ICC exam

54 readings from each week, summary (combined own work + ChatGPT)

Wk 7, Miller 1993, Case Against Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent

Miller considers the Cold War, saying that because both USSR and US had nukes, they were resistant to actually engage in armed conflict with each other. But, we can’t just say that the same would apply to Ukraine, and providing them with nukes would increase its peace, stability and security like it did with the Cold War. He says that the Cold War is an example of a ‘long peace’, but nuclear weapons weren’t the sole deterrent to conflict - this was combined with bipolarity, exploitation of advance technologies that prevented surprise attacks, ideological moderation of Cold War protagonists, and more. Nuclear weapons could have been a dominant cause of peace but given the other factors it also could not have been. Applying these same factors to Russia-Ukraine, they both don’t have those advance technologies on par with the capabilities of the other, not a bipolar world, etc.

Most of the factors that worked with Soviet-American nuclear deterrence are absent in the modern Russian-Ukrainian context. Miller claims that deterrence will not work when dealing with ambiguous borders or disputed territories. He acknowledges that if Ukraine assumes control over the Soviet nukes in its territory, after being given them by Russia, they will become an instant power and not have gone through the gradual development process that other countries went through - they wouldn’t know appropriate nuclear conduct. If Ukraine takes control of the weapons on its territory, all its details would be known by Russia - would it really be advantageous for Ukraine?

Wk 7, Mearsheimer 1993, Case For a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent

Mearsheimer argues that Clinton pressuring Ukraine to become a nonnuclear state post-Cold War was wrong, and Ukraine bearing nuclear weapons makes sense for two reasons = first, it’s an imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine and ensures that Russia doesn’t move to reconquer Ukraine, and second, it is unlikely that Ukraine would transfer its remaining nukes to Russia which is a state it fears the most.

Mearsheimer argues that overall, the best formula to maintain stability in post-Cold War Europe is for all the great powers, including Germany and Ukraine, to have secure nuclear deterrents and for all the minor powers to be nonnuclear. He counters Miller 1993 by saying that Ukraine might be able to control the weapons given that Kiev is developing a command and control centre of its own that can be used to launch the weapons bar permission from Russia. He also emphasises that further Russia-Ukraine conflict is likely given that, at the time, the situation between them is ripe for the outbreak of security competition between them.

Wk 7, Valentino et a. 2022, Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo in the US, UK, France and Israel

At the end of the Cold War, lots of scholars recognised that the use of nuclear weapons became a taboo around the world, representing a broader form of noncombatant immunity. Recent public opinion research focusing on the US cast doubt on this taboo.

Surveys show = although the public prefers conventional to nuclear weapons, and prefers to not intentionally kill civilians, these preferences readily give way to keep compatriot soldiers safe to maximise the effectiveness of US military operations.

Four key findings =

1. Majorities in the US, France, Israel and 48% in the UK support the use of nuclear weapons when they are described as more effective than conventional weapons at eliminating a significant terrorist threat, but support declines substantially in each country when nukes provide no military advantage OR when they are estimated to kill much larger numbers of foreign civilians

2. Majorities indicated that the use of nukes was ethically wrong but supported it anyway

3. Differences in compatriot partiality and retributive beliefs help explain individual-level variation in attitudes toward nuclear use and killing civilians

4. Consistent pattern exists in the relative hawkishness of citizens of each country - Israelis are the most hawkish in each scenario tested, Brits are consistently least willing to support nukes. French and US citizens are roughly equally hawkish.

Wk 7, Schelling 1966 ‘The Diplomacy of Violence’

Puts forward the view that military strategy can no longer be thought of as the science of military victory. Rather, it is now equally, if not more, the art of coercion, intimidation and deterrence. Argues that military strategy, whether we like it or not, has become the diplomacy of violence.

Says that, to be coercive, violence has to be anticipated, and has to be avoidable by accommodation. The power to hurt is bargaining power. Exploiting this power to hurt, is diplomacy - vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy nonetheless.

Acknowledges that a country can do whatever it wants if it has enough strength, enough depending on how much the enemy has.

Wk 7, Tannenwald 1999, The Nuclear Taboo

Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, non-use of nuclear weapons has become the norm, but Tannenwald investigates how exactly this tradition arose and is maintained, and its prospects for the future. A widely-cited explanation is deterrence, but this is either incorrectly justified, or incomplete.

Tannenwald argues that a normative element must be accounted for when explaining why nukes haven’t been used since 1945, although an element of luck exists, but it is mainly because of this. A normative prohibition on nuclear use has developed in the global system - although this is not yet a fully robust norm, it has stigmatised nuclear weapons as unacceptable weapons of mass destruction. Without this, Tannenwald acknowledges that there might have been more use.

Tannenwald strengthens her point of view by highlighting how the security situation of small, non-nuclear states has not be rendered as perilous in this nuclear age, as a realist picture of a predatory anarchy would predict, even though most are completely defenceless against a nuclear attack. She uses this to argue that if deterrence, as other scholars suggest, is all that mattered, then more states would demonstrably have taken more strides towards developing nuclear arsenals.

Wk 7, Cohn 1987, Death

Acknowledges how defence intellectuals are all men, who create the theory that legitimates US nuclear practice. Over a span of two weeks in a professional environment saturated with these intellectuals, Cohn listened to men engage in dispassionate discussion of nuclear war, finding herself aghast at the extraordinary abstraction and removal from what she know as reality that characterised the professional discourse.

Cohn believes that language reflects and shapes the nature of the American nuclear strategic project, permitting defence intellectuals to think and act as they do. Cohn then extends this to argue that feminists who are concerned with nuclear weaponry and nuclear war must pay careful attention to the language they choose to use.

