political science 205 IR u Oregon Kramer midterm 1

Anarchy (virtues)

lack of a central government

waltz: collectively beneficial outcomes cannot be achieved due to the absence of a guarantor and enforcer who would regulate states collective behavior

International system

the set of relationships among the world's states, structured by certain rules and patterns of interaction

waltz: system as composed of a structure and of interacting units, and a structure by the arrangement of its parts. ... Thus the structure of international politics is an ordering principle to position or arrange sovereign states in their interactions.

Sovereign state

exercises power over a territory and people and is recognized by other states

nation-state

a sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent.

Realism (Classical Realism vs. Structural Realism)

Realism: states exist in an anarchic international system, must compete for power and survival

Classical realism: (Morgenthau) = concerned with power, human lust for power, something in human nature that craves power, can't trust anyone

Structural realism: (Kenneth Waltz) = the structure of int. system that leads to feeling of insecurity, don't know state's intentions, we need to protect ourselves, all states in the same "position" will behave roughly the same way

Offensive Realism vs. Defensive Realism

Offensive realism- states should always look to gain more power, must ensure security by maximizing power, absolute gain (Mearsheimer)

Defensive realism- emphasizes preservation of power, maintain security by balancing other powers, relative gain

1. One wants to keep peace while other might be leading to conflict, could lead to security dilemma

What is power for realists? Why do states pursue power?

Power: the ability to get another actor to do what it would not have otherwise have done (or not to do what it would have done)

Power is influence, influence measures power

Power is capability

Pursue power because: Security is scarce and primary → human nature is aggressive

States are forced into conflict by the "system" because there is no world government

States need to pursue self-interests to survive

levels of analysis

Individual level: Great leaders, psychology, decision making crisis

Domestic level: Nationalism, democracy, public opinion

International level: Power, alliances, treaties, bargaining, UN

Transnational level: MNC's, terrorists, NGOs

"Anarchy is what states make of it"-- What does this mean?

Alexander Wendt → constructivist view (the social construction of power politics book)

Identities = constructivism

Example: UK has a more powerful army and more nuclear weapons than North Korea but we see NK as a much bigger threat because of identity

Status quo power

Status-quo states are content to preserve the essential characteristics of the existing international order and the general distribution of power

Status quo power = a power that maintains liberal world order

Hegemony (US?)

the domination of one state or group over its allies; the US is a global hegemony. this became apparent after ww2 when us dominated the world economy, politics, and technological advances

Hegemonic Stability Theory

the argument that regimes are most effective when power in the international system is most concentrated

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

An agreement between the European nations to respect national sovereignty. This institutionalized the rise of nation-states

Pax Britannica

Era of peace produced by British power and hegemony in the nineteenth century

Self-help, power maximization

Self-help is basically a concern of realists and anarchy, the idea that because we're in this system with no global leader, we are security maximizers, we have to look out for ourselves

Wendt: Self-help is an institution- a relatively stable structure- "confronting individuals as more or less social facts"

State as a rational actor

Realist viewpoint that state's want to look at things in a self-help kind of way and don't take risky actions without a safety net or without benefit

Are leaders rational?

********** Rational leadership is a form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to legal rationality, legal legitimacy and bureaucracy

Rationality refers to individual actors pursing self-interest. Rational actors are assumed to be goal-oriented and make decisions based on cost-benefit calculations. They are also assumed to have ordered preferences and they are consistent with their preferences and choices.

Collective goods problem -[general case of shared interests vs conflicting interests, discuss]

All IR is a collective goods problem. States do what is best for them

3 ways to solve:

Dominance: establish a power hierarchy; most powerful make and enforce the rules; hope for a "benign" hegemon

Reciprocity: tit-for-tat; reward good behavior and punish bad behavior; can be "enforced" without central authority

Identity: members of an identity community care about the interests of others and sacrifice their own interests to benefit others

Problems for collective action—why more difficult in large groups? What else? Examples?

