International Relations

102 flashcards by MentisLibrary

How states, institutions and ideas shape world politics. Covers realism, liberalism and constructivism, the treaties from Westphalia to Paris, the UN and the global economic institutions, deterrence, diplomacy and international law.

What is classical realism?
The view that international politics is a struggle for power driven by human nature and the pursuit of the national interest, with morality subordinate to survival and prudence.
What is structural realism, also called neorealism?
Waltz's argument that state behavior is explained by the anarchic structure of the international system and the distribution of capabilities within it, not by human nature or domestic politics.
How does defensive realism differ from offensive realism?
Defensive realism holds that states seek only enough power to be secure, since expansion provokes balancing. Offensive realism holds that states maximize power and seek regional hegemony because no state can ever be certain of another's intentions.
What is the central claim of Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics?
That in an anarchic system great powers are pushed to maximize relative power and pursue regional hegemony, so great power competition is tragic rather than avoidable.
What is liberalism in international relations theory?
The family of theories holding that cooperation is possible and can be expanded through trade, international institutions, international law, and domestic political change, especially democratization.
What is neoliberal institutionalism?
The argument that even self-interested states under anarchy can cooperate, because institutions lower transaction costs, provide information, and make defection easier to detect and punish over repeated interaction.
What is complex interdependence?
Keohane and Nye's model of relations in which multiple channels connect societies, issues lack a clear hierarchy with security on top, and military force is of limited use among the states involved.
What does democratic peace theory claim?
That liberal democracies very rarely if ever go to war with one another, an idea traced to Kant's Perpetual Peace of 1795 and developed in modern form by Michael Doyle.
What is constructivism in international relations?
The approach holding that the key structures of world politics are social rather than material: identities, norms, and shared understandings constitute state interests rather than merely constraining them.
What did Wendt mean by saying anarchy is what states make of it?
That anarchy has no fixed logic of its own. Whether states treat each other as enemies, rivals, or friends depends on the identities and shared meanings built up through their interaction.
What is world-systems theory?
Wallerstein's account of a single capitalist world economy divided into a wealthy core, a dependent periphery, and an intermediate semi-periphery, with surplus flowing from periphery to core.
What does feminist international relations scholarship argue?
That gender is a structuring feature of world politics, that conventional theory treats a narrow set of state and military activities as the whole of the field, and that women's labor and experiences are essential to how international politics actually works.
What is the English School?
The tradition arguing that states form an international society bound by shared rules and institutions such as diplomacy, international law, the balance of power, and sovereignty, sitting between pure realism and cosmopolitan liberalism.
What is sovereignty?
The claim to supreme authority within a defined territory and independence from outside authority, comprising internal control over a population and external recognition by other states.
What does anarchy mean in international relations?
The absence of any authority above states that can enforce agreements or provide protection. It means disorder is possible, not that it is constant.
What is the security dilemma?
The situation in which measures a state takes to make itself safer, such as arming, appear threatening to others, who then arm in response, leaving everyone less secure although no one intended aggression.
What is balance of power?
The condition or policy in which states check a potential dominant power, either by building up their own capabilities or by forming alliances, so that no single state can dominate the system.
What is the difference between balancing and bandwagoning?
Balancing means aligning against the strongest or most threatening state. Bandwagoning means aligning with it, usually to gain protection or a share of the spoils.
What is polarity?
The number of great powers that define the structure of the international system, described as unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar.
What is hegemony in international relations?
The predominance of one state whose power lets it set and sustain the rules of the international order, through a combination of coercion and accepted leadership.
What does hegemonic stability theory claim?
That an open and stable international economic order requires a dominant state willing to supply public goods such as open markets, a stable currency, and security, and that the order frays as that state declines.
What is the difference between deterrence and compellence?
Deterrence dissuades an adversary from starting an action; compellence uses threats or limited force to make an adversary stop or reverse something already underway. Compellence is generally harder because it demands visible retreat.
What is the difference between soft power and hard power?
Hard power gets outcomes through coercion or inducement, using military force, sanctions, or payments. Soft power gets them through attraction and agenda setting, resting on culture, political values, and foreign policies seen as legitimate.
What is the national interest?
The set of goals a state claims to pursue in foreign policy, typically survival, security, prosperity, and prestige. Critics note it is contested domestically rather than self-evident.
What is the difference between relative gains and absolute gains?
Absolute gains concern whether a state is better off than before; relative gains concern whether it gains more than its partner. Realists expect relative gains concerns to block cooperation; liberals expect absolute gains to dominate.
How does the prisoner's dilemma model international cooperation?
Two actors each do better by defecting whatever the other does, yet both end up worse off than if both cooperated. It shows why mutually beneficial cooperation can fail without institutions, information, or repeated play.
What is a collective action problem in world politics?
A situation where all states benefit from a shared good such as a stable climate or open sea lanes, but each has an incentive to free ride on others' contributions, so the good is undersupplied.
What is a two-level game?
Putnam's model of negotiation in which a leader bargains simultaneously with foreign counterparts and with domestic constituents who must accept the deal, so a narrow domestic win-set constrains what can be agreed abroad.
What are the levels of analysis in international relations?
The individual level, the state or domestic level, and the system level. Waltz set out the three images in Man, the State, and War in 1959.
What was the Peace of Westphalia of 1648?
The settlement ending the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War. It is conventionally treated as the origin of the modern system of sovereign territorial states, although historians debate how sharp that break really was.