1. WHY SPEND TIME TALKING ABOUT HISTORY?
What is path dependency? What is punctuated equilibrium
What key features of the present (?) international system are explained by critical junctures in history?:
Why is the world organized into states? (realism, liberalism, Marxism, and constructivism all can help us to think about this)
Why are states treated as sovereign?
Why is the intl. system still one of anarchy? (rather than federalist)?
Why, at least until very recently, have western states played the dominant role in the international system?
Why does the international system change with respect to its major players? Why are there always a few major states seemingly in balance? What are the differences among unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar systems? What are examples of these? How unusual is the unipolar momement (which may be over)?

2. WHERE DID THE STATE SYSTEM COME FROM?
How is a state different from other types of social organization?
The modern state system usually seen as a 15th C forward things, but the process begins earlier… China, Inca, Aztecs, Maya
Most humans lived in bands 10K years ago? Why do they now almost all live in states? (Jared Diamond): agriculture, religion, conquest
What did those processes start to yield even before we get to modern states? (a)Specialized labor especially in the area of commerce and conflict (b) Massive , fixed, concentrated populations (50-100K); (c) Political/territorial/civic vs. kinship defined social identity, (d) Bureaucracies & the rule of law, and complex systems of hegemony

3. WHERE DID THE STATE SYSTEM COME FROM?
Was the modern (15-17th C, European) state inevitable? Five innovations that led to the rise of the west:
International sailing vessels (1492)
Commercial classes, better accounting & better public goods (14th C)
Gun power (1430s onward)
Gutenberg and the printing press (1440s)
Martin Luther and Protestantism (1517)… (1) Rethinking the relationship between individuals and the state eventually leads to new thinking on universal liberties and rights; (2) sovereignty; (3) state self determination
Think about what this process means for thinking about globalization today… “Functionalism” is the idea that institutions and norms emerge, evolve, and are displaced based on how well they serve those who have the capacity to change or maintain the status quo.
WHERE DID THE STATE SYSTEM COME FROM?

4. WHAT ARE THE DEFINING QUALITIES OF THE MODERN INTERNATIONAL STATE SYSTEM?
Sovereignty (Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years War)
Secular authority within international relations
Domestic autonomy, but also states have responsibility for sub-state actors
States generally respect international decisions about sovereignty and honor state sovereignty in diplomacy
Fixed (more or less) territoriality, although this is much more serious today.
Collective security
What is the differences between a great power concerts (e.g., the UN or Non Proliferation Treaty) and collective sec. (e.g. League of Nations or NATO)?
We live in an intl. pol economy
How did imperialism and mercantilism transform the intl. system (1500s, 1800s)? How about the Industrial Revolution and truly international trade (1760s, 1970s, 1990s)

5. WHAT ARE THE DEFINING QUALITIES OF THE MODERN INTERNATIONAL STATE SYSTEM?
Nationalism
What is it, and why is it such an important idea/principle? (1770s, 1950s, 1990s).
Popular sovereignty
Where did it (aka national self determination) come from and how does it related to nationalism?
International organizations
When and why did they become so powerful? (i.e., UN, IMF, GATT/WTO, NATO, and the NPT all come out of total war with weapons that can damage on a global scale)
How is the system changing at the moment?
Is there an international liberal order that is replacing the intl. system?
Do you have a natural right to create nations even when they aren’t able to protect own sovereignty?
How is thinking changing about WMDs, genocide, rules of war vis-à-vis civilians? What other human rights does a person have, and what responsibility does the intl. community have to protect them (R2P)?