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IR Revision- Important concepts and themes
♦ Anarchy ■ (^) Three faces of power- hard power(push), soft power (pull), invisible face (other party already agrees before discussion/ compromise) ■ No Leviathan- “Life is short, nasty and brutish”- Thomas Hobbes ■ No state or government in International life ■ Does not mean chaos is inevitable- nation states form alliances, sign treaties, international wars are rare ■ Does mean cooperation is difficult because enforcement is difficult, Int court cannot make countries do anything, cost distribution causes difficulty ■ Emphasis on relative gains rather than absolute gains ■ Self-help system ■ (^) Actors do not want to be dependent on other countries, dependency should be minimised even if it means being worse off ■ Long range planning is risky as circumstances change fast ■ States can be treated as rational unitary actors, states are functionally similar and act because of external constraints ■ Realists do not pay attention to domestic politics ■ Rationality in the micro economic sense- comparisons of costs and benefits and probability
♦ Realism ■ Started as a reaction to idealism (the idea that nation states were inherently good in particular) League of Nations failure to offset German intentions in first half of the 20 th^ century ■ Realism = how the world did look not how it should look ■ Characteristics of realist theories: ■ (^) Constant- the ordering principle of international relations is anarchy (countries are on their own) ■ Constant- The key actors in Int Relations are Nation States- treated as unitary, rational actors ■ Key variable- power changes in relations and political power more generally (first and foremost attend to own security) ■ Don’t care about international organisations (EU, UN, Int Law= fiction) ■ Powerful countries continue to do what they want ■ See- Waltz, Morgentheau, Kissenger
♦ Structure ♦ Security Dilemma ▲ Means by which states enhance their security may infringe on other’s security (doesn’t exist in stag hunt) ▲ Actions you take can lead to states to be less secure regardless of intentions ▲ How action taken is interpreted is very important
♦ Security Dilemma (worsens) > Prisoner’s Dilemma (worsens)> game of chicken ♦ Security dilemma depends upon whether offense or defense has the advantage, security dilemma most acute when offense has the advantage ▲ It is much easier if offense has the advantage because it is much easier and cheaper to buy weapons, wars occur quickly, cheaply as plans for conflict are made well in advance Example- ww1 short war thesis- assumed that a win would be easy and cheap if offense got the early advantage ▲ German Kaiser “you will be home before the leaves fall from the trees” Germany react quickly when Austria invade Serbia over fear of Russian help of Serbia ▲ Offense didn’t have advantage machine guns not effective, underemphasized trenches
♦ Game Theory ▲ (^) Frameworks for thinking about how rational actors would react in strategic situations ▲ Don’t use framework if actor isn’t in that position ▲ Theories assume actors ▲ Stag hunt- need to be concerned with what others will do ▲ Stag hunt- applied to disarmament- hard to achieve it if others will keep some weapons, even if states agreed to ‘catch stag’ circumstances can change
♦ Game Theory Pay off- what actors get ▲ Olsen- smaller groups work better ▲ The more people, the more chance that groups goods not provided ▲ (^) Everyone has the same self -interested incentive ▲ Larger groups are subject to prisoners dilemma on larger scale ▲ Less public goods as group gets bigger ▲ Privileged group- one member willing to provide collective good but under their rules ▲ Collective incentives- organisations try to encourage membership give incentives, devices to promote individuals to contribute when they wouldn’t otherwise do so ▲ Realists don’t pay attention to this
♦ Why war? ▲ Institutionalists- International
♦ Prisoner’s Dilemma- best aggregate- comply, best individual outcome- defect ♦ Chicken- mutual defection is worst outcome- for nuclear warfare worst outcome is mutual nuclear strike ♦ Offense- Defense Balance
♦ Hegemony- hegemon creates institutions. Realist- institutions don’t matter just allow hegemon to exhibit power. ♦ Smart Power ♦ UN Security Council
▲ Cuba causes more concern based on interactions and identities
♦ Triangular diplomacy- ♦ (^) Liberalism vs Institutionalism- ▲ Institutionalism- belief in the ability of international institutions to facilitate cooperation ▲ Liberalism- Democracy, more normative in nature, domestic instituational aspect, democracy, capitalism (invisible hand of the market- neo-liberal view of economics) leads to interdependence- let markets handle themselves therefore states specialize, means trade with each other and this reduces tension/conflict change the way states behave- Internal domestic institutions change the way states behave. Democracy promotes peace if war is left up to the people, they bear the cost of the war- lives money etc. Democracy has institutions which establish connection between public will and government/ policy. ♦ (^) Idealism- constructivism (norms role of ideas/ state identity) or liberalism (normative aspects of how states are organized) (skip idealism) ♦ Inst opinion of realism- states do have power but institutions also influence IR ♦ UN- brings representatives of countries together to discuss policy, neutral 3rd^ party, provide
legitimacy, help facilitate norms
Revision Session
ID- define it and then say why it’s important to IR- get progressively broader
Learn names for IDs
How do realist theories account for terrorist groups
Stephen Walt- realist, when states choose to bandwagon instead of balancing,
Nye- 3 faces of power soft power (cultural influences, shared values) smart power- use of hard and soft power tools effectively
Treaty of Westphalia- states began to be sovereign
Current Events
♦ Syria- Russian and Syrian military bombing rebels, killing civilians. In the face of America stopping talks regarding Syria- Putin pulled out of landmark nuclear arms control agreement 34 tons of Plutonium ♦ Dispute in territories in the pacific – China/ Japan ♦ Colombia
♦ Refugees
♦ North Korea ♦ Brexit ♦ Russia
