A New A-Z of International Relations Theory by Chris Farrands & Imad El-Anis & Roy Smith

Author:Chris Farrands & Imad El-Anis & Roy Smith [Farrands, Chris & El-Anis, Imad & Smith, Roy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, History & Theory, Political Science, Political Process, Military, History, General
ISBN: 9780857739919
Google: JxOJDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-07-10T11:28:05+00:00

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Jingoism

Jingoism is a concept used to describe certain forms of behaviour or policy, and refers to an extreme and aggressive nationalism in foreign policy fuelled by popular pressure: often popular demands for war. The phrase originates in a British music hall song of the 1870s (‘we don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do/we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!’). But it has been widely applied across the English-speaking world to any popular nationalism tending towards war – including in the USA in the Spanish American War of 1898, and in other conflicts. It has also been applied to non-English-speaking international actors, including Japan’s aggressive expansionism under the military government from 1927 to 1945. The word also perfectly describes the attitude of both the Argentine junta and the Argentine popular press in the months before the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982; as well as that of the British media during the same conflict. Jingoistic attitudes involve behaviour or policy decisions characterized by aggression, extreme patriotism or nationalism, and the use of violent force in one’s relations with other actors. Most commonly, this is a concept applied to the study of inter-state relationships – but it can be used to study international relations between different types of actors such as lobby groups, the media, individuals and so on. Generally, the word is applied with a critical meaning by those who oppose it, especially (but not only) liberals.

Junta

The term junta, or military junta, refers to a form of government which consists of a ‘committee’ (from Spanish) of leaders who take power through military force and who subsequently rule a state (or given territory). The phrase is generally taken to mean that the government concerned lacks legitimacy; hence, for example, British politicians referred to Argentina’s military government as a ‘government’ when it was an ally in the Cold War; but as ‘the Buenos Aires regime’, or more bluntly ‘the Argentine junta’, when they were at war in 1982. Military governments have formed a junta to control the state and dominate society in all continents, often claiming that they had to clean up and purge the political and social evils left by what they claimed were corrupt or incompetent democratic or monarchical predecessors. This has much more to do with domestic realpolitik than international relations, but a junta may also take power to ‘save the nation’ from foreign threats (real or imagined).

Mostly, military juntas come from a small ruling elite group, and represent landowner or dominant interests against not only the poor, but also the urban middle classes. Military governments, whether they actually call themselves a junta or not, have a record of instability and aggressive behaviour towards neighbours, but some have been surprisingly long-lasting. Simon Bolivar, the leader of liberation movements against Spanish colonial rule in the 1820s in a number of countries in South America, has strong credentials as the ‘great liberator’ from Spain, but dubious credentials as the founder of several military governments – juntas.

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