The most common and widely used example of this comes from examining the 19^th century balance of power system.  During this period, Britain is generally acknowledge to be the holder of the balance, as it shifted its alliances frequently in order to decrease the likelihood of war and to make sure that no single state rose too far above its counterparts. Many IR theorists believe this is one of the main reasons that particular era (before the outset of WWI of course) was relatively peaceful.

This is a very generalized and brief description of what being the holder of the balance entails, much more could be said on the topic. Here is an example of a more in-depth analysis.

Unfortunately for myself (and Mother Nature) there wasn’t a whole lot to be heard. All the information I did receive over the last few years seemed to amount to very little. We had fallen behind our emission reduction goals by 2009 and that trend continued into 2011. Needless to say I was not entirely surprised to hear that the Harper Government was planning to withdraw while it was still legally viable (Countries had the option to back out, provided they gave at least one year’s notice before the end of the first compliance period, which is the end of 2012).

Looking at the issue in respect to Realism, withdrawal did seem to make the most sense. Canada had put itself in a position where in order to be in compliance with Kyoto, it would have taken something to the tune of billions of dollars, which would be used to purchase “carbon emission permits” (AAU’s) from other countries involved. These would allow Canada to remain “in compliance” with Kyoto, without actually meeting the set goals for emission reduction.  So not only would tax payers be forking over billions of dollars, but to make matters worse that money wouldn’t even be going directly to reducing carbon emissions!

So from a realist’s perspective, not only is Canada saving itself billions of dollars (that essentially wouldn’t fix anything even if it was spent) but we are also withdrawing from an incredibly ineffective treaty.  The two largest culprits of carbon emission (U.S.A. and China) didn’t even sign up in the first place. In reality, Kyoto includes countries responsible for less than 20% of worldwide emissions.  So why sink billions simply to save face with (a portion of) the international community? In many eyes the relative gains of withdrawal far outweigh any perceived absolute gains of remaining in compliance.

At the system level, there are several reasons for why withdrawal made sense. For one, (as I said above) the largest carbon emitters never signed Kyoto in the first place, so any international backlash would not becoming from either China or the United States, but from smaller countries or international organizations who hold little to no sway within the Harper Government.  Also the fact that there are very few “real” consequences of withdrawal (so long as it was done within the time frame given) seems to have largely influenced us in deciding whether to back out or not.

DISCLAIMER:

Now I don’t feel that pulling out of Kyoto was a good idea, but I hope that I was reasonably eloquent in explaining why it seemed to make sense to the Harper Government. There are always at least 2 sides to every story, and I personally think it is incredibly naive to take either one as the absolute truth.

“What They did not want you to ever find out is that your generation, the generation born between 1980-1995, actually outnumbers the Baby Boomers. They knew that if you ever turned your eye towards political reform, you could change the world.

They tried to keep you sated on vapid television shows and vapid music. They cut off your education and fed you brain candy. They took away your music and gave you Top Ten pop stations. They cut off your art and replaced it with endless reality shows for you to plug into, hoping you would sit quietly by as They ran the world. I think They thought you were too dumb to notice.

Indeed, I thought They had won.

But I watched you occupy the capital of Wisconsin. I see you today as you occupy Wall Street. And I see a spark, a glimmer of the glorious new age that is yours. A changing of the guard, a guard that has stood for entirely too long and needs your young legs to take his place.

I watch you turn away from what is easy and stand up for what is right. I see you understand we as a society are only as strong as our weakest link. I see you wise beyond your years. And I am proud. Give ‘em hell, kids. You are beautiful.”

-Kate Danley

Not my blog assignment! Just something a friend of mine shared via Facebook, I felt compelled to pass it along. Ain’t that what this darn thing is for anyway?

Of course, it may not be apparent to all how SOPA/PIPA relates to IR, or more specifically the IR theory referred to as “Realism” (as the title of this post suggests) so I shall elaborate on my thinking behind the connection between the two.

The side effects of implementing these bills would be (in my opinion) detrimental to all parties involved. Many people these days have found a happy medium between illegally watching / downloading content ranging from music to movies to videogames, using their own discretion to “try before they buy”. If they enjoy the content, they will purchase it or something similar in order to support the creator and ensure that more content is created in the future. (To use an example, one might download an older album from a band they are unfamiliar with and if they enjoy it they may purchase albums released after that, merchandise or tickets to live performances.)

If this is no longer available people will be forced to purchase everything upfront, which they may be unwilling to do and lesser known products may be lost amongst the sea of corporate mainstream content.  Again, how does this link to Realism? Well to put it simply, the relative gain for the corporate media may be strong, but in the end all parties will be worse off with decreased sales for both large scale and small scale developers, musicians, etc.

To my understanding, it goes against Realist theory to think that someone will purchase something if they can easily get it for free.  This may or may not be true, it largely depends on the individual, but supporters of the bill seem to think that people are only interested in consuming the content as easily and cheaply as possible, while not worrying about supporting the creators of said content. This is largely NOT the case in my limited experience.

A more Liberal alternative would be something like Netflicks or iTunes that takes advantage of the medium and aims for more absolute gains over relative ones.

Here is a link to Reddit’s blog where the sysadmin goes into more technical detail about what SOPA and PIPA are, and what the consequences are.

And if that reading is a bit too heavy for your taste, here is a great anti-SOPA song by Funk Vigilante that gives a layman’s version of the two bills… fair warning, there are some naughty words.

The best vacation would just be to party with these guys!