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Blair Peterson

A Brief Introduction to Theories on International Relations and Foreign Policy - 4 views

www.people.vcu.edu/...468theory.htm

International Relations theories theory

shared by Blair Peterson on 07 Oct 14 - Cached
  • System level analysis examines state behavior by looking at the international system. 
  • State level analysis examines the foreign policy behavior of states in terms of state characteristics.
  • Organizational level analysis examines the way in which organizations within a state function to influence foreign policy behavior. 
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  • Individual level analysis focuses on people.  People make decisions within nation states and therefore people make foreign policy. 
  • Classical realism is a state level theory that argues that all states seek power.
  • However, it sees the cause of all the power struggles and rivalries not as a function of the nature of states, but as a function of the nature of the international system.
  • States don’t just seek power and they don’t just fear other powerful states, there are reasons that states seek power and there are reasons that states fear other states.
  • Liberalism adds values into the equation.  It is often called idealism. It is a state level theory which argues that there is a lot of cooperation in the world, not just rivalry. 
  • Neo-liberals might focus on the role of the United Nations or World Trade Organization in shaping the foreign policy behavior of states.  Neo-liberals might look at the cold war and suggest ways to fix the UN to make it more effective.
  • Constructivism is a theory that examines state behavior in the context of state characteristics.  All states are unique and have a set of defining political, cultural, economic, social, or religious characteristics that influence its foreign policy. 
  • Each author is developing a theory to explain the behavior of all states, not just one state.
  • Can you find universal patterns of activity, universal rules that can used to explain how any state behaves?
  • So you use historical data to test your theories. That’s what you’re examining in your papers.  An author has developed a theory or tested two theories.  How well does the author’s argument hold up when tested against the historical data?
  • The US has always had an idealist streak in its foreign policy (some disagree with this) and sees “bad guys” out there in the international system. 
  • How did these organizations create US foreign policy would be the key question at this level of analysis.
  • People are greedy, insecure, and aggressive, so the states they govern will have those same characteristics.
  • The world is anarchy and states do what they can get away with to gain power and they do what they must to protect themselves.
  • States try to build a more just world order.
  • It is a system level version of liberalism and focuses on the way in which institutions can influence the behavior of states by spreading values or creating rule-based behavior.
Blair Peterson

Trevor Cook: International relations theories - an introductory guide - 5 views

trevorcook.typepad.com/...tional-relations-theories.html

International Relations theories theory

shared by Blair Peterson on 07 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Theories of international relations seek to explain what states try to achieve in the external realm and when they try to achieve it.
  • Realism 
  • key assumptions: states are the primary actors, anarchy is the international condition, states behave rationally, states seek to keep the system in balance (against capability, threat)
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  • neoclassical realists assume that states respond to the uncertainties of international anarchy by seeking to control and shape their external environment.
  • argues that pragmatism about power can yield a more peaceful world
  • highlights the cooperative potential of mature democracies, especially when working together through effective institutions
  • theory of democratic peace holds that democracies never fight wars against each other.
Blair Peterson

One World, Rival Theories - 2 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...one_world_rival_theories

