Вступительный письменный экзамен по английскому языку. Учебные материалы, методические указания и рекомендации. Пособие для абитуриентов

an election campaign, for example, producers will use a stopwatch to make certain that the two main parties have received exactly equal coverage during news bulletins. But, despite such measures, the government and the opposition both tend to believe that the BBC is biased against them.

And — despite the ‘arms length’ arrangements and the ‘impartiality’ clause it should be clear that the BBC’s freedom is by no means total. The government — because it sets the level of the licence fee and decides whether this form of funding should continue — is in practice able to exercise leverage over the programme-makers, who will be wary of offending the landlords of the airwaves. The government also appoints a chairman and board of governors who have some advisory and disciplinary powers over the programme-makers.

Text 9

British Newspapers

Historically, newspapers, as their name in English hints, were intended to provide reports of the previous day or the previous week’s events. Until well into the twentieth century, it was standard for these reports not to be attributed to individual writers but to be credited to ‘our special correspondent’ or ‘our parliamentary reporter’. Facts were carefully connected (or ‘sourced’) to the individual or institution who provided them: “…the government has announced… Buckingham Palace has said’. These techniques — of anonymity and attribution — were intended to convey honesty, authority, objectivity.

In recent times, however, there has been a rise in the cult of the individual personality journalist. Star writers are identified in large typesize and often with a photograph of themselves beside their name. The reports they write are also often less scrupulously observational. Gossip, comment and speculation are now permissible to a greater or lesser extent in most titles — broadsheet and tabloid — in what are ostensibly news reports. And, on the payrolls of most papers, columnists and opinion-writers now out-number reporters. There have been two phases in this phenomenon. First, newspapers took the columnists they already had and promoted them as celebrities. Next, they employed as columnists those who were already celebrities: socialites, television presenters, figures of public notoriety.

Text 10

Modern British Media

In general, the modern British media represent a struggle between the ambitions of the establishment that the media should be educational

121

and informative and the desire of the public that they should be entertaining and gossipy.

In newspapers, for example, the broadsheet papers still hold broadly to the values of elucidation, while the tabloid papers essentially embrace frivolity. There has, though, been increasing slippage in recent years, as commercial competition has forced once solemn titles to lighten up in search of readers and advertising revenue. For the first time — outside of election results and moon landings — it has become common for all British newspapers to feature the same front-page subject on the same day: particularly when the stories involve Royal or show business celebrities.

In television, the tradition of seriousness is still to some extent protected by the funding system of the BBC — payment for its programming by the licence fee will continue at least until the year 2005 — and by Channel 4’s non-profit-making arrangements. Yet, facing ever more competition from satellite, cable and (soon) digital channels, the public service broadcasters will be forced to hustle for viewers in ways which are likely to trivialise their output.

Some would see this process as part of a proper acknowledgement of viewers rather than producers being the most important judge of what is screened; others as the final surrender to the leisure industry of a medium which could have been an important tool for education.

3.3.Образцы материалов для подготовки к вступительному экзамену на факультеты

международных отношений, мировой политики и мирового политического процесса

Text 1

World Politics

Unlike international politics or international relations this term does not stress the primacy of intergovernmental relations and transactions. Instead its use indicates reference to a much wider range of actors and activities than the war/peace/security/order scenarios involved in the classical state-centred paradigms. The ‘world politics perspective’ is closely identified with the work of Keohane and Nye (especially

Transnational Relations and World Politics, 1972) who argued that the state-centric view and its obsession with the interstate system provides an inadequate analytical framework for comprehending the

122

contemporary world. This was not merely a question of semantics (the word international has long been thought of as unsatisfactory); it denoted a profound change in the structure, procedure and substance of the subject in the 1960s and 1970s. As the authors point out, given that many business enterprises have annual turnovers larger than the GNP of many voting members of the UN, and given that large private financial corporations can frustrate the financial policies of even powerful sovereign states, substantial modifications are needed to the original state-orientated model of international politics if those developments are to be grasped. The term ‘world politics’ is thus intended to expand the boundaries of the subject of inquiry, away from the narrow confines of interstate relations towards a recognition of global developments which are in effect beyond the range of the traditional approach. In this way it is closely allied to the world order and world society approaches in that it seeks to draw attention to the increasingly complicated network of relationships that now exist between non-governmental actors. Whereas international politics is concerned primarily with relationships between governments that involve conflicts of interest, world politics is characterized by a multiplicity of actor types and issue areas.

