IAFF 1005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Scientific Revolution, Natural And Legal Rights, Scientific Method
13 Jun 2018
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Tuesday Lecture: World War I
I. Main topics
A. Emergence of the modern state system
B. Stability and instability in Europe 1648-1914
C. Origins of WWI
D. Conduct and consequences of the war
II. The Emergence of the modern world
A. The Scientific Revolution: 1500s-1600s
1. The rise of the scientific method, empiricism
2. Observation/verification; experimentation/replicability
3. Who determines what information is legitimate?
4. A revolution in acquisition/authentication of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge
B. The Enlightenment: 1700s
1. Application of reason in social and human affairs
2. What are the causes of war/peace; inequality/prosperity; human progress
3. The government is the social contract of the people
4. Natural rights, liberty, equality → Declaration of independence
C. The Euro-Centric Focus: because the modern state system emerged in Europe 1648
1. The rise and fall of empires in the 1600s
2. Ottoman, Ming, Tokugawa, Mughal, Songhai, Inca (European colonization)
D. Europe and the “Peace of Westphalia” 1648
1. Ended the Thirty Years war in central Europe
2. Ended the eighty years war between Spain and the Dutch republic
3. Treaties of Westphalia ended wars of religion/hegemony
4. An order-building juncture
5. Three principles
a) Stable borders
b) Sovereignty → states have legal/political authority and a monopoly over
legitimate use of force; new
c) Non-interference in the internal affairs of states → especially relevant in the
world of religion
E. Several years after the Peace
1. 1652
2. 1713 → balance of power thinking emerges so no state takes great power over others
3. British-French rivalries intensifying
4. 1789-1799: French Revolution → ideological/political threat to other monarchies with
the thought that the people would now rule in France
a) French Revolutionary Wars (1792-) France vs. Austria, Britain, others; 2
coalitions
5. Napoleonic wars
6. Congress of Vienna → 1815
F. 1815-1914 “relatively peaceful
1. Called the Epoch of Peace in Europe → no general war involving all of the great
powers
2. Multipolar system: 5-6 great powers
a) Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, Russia (later Italy
b) France was reintegrated into great-pwoer relations
c) State power all relatively qual
d) Diplomacy, multilateral summits helped manage the conflict
e) Fluid alliances formed and shifted around to maintain stability; Britain acted as
the maintaining power
3. Revolutions
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