Joseph Campbell once stated that “Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that’s why everything is screwy”. There is no escaping the power that the economy has of a city, state, or country has to preserve peace or to be the leading cause of destruction. When examining negotiations between counties, economic relations prevails as one of the single most important factors in the study of world politics today. A weak economy has been responsible for some of history’s most devastating wars and greatest disturbances in maintaining the balance of peace between countries.
One of the leading causes of the conflict of economic interests between countries is that there is no higher power with which to appeal to or with which to discuss conflicts. This simply means that no international governmental hierarchy exits. Whereas in the United States, a local government would appeal to the state government for assistance, and if problems would continue to occur the deciding factor would be ruled be the federal government. The reason why economic conflicts are increasingly difficult is in part due to the fact that a country’s national self interest to preserve a balance of trade overrides international disputes among neighboring countries.
A notable example of the issue of economics in relation to world politics today was the establishment of NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1955. The primary objective of NATO was to decrease the conflict among countries in regard to international economic relations and to encourage cooperation among the Allies. However, while agreements among NATO members are attainable, the open door policy struggles to maintain secure membership. This is partly due to the fact that NATO membership is available to countries within North America and Europe.
While an institutions such as the United Nations was established to form a preserve peace and help limit conflict, the desires of individual countries to insist on wanting the best for their own countries prevails. In order to stall further economic conflicts and disagreements when studying world politics it is important to examine the form of communication and conflict resolution used between leaders in these disagreements in order to help better understand the errors of the past and to look forward to a much brighter future.
I agree with you that conflict on economic issues in negotiation between countries occur due to the fact that there is no structured hierarchy and thus no higher power to mediate the conflict. However, this is an issue that is difficult to resolve, because conducting the affairs related to the economy is considered as part of each nation's sovereignty and a creation of international hierarchy to mediate economic conflicts would violate those sovereignty.
ReplyDeleteIt would definitely help to examine the past communications and methods used to help us understand present and future economic conflicts. However, as I mentioned before, trying to mediate economic conflicts through a international hierarchy seems a little bit unrealistic in my opinion.