Text 2

Autonomy

Literal meaning is self-government. As such the term is associated with the idea of sovereignty and independence. In traditional international relations all states were assumed to be autonomous, that is, not subject to external authority whether this was spiritual (e.g.: the Church) or temporal (e.g.: the Holy Roman Empire). The Treaties of Westphalia, 1648, are supposed to mark the beginning of the autonomy of the state and hence the anarchic nature of the international system.

Recent scholarship has used the concept of autonomy to cast doubt on the traditional linkage between autonomy and the state. Autonomy is now regarded, particularly by pluralist writers, as a matter of degree rather than an absolute. Thus it is now no longer used as a substitute for sovereignty but as an alternative criterion. Actors in world politics are now held to exercise relative autonomy and state and non-state actors can be compared on this basis. Pluralism fully expects these comparisons to show that on occasions the state does not come out very well.

Writers on ethnic nationalism and communal conflict have also taken up the concept of autonomy of late. The argument begins with the observation that few if any states are autonomous in the true sense, rather all display centrifugal tendencies, majority/minority dichotomies (sometimes indeed minority/ minority/ minority… tendencies). These groups within states are held to be pursuing autonomy as a goal and

123

in the process they are eroding the unity of the state. The end result of this process may clearly be the creation of more states as demands for autonomy succeed in breaking up existing ones. In this sense the classical view of autonomy is to some extent salvaged from the wreck of the state structure.

Text 3

International Relations (IR)

This term is used to identify all interactions between state-based actors across state boundaries. The term can immediately be compared with, though is broader than, international politics. Indeed, the latter is subsumed as one, and certainly one of the most important, subfields of international relations. Thus international law is part of international relations but not international politics. Law is, after all, certainly in its customary form, created by interactions between state-based actors. Similarly international economic relations are part of international relations but not international politics. This is not to say that political calculations will not intrude into these areas, but only that they can be separated for the purposes of analysis.

International relations (IR) is thus an interdisciplinary and heterogeneous area of study. It has no unifying methodology because, taken with three examples mentioned above, international economics is an empirical social science, international law is far more normative than most social sciences while international politics is eclectic, borrowing from a number of traditions and divided in many minds into a rather unruly flock of activities. It should also be noted that the above listing is illustrative rather than exhaustive, diplomatic history, which again has its own methodology, being an obvious omission.

Despite its multidisciplinary and fragmented nature, most students of international relations view it as a sub-discipline of political science, broadly conceived. Although the main professional societies in the Anglo-American world have specifically and deliberately avoided using the term IR in order to indicate its multidisciplinary character (The International Studies Association and the British International Studies Association) the majority of members are in fact drawn from the study of politics. Indeed the domain of IR is often still referred to as ‘international politics’ despite the differences noted above. This terminological imprecision can also be noted in related labels such as ‘world politics’, ‘foreign affairs’, ‘international affairs’ and more recently ‘international studies’ and ‘global politics’. Foreign policy analysis, security studies, International Political Economy and normative theory are the most vibrant subfields and these also are dominated by political scientists.

124

History and approaches

As a separate field of academic inquiry distinct from International Law, Political Theory and Diplomatic History, IR effectively began with the establishment of its first chair at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1919. The first general theoretical perspective was popularly labelled idealism and was characterized by a belief in progress; that the international system could be transformed into a fundamentally more peaceful and just world order.

