Internationalism and its price

Word	What it means
Internationalism	Cooperation among states for mutual benefit. It assumes nations exist and chooses to work together.
Globalization	The increasing interconnection of economies and cultures — a process, not a policy.
Supranational organization	A body with authority above the member states, able to bind them. The European Union is the standard example.
Collective security	An attack on one member treated as an attack on all — NATO's Article 5.
Peacekeeping	Neutral forces separating combatants with the consent of the parties. Distinct from peacemaking, which uses force.
Responsibility to Protect	Adopted by the UN in 2005: sovereignty carries a duty to protect one's population, and others may act if a state fails.
Foreign policy	A state's plan for dealing with other states.
Sanctions	Economic or diplomatic penalties applied to change another state's behaviour.
Democratic deficit	The criticism that supranational bodies make binding decisions without being accountable to voters.

Problem with the League (1919)	UN answer (1945)
Key powers absent — the United States never joined	Near-universal membership; the great powers given permanent seats to keep them in
No armed force of its own	Member forces under UN command; the Security Council can authorise force
Decisions required unanimity	Majority voting, with a veto for the five permanent members
No power to compel	Binding Security Council resolutions and sanctions

The veto is a trade-off, not an oversight. The victorious powers of 1945 would not have joined an organization able to act against them. The price is that the Council is paralysed exactly when a permanent member is involved — which is the standard criticism and the standard defence at once.

Suez, 1956. Lester Pearson proposed a UN Emergency Force to separate the combatants, won the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 1957, and essentially invented peacekeeping. It became central to how Canada saw itself internationally.

Membership. Canada is in the UN, NATO, NORAD, the Commonwealth, la Francophonie, the G7 and the WTO. Each membership is a small transfer of sovereignty in exchange for influence or security.

Foreign aid arguments. Humanitarian — states can relieve suffering and should. Self-interested — stable, prosperous partners trade more and produce fewer crises. A good answer recognises that real motives are usually both, rather than picking one and calling the other cynical.

Responsibility to Protect reframes sovereignty as responsibility rather than immunity. Applying it consistently has proved far harder than agreeing to it, which is itself an argument about the limits of internationalism.

For internationalism. Climate, pandemics, trade and organised crime cross borders, so the institutions dealing with them must too. Collective security deters aggression. Shared rules reduce the cost of doing everything bilaterally.

Against it. Decisions affecting citizens are made by bodies they did not elect and cannot remove — the democratic deficit. Obligations narrow future choices. Enforcement is selective, which undermines the claim that the rules are rules.

Writing about it. The strongest essays pick a position on the continuum and then engage with the best version of the other side. Dismissing the objection as mere self-interest is exactly what the mark scheme is designed to catch.

• Treating internationalism and globalization as synonyms. One is a choice, the other a process.
• Confusing the League (1919) with the UN (1945).
• Describing peacekeeping as fighting. It requires the consent of the parties.
• Ignoring the cost side. Sovereignty given up is real, and a one-sided essay reads as one.