

  • Identify potential threats and opportunities
  • Seek allies when you cannot match the armaments of an adversary
  • Remain flexible in making alliances
  • Oppose any state that seeks hegemony

Criticisms of Balance of Power Theory

  • It assumes that policymakers possess accurate, timely information about other states
  • The tendency of defense planners to engage in worst-case scenario planning can spark an arms race.
  • It assumes that decision makers are risk averse
  • It has not been effective

Balance of Power Models

  • Unipolarity
  • United States just after World War II
  • United States now?—Bush doctrine/ Obama doctrine?
  • Bipolarity
  • United States/Soviet Union 1949–1989
  • NATO–Warsaw Pact
  • Extended deterrence
  • Multipolarity

Alternatives to Balance of Power

  • Hegemonic Stability Theory
  • A concert of great powers
  • Common sense of duty
  • Normative consensus is fragile

The Way to War: Colonialism

Virtually all the major powers were engaged in a race of colonization to bolster their economies

The fiercest competition was between Britain and Germany and between France and Germany

The Way to War: Nationalism

  • The French Revolution had spread nationalism throughout most of Europe
  • The idea that people with the same ethnic origins, language, and political ideals had the right to form sovereign states through the process of self-determination

  • Nationalist aspirations of subject minorities threatened to tear apart the multinational empires of the Ottomans, Habsburgs, and Russians
  • Such a development would affect the regional balance of power

The Way to War: Triple Alliance

  • Germany and Austria-Hungary signed the Dual Alliance in 1879, committing the two states to mutual assistance in the event of attack by France or Russia.

  • The Dual Alliance was expanded into the Triple Alliance in 1882 when Italy joined.
  • Italy proved to be an untrustworthy partner, declaring itself neutral when the war began and ultimately siding with the Allies

The Way to War: Triple Entente

The Triple Alliance was counter-balanced by the Triple Entente of France, Russia, and Britain.

As a result, by 1907 Europe was divided into two armed and rather fearful camps.

The World War I

  • Serbian Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Hungary
  • Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that Austrian officials take part in any investigation of people found on Serbian territory connected to the assassination
  • Serbia refused this demand as a violation of its sovereignty
  • On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia
  • A tangled alliance system then began to realize itself

  • So…

The World War I

  • When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, on July 29 Russia began mobilizing to defend its Serbian ally
  • Then, in consideration of mobilization timetables, Russia also mobilized against Germany
  • In response, Germany declared war on Russia on Aug 1
  • France started to mobilize on behalf of its ally Russia
  • On Aug 3, Germany declared war on France and also began to attack through neutral Belgium to France in accordance with its war plan
  • Belgium protested to the signatories of the 1839 treaty guaranteeing its neutrality
  • When Germany refused Britain (one of the treaty signatories) ultimatum on Aug 4, Britain declared war on Germany

The World War I

German Schlieffen plan sent a powerful right wing through Western Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern France in a gigantic wheeling movement

The idea was to destroy France before Russia could mount an effective offensive against the weak German forces in the east and thus avoid fighting a two-front war

The World War I: Trench Warfare

The World War I: The Russian Revolution

  • Russia was experiencing social and political unrest and growing war-weary
  • The Bolsheviks seized power through the Russian Revolution and ended Russia’s involvement in World War I by signing the treaty of Brest-Litorsk with Germany on March 3, 1918
  • In the midst of World War I, Britain, France, Japan, and the US all sent troops and supplies to aid the “Whites” in their struggle against the “Reds” but the Whites were defeated in 1920

1919 Bolshevik poster showing the three White generals as vicious dogs under the control of the US, France, and Britain.  

The World War I

Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917

Sunk several US ships in Feb and Mar

US declared war on April 6, 1917

At the same time Russia was withdrawing from the war, the US was entering

Germany failed to end war before the US entered it

The World War I: Treaty of Versailles (1919)

  • Woodrow Wilson proposed a generous “Fourteen Points” designed to focus on international cooperation and peace, but the French especially wanted harsh terms imposed on the Germans
  • Wanted to destroy or permanently weaken Germany as a threat