From the start therefore IR was policy-orientated. Thereafter the subject underwent a succession of waves of theoretical activity which inspired a number of ‘great debates’ within the discipline. In rough chronological order (mindful that these ‘schools’ are not exclusive and do overlap) these are: realism, behaviouralism, neorealism, neoliberalism, world systems theory, critical theory and postmodernism. These perspective shifts often involved bitter disputes about methodology, epistemology and ontology. However, there is now general acceptance within IR that given the range and complexity of the subject matter, a wide variety of theoretical approaches might be an asset rather than a liberality. Most of these paradigm controversies were centred on the work of analysts in the USA and Europe (sometimes, inaccurately referred to as the ‘Anglo-American tradition’) which tended to concentrate on great power/superpower issues. IR students in the Third World or South by and large, by-passed these debates and not unnaturally focused on particular policy problems with their states or regions. Overall theoretical perspectives, if developed at all, usually had their origins in Marxist/Leninist theories of imperialism, in dependency theory and structuralism. With the ending of the Cold War, IR like its subject matter is in a state of flux. The two dominant perspectives are neorealism and neoliberalism but the general uncertainty about the continued validity of the state as the key actor in world politics, has led to doubts about the ability of IR in its present form, to survive as a separate area of academic study.

Text 4

Security Studies

A sub-field of international relations which is concerned with the elucidation of the concept of security, its implementation in foreign policy making and its consequential effect upon structures and processes in world politics. During the Cold War era security studies was narrowly defined in terms of military-security issue areas. It was heavily policy-orientated and there was a large overlap with strategic studies. The post-Cold War system has changed all of these assumptions and the issue area of political economy and the environment have broadened the

125

agenda of security studies from what traditionalists would have referred to as ‘high politics’ to embrace so-called ‘low politics’ of economics and the environment. The distinction has lost much validity in fact because issues of economic or environmental security can be defined in terms which conform to most common-sense ideas of high politics. As a result security studies is one of the most buoyant areas of IR scholarship currently. In shape and substance it is coming to resemble international political economy (IPE) in the sense that it is highly eclectic and shows little signs of reaching a consensus about its operating principles or ideology. Although realist and neorealist scholars have traditionally dominated the field, the opening up of the new economic/environmental agendas is challenging this dominance. In particular the growth of critical security studies (Camnbell 1992) and the idea of common security confirm that various perspectives are evident under the security studies umbrella. In a recent review essay David Baldwin (1995) tentatively argued for a ‘reintegration’ of security studies into mainstream IR. This is unlikely to happen if only because too many academic careers would be at stake in the demise of the sub-field.

Text 5

Foreign Policy

The activity whereby state actors act, react and interact. Foreign policy has been termed a boundary activity. The term ‘boundary’ implies that those making policy straddle two environments: an internal or domestic environment and an external or global environment. The policymakers and the policy system stand therefore at these junction points and seek to mediate between the various milieux.

The domestic environment forms the background context against which policy is made. Thus factors such as the resource base of the state, its position geographically in relation to others, the nature and level of development of its economy, its demographic structure, its ideology and fundamental values will form the domestic or internal milieu. The international or external environment is where policy is actually implemented. Implementation of policy immediately involves other actors and their reactions will feedback into the policy-making system, thus forming part of the picture upon which future policy will be made. This attempt to create a reality upon which policy can be made is referred to as the definition of the situation. It is a necessary prerequisite to understanding the environment and therefore to making policy decisions.