1. Collective action occurs when a number of states work together to achieve some common objective

2. A collective action problem is a large-scale version of the prisoner's dilemma. No one wants to produce the public good because it is costly and the benefits go to everyone. Thus, individuals free ride—they do not produce the good in the hope that someone else will. Ultimately, parties are considerably worse off than if they could credibly agree to produce the good despite its costs.

3. When the number of participants desiring to coordinate is really large, coordination may generally be unachievable

4. Example climate change --> everyone wants the same goal (safe and clean atmosphere), but not everyone is putting in effort to make a difference and lots of people (US) are acting independently and making it worse

Interdependence

A relationship between countries in which they rely on one another for resources, goods, or services

Nations depend on each other - trade

Mutual benefited

Cosmopolitan law

Prisoner's Dilemma

A game in which pursuing dominant strategies results in noncooperation that leaves everyone worse off

Ex: A game that realists think is appropriate

Two thieves are caught, no evidence, both need a confession

If everyone remains silent, they both serve 2 years

If you confess and your partner is silent, you go free and your partner spends 10 years

Both confess, get 5 years

Idealism

A theory of international relations that focuses on the hope the nations will act together to solve international problems and promote peace; emphasizes international law, morality, and international organization, rather than power alone, as key influences on international events

Was developed in reaction to a liberal tradition that realists call idealism

Idealism = emphasizes international law, morality, and international organization, rather than power alone, as key influences on international events

Liberalism

Classical liberalism- somewhat similar to libertarianism- stresses individual freedom, freedom from government

"American liberalism" came about with the industrial revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries

People argued political freedom could not be enjoyed by poor, oppressed people- looked to government to intervene to curb capitalism

John Locke: Basis of political life should be respected for individual political, social, and economic freedom

Neoliberalism

A strategy for economic development that calls for free markets, balanced budgets, privatization, free trade, and minimal government intervention in the economy.

Relative Gains vs. Absolute Gains

Cooperation is possible only when mutual benefits exist

Relative gains- states worry that others might gain more from cooperation than they do, gains by one state over another state, increases balance of power between two groups, window of opportunity where someone has enough relative gains from the war

Absolute gains- states seek to maximize their individual gains and are indifferent to the gains achieved by others

Realists argue the fundamental goal of states in any relationship is to prevent others from achieving advances in their relative capabilities

Waltz: "the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their position in the system"

Zero-sum games vs. non-zero-sum games

each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero.

non-zero-sum describes a situation in which the interacting parties' aggregate gains and losses can be less than or more than zero. A zero-sum game is also called a strictly competitive game while non-zero-sum games can be either competitive or non-competitive

Evolution of Cooperation (Why does cooperation often evolve naturally?)

Robert Axelrod says:

Cooperation can begin with small clusters, it can thrive with rules that are nice and forgiving like tit-for-tat, continues to be stable if both states are still benefitting

Shadow of the future is important = if two states know they will be working together and cooperation for a long time, there is a mutual understanding and care about maintaining cooperation

Cooperation is not really built on trust, but rather on the durability of the relationship --> based on dual knowledge of mutual rewards

norms

Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members

"Norms" and "institutions" shape anarchy

international regime

A set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of actors converge in a certain international issue area (such as oceans or monetary policy). Participants have similar ideas about what rules will govern their mutual participation

Regimes can help solve collective action problems by increasing transparency (sharing info)

Enforcement and survival of regimes not dependent on a hegemon, but reciprocity

Liberal Institutionalism

A version of liberalism that stresses the positive role of international organizations and institutions in promoting cooperation and peace.

Institutions, international regime and self-enforcement

a set of formal rules, informal norms, or shared understandings that constrain and prescribe political actors' interactions with one another.

Set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of actors converge in a certain issue area Participants have similar ideas about what rules will govern their mutual participation

Regimes can help solve collective action problems by increasing transparency; UN, NATO

democracy endures only if it is self-enforcing; for democracy to work states must work together and balance each other

What circumstances favor the emergence of cooperation under anarchy?