International Relations theories

shared by Blair Peterson on 06 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • He sketched out three dominant approaches: realism, liberalism, and an updated form of idealism called "constructivism."
  • Realism focuses on the shifting distribution of power among states.
  • Liberalism highlights the rising number of democracies and the turbulence of democratic transitions.
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  • Idealism illuminates the changing norms of sovereignty, human rights, and international justice, as well as the increased potency of religious ideas in politics.
  • President George W. Bush promises to fight terror by spreading liberal democracy to the Middle East and claims that skeptics "who call themselves 'realists'…. have lost contact with a fundamental reality" that "America is always more secure when freedom is on the march."
  • National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former Stanford University political science professor, explains that the new Bush doctrine is an amalgam of pragmatic realism and Wilsonian liberal theory.
  • Sen. John Kerry sounded remarkably similar: "Our foreign policy has achieved greatness," he said, "only when it has combined realism and idealism."
  • Krauthammer argued for an assertive amalgam of liberalism and realism, which he called "democratic realism."
  • Fukuyama claimed that Krauthammer's faith in the use of force and the feasibility of democratic change in Iraq blinds him to the war's lack of legitimacy, a failing that "hurts both the realist part of our agenda, by diminishing our actual power, and the idealist portion of it, by undercutting our appeal as the embodiment of certain ideas and values."
  • At realism's core is the belief that international affairs is a struggle for power among self-interested states.
  • hicago political scientist Hans J. Morgenthau, are deeply pessimistic about human nature, it is not a theory of despair.
  • In liberal democracies, realism is the theory that everyone loves to hate. Developed largely by European émigrés at the end of World War II, realism claimed to be an antidote to the naive belief that international institutions and law alone can preserve peace, a misconception that this new generation of scholars believed had paved the way to war.
  • China's current foreign policy is grounded in realist ideas that date back millennia.
  • Realism gets some things right about the post-9/11 world. The continued centrality of military strength and the persistence of conflict, even in this age of global economic interdependence, does not surprise realists.
  • Realists point out that the central battles in the "war on terror" have been fought against two states (Afghanistan and Iraq), and that states, not the United Nations or Human Rights Watch, have led the fight against terrorism.
  • The realist scholar Robert A. Pape, for example, has argued that suicide terrorism can be a rational, realistic strategy for the leadership of national liberation movements seeking to expel democratic powers that occupy their homelands.
  • nsights from political realism -- a profound and wide-ranging intellectual tradition rooted in the enduring philosophy of Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes -- are hardly rendered obsolete because some nonstate groups are now able to resort to violence.
  • Standard realist doctrine predicts that weaker states will ally to protect themselves from stronger ones and thereby form and reform a balance of power.
  • Despite changing configurations of power, realists remain steadfast in stressing that policy must be based on positions of real strength, not on either empty bravado or hopeful illusions about a world without conflict.
  • The liberal school of international relations theory, whose most famous proponents were German philosopher Immanuel Kant and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, contends that realism has a stunted vision that cannot account for progress in relations between nations.
Blair Peterson

Night of the Living Wonks - 1 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...night_of_the_living_wonks