For most decision makers the international environment will be approached from a regional perspective. Geopolitics sets the parameters for this regionalism. States have to react to their neighbours in all aspects of

126

policy and therefore this regional dimension will be crucially important. Even the most significant states in contemporary international relations have regional interests. Cooperation and integration often take place on a regional basis. Similarly many conflict situations, including some of the most chronic and persistent, have their origins in regional rather than global politics. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a good example. The actual conduct of policy will be based within the institutional framework of the state. What are defined as vital matters of national interest will be handled by the head of government along with senior advisers. Such questions are normally referred to as high politics and would include matters of immediate peace and security as well as questions vital to the wealth and welfare of the state and its people. Conversely low politics refers to matters of a routine diplomacy. An intermediate category, often called Sectoral Politics has been coined by some writers on foreign policy to cover those areas where particular interest groups perceive that they have vital interests at stake but where these cannot really be called ‘national’ without distortion. Clearly these categories are not hard and fast and a particular issue area may change in its relative significance. For the United Kingdom this happened in 1982 when the Falklands issue moved rapidly from low/sectoral to high following the Argentinian initiative to occupy the islands unilaterally.

Conventional wisdom might want to suppose that foreign policy is made on the basis of rational calculations of advantage and disadvantage with the policy-makers acting as a unified system. There is good reason to doubt that this view is entirely valid. In recent years the bureaucratic politics approach has sought to emphasize the fact that the organizations that make foreign policy are not unified. Rather, key individuals tend to pursue their own version of the national interest often in conflict with others within the system. As a result the policy that emerges may represent a compromise between various points of view or the triumph of one organizational perspective over another. It is certainly plausible to see the arms race in terms of this view. If this is the case, then the action-reaction model suggested above needs to be modified to allow for the organizational context in which policy is made.

The implementation of policy decisions requires states to utilize instruments such as military and economic capabilities. The military instrument of policy has traditionally been seen as the most important where areas of high policy are concerned. Recently, economic instruments have attracted increased attention. This is partly as a result of increases in interdependence and partly because of some of the problems surrounding the use and the threat of the use of force in contemporary politics. In the last analysis, however well endowed a state may be with capacity to act to advance its interests, the skill and determination of its diplomats and the conduct of its diplomacy

127

may be crucial to the outcome. It is useful to distinguish diplomacy from foreign policy, since they are sometimes used synonymously in the more traditional texts. Whereas diplomacy refers to the manner of conducting one’s relations, foreign policy refers to the matter. The latter remains the best term to use to encapsulate a state’s relations with the outside world.

Text 6

The World Public Opinion

Refers to the supposed existence of a global consensus at to what constitutes legitimate moral, legal or social behaviour in international relations. Apart from obvious cases such as genocide or the unrestricted use of chemical or biological warfare, it is difficult to establish a core of widely shared patterns of values, norms and beliefs in an international system characterized more by diversity than unity. International law does provide a rudimentary framework for the expression of international social norms but this does not, as such, represent the embodiment of world public opinion. General international norms exist (e.g. about human rights, self-determination or aggression) but formulations of them are hedged about with ambiguities and inconsistencies. The incompleteness of the international political system, which is to say its state-centric character, is a severe limitation on the development of anything other than a vague humanitarianism which is difficult to translate into practical policy-making. However, difficult as it may be to codify, most governments are sensitive to outside opinion about their policies, although they are not equally sensitive to all sources of opinion. Gauging the likely response of the international community to a proposed action is part of the decision-maker’s function but if achieving or defending their declared objectives is regarded as vital, global opinion, however vociferously expressed, is likely to be ignored. ‘World public opinion’, then, is at best an elusive concept and should be approached with caution in foreign policy analysis.

Text 7

Self-defence

A legal sub-species of the more general political right of self-help. The evolution of the right of self-defence in customary and contemporary international law is a legal acknowledgement of political reality. As such, the dilemmas of politics are clearly reflected in the ambiguities of international law. Consequently, the right is fraught with uncertainties. International law is by no means clear as to what the ‘self’ refers to. Does it refer only to the use of force for the protection of a state’s territorial integrity or can it be broadened to include other

128

interests that states deem essential to their security? Is it limited to the employment of force in response to a prior attack or is there a right of anticipatory or pre-emptive self-defence? How are the requirements of immediacy, necessity and proportionality defined? Is it possible to distinguish operationally between matters of ‘security’ and matters of ‘survival’? The traditional metalegal doctrine of salus populi suprema lex cuts across these difficulties and asserts that the state has a right to interpret the notion of self-defence expansively; that is, that it is permissible to undertake any action it considers necessary to protect itself against any actual or threatened injury to its self-defined interests. However, contemporary international law attempts to restrict the use of force to circumstances of prior use of force. But this does not resolve the issue of the nature of ‘self’ or whether it is legitimate to use force against acts that may not involve force but are nevertheless considered to imperil the interests of state.