The World War I: Treaty of Versailles (1919)

  • The resulting Treaty of Versailles denied the Germans a navy and air force and limited the size of their army to 100,000 troops
  • Prevented Germany and Austria from entering any sort of political union
  • Required the payment of war reparations
  • German protest against the Treaty of Versailles will lead to Hitler’s rise to power and World War II

Before

After

LIBERALISM

  • Opposition to Realism.
  • Normative character of Liberalism.
  • Optimistic view of International Relations?
  • State power is not the only variable in International Relations.
  • Peace, Law, Justice, non-state actors, have also a fundamental role in International Relations.
  • Arguments about the positive effects of international institutions
  • Strong faith in human reason
  • In institutional terms- ability to pursue ones interest
  • Ability to understand moral principles and live according to the law
  • Belief in possibility of historical progress & reforming international relations

Peace and Security

  • Peace theory
  • people have no interest in war.
  • tyranny must be put to an end
  • liberal democracy
  • Michael Doyle – democratic peace theory
  • The more states are democratic, the more they are peaceful
  • Zone of peace
  • Harmony of Interest – between states and people for mutual interests and mutual benefits

State and power

  • State is not the only actor
  • State can give some elements to other bodies
  • NGOs, multinational corporations, IOs
  • Power is distributed.
  • People can collectively influence decision-making processes

Institutions and world order

  • In some cases states have to give up their sovereignty: to UN, EU
  • Over the past century- new institutions treaties, regimes.
  • Governance - collective processes of rule-making, monitoring, implementation

Currents of Liberal Thought

  • I- Republican Liberalism/Liberal Internationalism/ Democratic Peace Theory
  • I. Kant (1795/ 1983) The Perpetual Peace

  • II- Neoliberal Institutionalism and Interdependence
  • R. Keohane and J. Nye (1977) Power and Interdependence

  • III- Idealism

I-LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM

  • Since the end of the Cold War that the idea of a democratic peace thesis has been developed.
  • Kant defended a federation of liberal republics to guarantee perpetual peace, while neo-liberal internationalists assert that liberal states do not use war to resolve problems between them: Doyle defines it as the “separate peace”.
  • Fukuyama defended the triumph of liberalism after the end of the Cold War, naming it “The End of History” and defending the exportantion of liberal values.

I- LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM

  • These author defend that expansionism of liberalism against authoritanism will provide peace and stability to the international order.
  • The limits of liberal expansionism offer serious problems, namely concerning principles such as sovereignty and non-intervention.
  • There is also the difficulty of measuring democracies.

Liberal Internationalism/ Democratic Peace Theory

Stems generally from suggestions in liberal and democratic theory that democracies may be more peaceful and cooperative in international relations

  • Ordinary citizens tend not to see the state as their personal property, and therefore do not have the urge to expand it for purposes of enhancing personal or family power
  • More accountability and checks may lead to more rational decisions, which in turn will prevent states from mistakenly entering wars
  • Commercial nature provides material incentives to keep peace and creates ties among nations
  • Tend to place more faith in permanent institutions that can be used to resolve differences peacefully

Liberal Internationalism/ Democratic Peace Theory

  • Kant’s discussion in “Perpetual Peace” of the prospects for a more peaceful world based on the operations of liberal republics
  • Later empirical work that suggest that democracies tend not to go to war with other democracies
  • As such, the development of the theory has sometimes split into two several lines research:
  • Research into relations among and between democracies, in which the peaceful nature of democracies tends to be tested
  • Research on relations between democracies and non-democracies, in which the evidence suggests that democracies are not necessarily “peaceful” when dealing with other types of regimes
  • Research into the general nature of relations and actions having to do with democracies.

II- NEOLIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM

  • Liberal institutionalists defend the idea that the state is not able to cope with modernatization and, as David Mitrany asserted, transnational co-operation is required in order to solve common problems. He also defended spill-over, the likelihood that co-operation in one sector would lead to other sectors, a fact later confimed in Europe.
  • After entering into such a process, states will have high costs in withdrawing from it.
  • The notion of Interdependence: This concept characterized a complex system of interactions - brought by development of capitalism and mass culture – in which actions in one of its parts had more and more consequences to the other part, a fact that fatally undermined state autonomy.

