Answer 1

Are states more relevant actors in the current international system

a state actor is a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore
subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating
certain rights and freedoms. State is commonly referred to either the present condition of a
system or entity, or to a governed entity, such as a nation or a province. The state itself consists
of the society, government as well as the people living there. Before the Second World War,
State is often seen as the main actor in international Relations as it can declare states of wars,
control most of the economic influence within the region and larger states often dominant the
role of international relations within the region or even in the globe. However, after the Second
World War, the impacts on state influence as an actor has become less important than before.

Approaches in international relations

Realistic Approach

Realism, also known as political realism, is a view of international politics that stresses its
competitive and conflictual side. It is usually contrasted with idealism or liberalism, which
tends to emphasize cooperation. Realists consider the principal actors in the international
arena to be states, which are concerned with their own security, act in pursuit of their own
national interests, and struggle for power. The negative side of the realists’ emphasis on
power and self-interest is often their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to
relations among states. National politics is the realm of authority and law, whereas
international politics, they sometimes claim, is a sphere without justice, characterized by
active or potential conflict among states.

Liberalism
Liberalism (or Pluralism) is another international relations theory. Liberalism (international
relations) rests on a number of assumptions. In this article, we shall discuss liberalism in
international relations. And as we shall point out, many of these assumptions differ from those
of realism/political realism, and have a quite different worldview as it relates to idea of
international relations. Liberalism is important to understand, since the theory is the foundation
of belief for those who favours international organizations such as the United Nations in the
global system.

Pluralism

The pluralist approach to the study of power, states that nothing categorical about power can
be assumed in any community. The question then is not who runs a community, but if any
group in fact does. To determine this, pluralists study specific outcomes. The reason for this is
that they believe human behaviour is governed in large part by inertia. That said, actual
involvement in overt activity is a more valid marker of leadership than simply a reputation.
Pluralists also believe that there is no one particular issue or point in time at which any group
must assert itself to stay true to its own expressed values, but rather that there are a variety of
issues and points at which this is possible. There are also costs involved in taking action at all –
not only losing, but expenditure of time and effort. While a structuralist may argue that power
distributions have a rather permanent nature, this rationale says that power may in fact be tied
to issues, which vary widely in duration. Also, instead of focusing on actors within a system,
the emphasis is on the leadership roles itself. By studying these, it can be determined to what
extent there is a power structure present in a society.

Role of State actors

Each state actor has to be independent and self-sufficient in terms of resources, military,
political system and most importantly, each state actor can decide its interests as well as its
diplomatic strategies itself. In other words, state actor plays its role in the international arena
without any external interventions (ideally speaking.) State actors are different from non-state
actors (UN, World Bank, NATO) in which non-state actors do not require its member to adopt
any specific type of political system, need mutual consent from its members to decide its
strategies and do not have collective military.

Are states still relevant in current globalised world

The sources of a state's legitimacy is not how effectively it can handle globalization, but rather,
how effectively it can provision public goods vis-à-vis other actors given that globalization is
occurring. There are certainly cases where non-state actors have undertaken that responsibility
in the face of government incompetence witness Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic charities
in many East African countries.
Those cases, however, are exceptions. Until and unless some other category of actors can
perform that service better on a macro scale whether powerful foundations, innovative start-
ups, or international economic institutions the state will remain the fundamental building
block.

Few, of course, would dispute that it is more difficult for the state to determine its own
economic course today than it was 20 or 30 years earlier. The proliferation of sophisticated
financial instruments has created what some call a "shadow world" — shadowy in that it
operates outside of the purview of those actors that are charged with shaping economic policy.