Payoff structure: mutual and conflicting preferences

shadow of the future: ability to shift policy to tit-for-tat; reciprocity

reduce the number of actors necessary to realize common interests

Reciprocity

the principle of reciprocity states that favours, benefits, or penalties that are granted by one state to the citizens or legal entities of another, should be returned in kind.

Iteration

Iteration is a way of advancing step by step, in successive efforts of testing and adaption

Tit for Tat: nice, provocable, forgiving and clear (explain)

States can achieve long-term mutual gains through "reciprocity"

both actors benefit

Shadow of the Future

Cheating on agreements can be solved in a number of ways: "Shadow of the future" - repeated interactions

The degree to which states value future payoffs or expect future interaction to continue on

trust

citizens' confidence in political institutions, is an important indicator of political legitimacy—the belief in the righteousness of these political institutions and the regime of which they are part.

transparency

used as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption

democratic peace

Democracy has spread

Empirical law = democracies do not fight each other

Democracies are not more peaceful overall, but only towards each other

Inequality / gini index could be a better measure of peace → development causes peace

"Institutional" and "structural" explanation- people do not like "blood and taxes", restrain government- should be more peaceful overall?

"Normative" or "cultural" explanation- democracies have a shared culture, expect cooperation, this leads to peace between democracies

Kant, Perpetual Peace

states are either at war or living in a de facto peace, unstable and precarious.

Kant's intention is to get out states to their natural state, that is to say a state of conflict, permanent war, of the fittest. Kantian realism, far from smug irenicism that often leads to Kant, is clear: war is natural. But this does not make naturalness provided by legitimate or just or moral.

States could develop organizations and rules to facilitate cooperation → by forming a world federation (UN)

Peace depends on the internal character of governments - specifically republics, with a legislative branch that can hold the monarch in check

Trade promotes peace, relies on the presumption that trade increases wealth, cooperation, and global well being - makes conflict less likely in the long term

Dominance, reciprocity, identity

Dominance: establish a power hierarchy; most powerful make and enforce the rules; hope for a "benign" hegemony

Reciprocity: tit-for-tat; reward good behavior and punish bad behavior; can be "enforced" without central authority

Identity: members of an identity community care about the interests of others and sacrifice their own interests to benefit others

Constructivism (Are national interests constructed?)

"Competitive" - each state identifies negatively with other's security- zero sum

"Individualistic" - states are self-regarding, concerned with absolute gains, still self-help, concerned with "free-riding"

"Cooperative" - national interests are international interest- states see themselves as part of a community- not self-help

Constructivists

Wendt: anarchy and the distribution of capabilities, by themselves, cannot predict whether two states will be friends or foes, will recognize each other's sovereignty, will have dynastic ties, will revisionist or status quo powers, and so on...

Ex: Gorbachev revolutionized Soviet foreign policy because he embraces new ideas such as "common security"

Balance of Power and Balance of Threat

The balance of threat suggests that States form Alliances to prevent stronger powers from dominating them and to protect themselves from States or Coalitions whose superior resources pose a threat to National Independence

The balance of power theory in international relations suggests that national security is enhanced when military capability is distributed so that no one state is strong enough to dominate all others

Balance of power is a state of stability between competing forces. In international relations, it refers to equilibrium among countries or alliances to prevent any one entity from becoming too strong and, thus, gaining the ability to enforce its will upon the rest.

The Security Dilemma (and "emerging anarchy")

when one state heightens their security through strengthening military or forming alliances, other states will respond with similar measures which leads to tension and conflict

Nationalist, ethnic and religious conflict as a product of "emerging anarchy"

Nationalism is a political, social, and economic system characterized by the promotion of the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining sovereignty (self-governance) over the homeland.