International Relations politics theories theory

shared by Blair Peterson on 06 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The specter of an uprising of reanimated corpses also poses a significant challenge to interpreters of international relations and the theories they use to understand the world. If the dead begin to rise from the grave and attack the living, what thinking would -- or should -- guide the human response?
  • For our purposes, a zombie is defined as a reanimated being occupying a human corpse, with a strong desire to eat human flesh
  • Because they can spread across borders and threaten states and civilizations, these zombies should command the attention of scholars and policymakers.
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  • If the dead begin to rise from the grave and attack the living, what thinking would -- or should -- guide the human response?
  • How would all those theories hold up under the pressure of a zombie assault? When should humans decide that hiding and hoarding is the right idea?
  • Zombie stories end in one of two ways -- the elimination/subjugation of all zombies, or the eradication of humanity from the face of the Earth.
  • If it is true that "popular culture makes world politics what it currently is," as a recent article in Politics argued, then the international relations community needs to think about armies of the undead in a more urgent manner.
  • There are many varieties of realism, but all realists start with a common assumption: that anarchy is the overarching constraint of world politics. Anarchy does not necessarily mean chaos or disorder, but rather the absence of a centralized, legitimate authority.
  • In a world of anarchy, the only currency that matters is power -- the material capability to ward off pressure or coercion, while being able to influence others.
  • How would the introduction of flesh-eating ghouls affect world politics? The realist answer is simple if surprising: International relations would be largely unaffected.
  • To paraphrase Thucydides, the realpolitik of zombies is that the strong will do what they can and the weak must suffer devouring by reanimated, ravenous corpses.
  • States could also exploit the threat from the living dead to acquire new territory, squelch irredentist movements, settle old scores, or subdue enduring rivals. The People's Republic of China could use the zombie threat to justify an occupation of Taiwan. Russia could use the same excuse to justify intervention in its near abroad. The United States would not be immune from the temptation to exploit the zombie threat as a strategic opportunity. How large would the army of the Cuban undead need to be to justify the deployment of the 82nd Airborne?
  • All liberals nevertheless share a belief that cooperation is still possible in a world of anarchy. Liberals look at world politics as a non-zero-sum game. Working together, whether on international trade, nuclear nonproliferation, or disease prevention, can yield global public goods on a massive scale.
  • The 2009 film Zombieland is about the articulation of and adherence to well-defined rules for surviving in a zombie-infested landscape.
  • 'The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.' I think we can all appreciate the relevance of that now."
  • Provided that the initial spread of zombies did not completely wipe out governments, the liberal expectation would be that an international counterzombie regime could make significant inroads into the problem. Given the considerable public-good benefits of wiping the undead from the face of the Earth, significant policy coordination seems a likely response.
  • Quasi-permanent humanitarian counterzombie missions, perhaps under United Nations auspices, would likely be necessary in failed states. Liberals would acknowledge that the permanent eradication of flesh-eating ghouls is unlikely.
  • Instead, neocons would recommend an aggressive and militarized response to ensure human hegemony. Rather than wait for the ghouls to come to them, they would pursue offensive policy options that take the fight to the undead. A pre-emptive strike against zombies would, surely, be a war against evil itself.
  • "An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead.… [A] zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilization, unless it is dealt with quickly."
  • They would inevitably lump reanimated corpses with other human threats as part of a bigger World War III against authoritarian despots and zombies -- an "Axis of Evil Dead." This would sabotage any attempt at broad-based coalition warfare, hindering military effectiveness in a Global War on Zombies (GWOZ).
  • Powerful states would be more likely to withstand an army of flesh-eating ghouls. The plague of the undead would join the roster of threats that disproportionately affect the poorest and weakest countries.
  • Realism predicts an eventual live-and-let-live arrangement between the undead and everyone else.
  • Liberals predict an imperfect but nevertheless useful counterzombie regime.
  • Neoconservatives see the defeat of the zombie threat after a long, existential struggle.
smenegh Meneghini

Rational Theory of International Relations: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation | ... - 3 views

www.foreignaffairs.com/...olitics-the-logic-of-competiti

International Relations coopera cooperation theory

shared by smenegh Meneghini on 23 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • He focuses on three sorts of factors shaping security strategies: the motives of a state, its material capabilities, and the information it has about the capacities and intentions of others. Out of these variables, he fashions a rationalist theory that deduces the circumstances under which states will seek to cooperate or compete.
Blair Peterson

International Relations: An Introduction - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Theory theories

shared by Blair Peterson on 23 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Blair Peterson on 23 Jan 15
     
    REalism, liberalism, constructivism.
Blair Peterson

Multinational Corporations - YouTube - 2 views

www.youtube.com/watch

theory action constructivism International Relations theories politics Multi-national corporations

shared by Blair Peterson on 22 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Blair Peterson on 22 Jan 15
     
    Significant non-state actors. Significant economic and political influences around the world.
Blair Peterson

International Relations: An Introduction - YouTube - 3 views

www.youtube.com/watch

International Relations theories Theory Realism Liberalism

shared by Blair Peterson on 23 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Blair Peterson on 23 Jan 15
     
    REalism, liberalism, constructivism.
Blair Peterson

As Iran Nuclear Deadline Looms, France Holding Out | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...ms-france-holds-it-ground.html

International Relations iran france nuclear foreign policy

shared by Blair Peterson on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • To be sure, analysts doubt that France would risk an international crisis by pulling the plug on a long-awaited deal. But it has certainly positioned itself as the Western country pushing hardest to satisfy the concerns of Iran's regional antagonists, Israel and the Gulf Arab nations, which oppose a deal that leaves Tehran in possession of the nuclear infrastructure that could, in theory, allow it to build a bomb. (To do so, it would have to break out of an international agreement and circumvent the stringent monitoring regime currently in place.)
  • hey also want the U.N. Security Council to oversee Iran's nuclear program rather than the International Atomic Energy Agency, as is currently the case, and argue that sanctions should be repealed only gradually once Western powers are satisfied by Iran's compliance.
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