Theory of complex mutual interdependency

  • The fathers: Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
  • On one hand accepting the realistic presupposition of the anarchical international system
  • On the other hand they claim that the important thing about the international system is not only the division of power, but mutual interdependency and existence of international institutions
  • The military security ceased to be the priority of the foreign policies and the hierarchy of sources of threats and power ceased to exist as well.
  • The security is no more the military matter
  • Security has character of collective security which we can apply on the economical as well as military relations between states
  • Governance includes both informal and formal organizations at national and international level

III- IDEALISM

  • Idealism assert that the international order should be constructed and managed by an international organization.
  • The League of Nations was based upon the idea of collective security.
  • The failure of the League of Nations and the World War II would bury idealist expectations of international peace.
  • However, after World War II some of the liberal ideas were implemented, such as the self-determination principle or the respect for human rights.

IDEALISM

  • Liberal internationalist assumption that interdependence was associated with peace was contradicted by World War I.
  • Idealists believed that peace is not a natural condition but needs to be constructed.
  • According to Woodrow Wilson peace could only be secured with the creation of an international institution that regulated international relations.
  • Balance of power and secret diplomacy was not a guarantee of international security.
  • Analogy between international order and domestic order.
  • Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” and the creation of the League of Nations materialized the idealist approach on international relations.

The Interwar Period / 1920-1929

  • League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. From 1934-1935, it had 58 members.
  • League goals included: disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life.
  • The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use.

The Interwar Period / 1920-1929

  • The origins of the League as an organisation created by the Allied Powers as part of the peace settlement at the end of the First World War led to it being viewed as a "League of Victors”. It also tied the League to the Treaty of Versailles so that when the Treaty became discredited and unpopular, this reflected on the League.
  • The League required a unanimous vote of its fifteen members Council to enact a resolution; conclusive and effective action was difficult, if not impossible.
  • Member states. Most notably missing was the position that the United States of America was supposed to play in the League, not only in terms of helping to ensure world peace and security but also in financing the League. The League was the cornerstone of Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

The Interwar Period / 1920-1929

Collective security by the League required nations to act against states they considered friends, and sometimes against national interests, to support states in which they had no interest.
Ex. Mussolini and Ethiopia

The League depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions. Britain and France, were reluctant to use sanctions or military action on behalf of the League.

Moral Suasion in Punch Magazine 1920

Causes of War: Versailles

  • The Treaty of Versailles was supposed to ensure peace, satisfy nationalistic desires, and exact revenge on Germany

  • Unfortunately, the terms of the treaty did not have the intended results

Causes of War: Great Depression

  • German reparations
  • Expansion of production capacities and dominance of the United States in the global economy
  • Britain and France owed huge war debts to the U.S.
  • Better technologies allowed factories to make more products faster, leading to overproduction
  • Excessive expansion of credit (people spending money they don’t have)
  • Stock Market Crash of 1929
  • Buying stock on margin
  • A crisis in finance that led the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates
  • Panic set in when stock prices crashed
  • Inability of the League of Nations to stop aggression

Causes of War: Great Depression

  • Affected countries across the globe
  • Unemployment, bank failures, collapse of credit, collapse of prices in world trade

  • Government responses
  • Governments became very involved with running the economy, like in the U.S. with FDR’s New Deal
  • Political changes in infant democracies (totalitarian leaders promised CHANGE!!)
  • Communist parties grew
  • Dictators who offered simple solutions in exchange for power appeared in some countries
  • Totalitarian and Militaristic Dictatorships take over

Causes of War: Totalitarian Regimes

Totalitarianism (NEW) vs. Older concepts of dictatorship

-Seek to dominate all -Seek limited, typically political

aspects of national life control

-Mobilize and make use -Seek pacified and submissive

of mass political populations

participation

-Seek the complete -Attempt to rule over the

reconstruction of the individual and society

individual and society

Causes of War: Fascism

Fascism- A political movement that promotes an extreme form of nationalism, a denial of individual rights, and a dictatorial one party rule.

