Reflection—6

After discussion of marginalization in class on Friday, two basic positions arose. The first was that those on the outskirts of society do have an important impact on the public and need to be given a voice. The other was a slight clarification of this idea, acknowledging that the bottom rung is important, but only when they themselves forcefully make their voice heard. There also is a distinct difference between a marginalized people and a people being marginalized, which seemed to be overlooked in class. Suppression is a wholly different attitude than marginalization. The deliberate act of stifling a certain group’s voice in society reverts more to the idea of a dictatorship, than anything that is integral in contemporary democracy. However, to use the past United States as an example, the treatment of African Americans after the abolition of slavery is a clear policy of suppression because of it’s design to intentionally subjugate the interests of a specific group. To combat this, our current democracy has practices such as affirmative action, which have been put in place in the attempt to bring people in from the margins.

The question then arises, how much of this talk of marginalization is applicable to world politics or more specifically IR. In the case of world politics there is some impact in the sense that benevolent international powers, such as the U.S., engage in humanitarian operations to help those who are being suppressed (not those who are naturally marginalized). However, in terms of IR theory, the idea of marginalization is less tangible. Certainly there are states on the outside of power looking in, but that is because they have not established themselves as worth engaging. They impose no threat and provide little benefit to the international community. Third world nations rarely are involved as primary parties of important alliances because their international standing is focused on development more than substantial involvement.

International powers cannot be expected to cater to the desires of non-influential states, even though they sometimes do. States without a high level of international weight can only expect their opinions to be heard, not necessarily acted upon. Therefore they are inherently marginalized but certainly far from suppressed.