Article 2, paragraph 4 and Article 51 of the UN Charter are ambiguous on this and may indeed be contradictory. As with other quasilegal rights asserted by states the matter of limits and scope will always be compromised by the claims of sovereignty and the overriding duty of self preservation from which these rights derive.

Text 8

World Society

A challenging, if controversial, body of literature has emerged over the last twenty years under the rubric of the World Society Perspective. The perspective is derived from the writings of the Australian diplomat/scholar John W. Burton. In a series of books and articles of which Systems, States, Diplomacy and Rules (1968) and World Society

(1972) are the most important, Burton has sought to advance his ideas about international relations and his criticism of more traditionally conceived approaches. Probably the best single-volume treatment of this perspective is the collection of essays dedicated to Burton, Conflict in World Society (Banks, 1948).

With remarkable prescience, Burton arrived at a set of conclusions about the redundancy of the state-centred or state-centric approach at approximately the same time as US pluralists were beginning to emphasize the significance of transnational and transgovernmental actors and processes. Burton labeled the traditional paradigm the billiard ball model and he contrasted it with a three-dimensional cobweb model which he argued should replace it. By using the analogy of the billiard table Burton emphasized the way in which concepts such as sovereignty seemed to suggest a hard and fast division between domestic politics on the one hand and world politics on the other. The billiard ball also emphasized the idea of territoriality as an attribute of

129

state-centred approaches. Emphasizing the importance of transactions amongst a complex of actors, Burton suggested that traditional ‘maps’ were irrelevant and that the three-dimensional cobweb idea was more isomorphic with an increasingly complex world politics. These ideas owed a great deal to the pioneering work of Karl Deutsch, although unlike Deutsch, Burton did not immediately seek rigorous empirical testing of his ideas.

In earlier works Burton had sought to repudiate the concept of power as a central organizing idea in IR. He subsequently linked the billiard ball model and power together in these later works by suggesting that the latter is an attribute of the former. Moreover, in the view of Burton and many of those who have followed him, over-emphasis upon power leads to what are termed ‘self-defeating’ strategies based upon such coercive instruments as deterrence and ideas about power ‘balances’. Burton has for this reason become associated with non-co- ercive, cooperative approaches to problems of conflict and this has led some of his critics to dub him an idealist or ‘neo-idealist’. Certainly, by repudiating power so totally Burton and his followers have denied themselves access to a rich vein of modern scholarship which has attempted a new and better understanding of one of the most contested, but important, concepts in IR.

The world society literature remains a fascinating, if flawed, field of analysis. Burton is without question one of the most challenging social theorists writing in the field. His refusal to be bound by the conventional canons of academic scholarship has left him free to mix analysis and prescription, fact and value, theory and practice in a way that few others would have the inclination or imagination to attempt.

Text 9

Human Rights

The notion that human beings have rights because they are human beings and not because they are citizens of state X or state Y is, in terms of the practice of international relations, a relatively new one. Traditional thinking has it that international law is concerned primarily with states’ rights — in particular rights associated with post-Westphal- ian ideas about sovereignty and its corollary, non-intervention. Human rights, in so far as they were acknowledged, were subsumed under states’ rights, conventional wisdom being that international law was law between states whereas municipal law was law between individuals. Although the distinction has never been quite as clear as this — the rights of aliens and foreign nationals have long been a matter for concern, for example — orthodox accounts of international politics and law have always been more or less state-centric in this way. However, the distinction between the two has become increasingly blurred and

130