Promised to revive the economy, punish those responsible for the hard times, and restore national pride.

Attracted those who felt angered and betrayed by the results of WWI treaties and the Depression

Ultranationalism, belief in struggle (the weak should be conquered, loyalty to the state and obedience to a single, strong leader (uniforms, salutes, etc)

Hateful to Communism

Takes power in Italy, Germany, and Spain

Benito Mussolini
1922

Country: Italy

Type of Government: Fascism+dictatorship

Goals and Ideas:

Centralized all power in himself as leader (total control of social, economic, and political life)

Ambition to restore the glory of Rome and create a vast Italian empire

Invasion of Ethiopia

Alliance with Hitler’s Germany

Il Duce

Joseph Stalin
1924

Country: Soviet Union

Type of Government: Communism (dictatorship)

Goals and Ideas:

Crushed opponents and took control after Lenin’s death

Held absolute authority; suppressed resistance

Brought his country to world power status but imposed upon it one of the most ruthless regimes in history

New Economic Policies (NEP)

Collectivization: exported seized goods and gained enough capital to finance a massive industrialization drive

Rapid industrialization: three 5-year plans

The Great Purges: KGB = secret police killed thousands of army officers and prominent Bolsheviks who opposed Stalin

Feared the growing power of Nazi Germany

Adolf Hitler
1933

Country: Germany

Type of Government: Nazism (dictatorship)

Goals and Ideas:

Inflation and depression weakened the democratic government in Germany and allowed an opportunity for Hitler to rise to power

Believed the western powers had no intention of using force to maintain the Treaty of Versailles

Anti-Semitism: persecution of Jews

Extreme nationalism: National Socialism (aka Nazism)

Aggression: German occupation of nearby countries

Lebensraum: unite all German speaking nations

Anschluss: German union with Austria

Hatred of Communism

Hirohito in Japan

Emperor Hirohito

Prime Minister Tojo

Japan was suffering during Depression

Military takes over

Hirohito has no real power

Leaders felt they could solve problems by conquest

Military General Hideki Tojo controls Japan

Towards the WWII

Late 1924- Hitler released

1930- depression hits economy collapses, Nazis gain power

Nazi party vote increases

1928: 809,000

1930: 6,400,000

1932- Nazis are largest political party in Germany

1932- Hitler runs for President, defeated by Hindenburg

1933- Hitler becomes Chancellor (Try to tame him)

Hitler gained power legally

Towards the WWII

1931 – Japan Invades Manchuria, a mineral rich region in China

Japan needs raw materials to build its war machine and room to grow

The World just watches

Towards the WWII

Mussolini inspired by Japan’s attack on Manchuria b/c LON has no power

1935 Italy invades Ethiopia

LON condemned the attack but does nothing

Britain and France try to keep the peace by appeasing the Italians

The World just watches

Towards the WWII

1935-Hitler announces that Germany will no longer abide by the ToV

He has been building an army

LON condemns Hitler, but does nothing

March 7, 1936- German troops reoccupy the Rhineland, a border area with France that Germany has lost in the ToV

Allies resort to appeasement- policy of giving in to an aggressor to maintain peace

Now Belgium and France are open to attack

Hitler will now speed up his plans for world domination

Towards the WWII

1937- Hitler announces that he wants to add Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia to the German Empire

1938- Hitler “invades” Austria

France and Great Britain do nothing

He then turned to Czechoslovakia

3 million ethnic Germans living in a part of Western Czechoslovakia, called the Sudetenland

Czechoslovakia refuses and asks for help

Sep 29, 1938- Munich Conference- Germany, GB, France, and Italy meet to decide the fate of Czech.

Hitler gets Sudetenland as long as he promises not to ask for anything else. He agrees

Towards the WWII

  • France and GB look to Russia for help; Russia not interested
  • Stalin and Hitler sign a non-aggression pact stating that they would never attack each other.
  • Poland is secretly divided into a buffer zone
  • Germany invades half of Poland
  • September 1, 1939: Britain and France declare war on Germany; WWII starts