Author: Posen --> realist perspective of IR, ethnic conflicts and the security dilemma, based on situations where a newly ungoverned country has to figure out how best to protect itself. In his exact words, his opinion is that 'conditions of anarchy makes security the number one concern of nations.' Because everyone fears betrayal, he states, a group's identity is key in creating an army when a country is newly independent- new leaders who emerge have to think about self defense, assume that neighbors are dangerous and have to take their own group identity into account.

The Indistinguishability of Offense and Defense

if a state can tell if another states military is for offense or defense. Nuclear weapons blur the lines because they are used for deterrence rather than offense and defense. International fighting is more likely when offensive military is stronger, but peace is more likely when defense is bigger.

Alliances: Balancing and Bandwagoning. Discuss.

walt: bandwagoning is less common than balancing

bandwagon: the greater a states aggregating capabilities, the more likely states will ally with it. This is bad because it could lead to states with to much power fueled by threatening capabilities

balancing: the stronger a state the more likely it is to balance. weak states balance with other weak states. the more aggressive a state is perceived, the more likely other states are going to balance against it

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

a group of 28 countries that has agreed to protect each other in case of attack; founded in 1949

INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty)

The treaty marked the first time the superpowers (US and USSR) had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification

Detterence

the attempt to discourage criminality through the use of punishment

Compellence

the threat of force to prevent an opponent from taking action

escalation

conflicts between individuals or groups in interpersonal relationships, or it may refer to the escalation of hostilities in a political or military context

Arms Race

Cold war competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union to build up their respective armed forces and weapons

ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles)

Missiles with the capability to deliver nuclear payloads anywhere on the globe.

Cruise missiles (3M22 Zircon /Mach 8/6,090mph)

A low-flying missile that is guided to its target by an on-board computer, hard to detect by radar systems used by anti-aircraft weapons

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

a 1968 treaty that sought to limit the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states, set framework for nuclear weapon control

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

A doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.

Doesn't matter if you go first, both will be destroyed

Attacks make countries angry and retaliation is almost inevitable

Nuclear Taboo

The idea that a specific international norm has gradually become accepted by the international community that the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable in warfare

Tannenwald: "The model of norm creation here highlights the role of antinuclear discourse and politics in the creation of the taboo..." → we're seeing this come up again

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) -now --Missile Defense: (GMD,THADD, Aegis)

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) = program first initiated under President Ronald Reagan. Meant to develop an anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union.

Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) is the United States' anti-ballistic missile system for intercepting incoming warheads in space, during the midcourse phase of ballistic trajectory flight.

Dominance solutions with North Korea

From the internet:

1. Freeze testing. A freeze on the testing and production of nuclear weapons, and of longer-range missiles as well, as Pyongyang has already done this year.

2. Cap arsenals. Verifiable termination of production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium (I would term this the "cap" phase to distinguish from the existing freeze on testing, since this caps the size of the arsenal).

3. Dismantle infrastructure. Verifiable dismantlement of the infrastructure used to produce enriched uranium and plutonium (centrifuges, nuclear reactors, reprocessing facilities) and of longer-range missiles (rocket and fuel factories).

4. Disarm. Actual extrication of existing fissile materials and nuclear warheads out of the country—the true denuclearization phase.

Reciprocity solutions with Iran/North Korea (identify solutions)

Making sanctions with Iran and giving them trade and in exchange, they wouldn't make nuclear missiles

North Korea: ??

international terror threat in the USA

9/11 triggered a fear of terrorism in the us because it can happen to anyone at anytime. "it could have been me" idea

Why nuclear proliferation is biggest security problem today

Building norms to ban nuclear weapons—an example of "Anarchy is what states make of it"?

collective security

a security arrangement, political, regional, or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and therefore commits to a collective response to threats to, and breaches to peace.

cost-benefit analysis

a study that compares the costs and benefits to society of providing a public good

Liberal International Order

Post WW2 system consists of global, rule based structured relationships based on political and economic liberalism. Credited with expanding free trade, promoting human right, facilitated cooperation with USA Japan and Western Europe