Theoretical Framework

  • Hanna Samir Kassab
Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

When we speak of insecurity, we really mean a state’s degree of susceptibility to a specific vulnerability or threat. Security then, actually means resilience to vulnerability or threat. Vulnerability degrades the purpose of the state: survival as an independent political unit within an anarchic international system. Threats transcend military matters, incorporating economic, environmental, health and safety, political, society and cyber sources. These threats, or vulnerabilities, have the power to destroy the lives that produced the state. Concentrating on military matters compels us to overlook exposure to other life-threatening vulnerabilities. This chapter highlights the systemic aspect of vulnerability and its distribution across units that create and recreate the international systemic order. It builds a theoretical framework that will explain the specific systemic vulnerabilities.

Keywords

Public Good Weak State Great Power International System Negative Externality 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Works Cited

  1. Altman, R. 2009. Globalization in Retreat: Further Geopolitical Consequences of the Financial Crisis. Foreign Affairs Online. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65153/roger-c-altman/globalization-in-retreat. Accessed 21 July 2013.
  2. Bruton, H. 1965. Principles of Development Economics. London: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
  3. DoD. 2014. This is From: Department of Defense 2014 Task Force Report: Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
  4. Easter, C. 1999. Small States Development: A Commonwealth Vulnerability Index. Round Table 351: 403–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Grynberg, R. 2006. WTO at the Margins: Small States and the Multilateral Trading System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Guillaumont, P. 2012. An Economic Vulnerability Index: Its Design and Use for International Development Policy. In Measuring Vulnerability in Developing Countries, ed. Wim Naude, Amerlia U. Santos-Paulino, and Mark McGillivray. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  7. Jacobson, H.K., and E.B. Weiss. 2001. Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords. In The Politics of Global Governance: International Organization in an Interdependent World, ed. P.F. Diel. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
  8. Kassab, H.S. 2015. Weak States in International Relations Theory: The Cases of Armenia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Lebanon and Cambodia. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Keohane, R. 1969. Lilliputians Dilemmas: Small States in International Politics. International Organization 23(2): 291–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Keohane, R. 2005. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  11. Keohane, R., and J. Nye. 1989. Power and Interdependence. 2nd ed. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
  12. Kindleberger, C. 1981. Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods and Free Rides. International Studies Quarterly 25: 242–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Monroe, J. 1823, December 2. The Monroe Doctrine. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/monroe.asp. Accessed 26 Apr 2014.
  14. Nye, Joseph. 2002. The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  15. Ruggie, J. 1982. International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order. International Organization 36(2): 379–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Who We Are. http://www.unocha.org/about-us/who-we-are. Accessed 1 Jan 2015.
  17. Waltz, K. 2010. Theory of International Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
  18. WHO. 1946. Constitution of the World Health Organization. WHO. http://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/constitution-en.pdf?ua=1
  19. World Summit Outcome. A/RES/60/1, September 15, 2005.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Hanna Samir Kassab
    • 1
  1. 1.Political Science at Northern Michigan UniversityMarquetteUSA

Personalised recommendations