POLS 2940 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Siege Of Melos, Academic Writing, Moral Authority
13 Dec 2016
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Sovereignty: free from interference from other states, nations. Athenians believed that there could be no equality between a strong and weak state: materially strong and materially weak. Strong do what they want, weak do things out of necessity. Melian dialogue: a discussion between athens and melos: large states usually destroy smaller states. Political science is concerned with questions of power. Power is an instrument, a tool: it is something that makes other bend at your will, agree with you. Strong international stance of states having rights, allows for small countries to survive: right to exist, no-harm, no interference is the melian liberal stance, states should run own affairs. Knowledge is used in certain way and for certain reasons. We make the world and say this is how it is, it"s subjective when really we could have made it any other way. Modern state is a new creation, not historical entity because older states no longer exist.