Extraordinary language used to describe war. Abstraction and euphemism to remove the ‘humane’ aspect of it and make it easier to talk about. Moreover, gender-discriminatory language was always used: “you get more bang for your buck” when talking about missiles, someone said they wanted to “stick their hands through a hole to pat the missile”? As she immersed herself in the environment, she found herself also adopting these words, whether she liked it or not, since it made doing this kind of business a lot more ‘possible’.

Wk 6, Karim and Beardsley 2016, Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Missions

Abuse etc. is an endemic problem in UN peacekeeping missions. They find that to substantially reduce SEA perpetrated by peacekeepers, the cultivation of a value of gender equality is required among all peacekeepers. Improving the representation of women might help, but still stops short of addressing the root of the problem.

There are clear power dynamics between peacekeepers and local women, but this is only one example of SEA. Another reason why this pervades is because SEA is a major symptom of militarised masculinity needed for warrior culture to flourish. Big link between military masculinity and SEA.

Another link, they use Highgate & Henry 2004 findings to say that “sexual relationships in missions are central to men’s identity in missions and men construct their identity relative to local women”.

Wk 6, Cynthia Enloe 2000, Bananas, Beaches and Bases

Asks the question of “Where are the women?” in high-level scenarios around the world, given that she finds that important decisions, etc. are overwhelmingly taken by men. Investigations on crimes against women don’t take seriously the full scope of women’s lives.

Wk 6, Sjoberg 2004, Agency, Militarised Femininity, Observations from the War in Iraq =

The paper contends that several gendered stories from the 2003 war in Iraq demonstrate 3 major developments in militarised femininity in the US - increasing sophistication of the ideal image of the woman soldier, stories of militarised femininity constructed in opposition to the gendered enemy, evident tension between popular ideas of femininity and women’s agency in violence.

Stories on women were told on the basis of their gender. They are not soldiers but rather ‘women soldiers’. Story of Lynch - they falsified what actually happened with her, because she was white. But alternatively, Shoshana Johnson, a black mother of two, went down fighting, but her story was not nearly as widely circulated by the Pentagon.

Wk 6, Tickner 1992, Man, the State and War

Waltz says “the state conducts its affairs in the brooding shadow of violence”. So, war can break out at any time. Tickner states that, when we think about national security, we think about what appears to be an entirely male domain. Most women support what they take to be legitimate calls for state action, in the interests of national security, but the tasks of defining, defending and advancing the security interests of the state is a man’s affair. Tickner argues that realists have constructed a worldview based on the experiences of certain men, since women are often absent from this consideration, and given that most decisions are taken by men from a male perspective thereby naturally excluding women. This worldview is thus offering us only a partial view of reality.

Tickner questions that, if we were to include the experiences of women by involving them in the decision-making processes, would it affect the way we understand the meaning of violence? In spite of women’s increasing numbers in noncombat roles, and decision-making roles, it’s still not enough. It is difficult to find definitions of women of national security, it is not necessary that women have no idea on the subject but rather when they do speak about it, they are often dismissed as being naive or unrealistic.

Wk 3, Cooley and Nexon 2025, Trump’s Anti-liberal Order

The ‘America first’ ideology undercuts America’s advantage. During his campaign for presidency, Trump promised to deliver a nationalist America-first foreign policy, by threatening to abandon NATO allies, uphold Project 2025, and push domestic and international politics in illiberal directions. But, they argue that Trump’s presidency will not end the liberal international order for the simple reason that it has already ended.

Liberal international order = international institutions and treaty arrangements that Washington took the lead in creating during the first decade after WWII, including the UN and NATO. These promoted human rights, democracy, multilateral cooperation. This was expanded and reworked after the collapse of USSR, which saw a wave of international democratisation. But for more than a decade, China and Russia have been engaged in their own international ordering projects. They mark meaningful alternatives to Western markets, mark growing illiberalism in international politics.

Some think that they are seeking to destroy multilateralism in international politics, when rather they’re just seeking to expand their influence in international institutions, doing so because they understand the power that these institutions provide the US.

Finds that China has already taken the lead in founding a large number of new institutions, like BRICS, and Beijing is leveraging this to promote its goals, many of them profoundly illiberal, and to explicitly counter the US. Neither China or Russia is focusing extensively on building its own institutional capacity, but rather seek to undermine existing US influence in the international order.

Wk 3, Weiss and Wallace 2021, Domestic Politics, China’s Rise, the Future of the LIO

How will China’s growing power and influence shape world politics? They argue that views of the liberal international order have been too optimistic, since China’s ability to profit from within the system has shaken the domestic consensus in the US on preserving the existing LIO, while features of the CCP rule chafe against many fundamental principles of the order but could coexist with a return to Westphalian principles and markets that are embedded in domestic systems of control.

China’s persisting illiberalism has called into question the adequacy of existing institutions like the WHO or WTO. But since illiberal and liberal states can selectively choose which international institutions to be party to, it is difficult to summarise China’s approach to the world as either revisionist or status quo.

China is likely to follow the US in privileging its own domestic interest and relative power within the global hierarchy, but it’s core principles are so different that it puts it at odds with the LIO. Conclusion - can the LIO survive the challenge of China’s growing influence and desire to reshape global governance? The CCP is at odds with key aspects of the system, like political liberalism, but has not spent significant energy defeating these liberal principles internationally except where they threaten its domestic survival and sovereignty. China would be more likely to show flexibility on issues that are less central.

Wk 3, Nye and Keohane 1971, Transnational Relations and World Politics

The paper focuses on transnational relations - contacts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of governments. The paper investigates the effect of these transnational relations on governments.

Paper finds that there are five major effects of transnational interactions and organisations on governments, all with direct or indirect consequences for mutual sensitivity and thereby for interstate politics: attitude changes, international pluralism, increases in constraints on states through dependence and interdependence, increases in the ability of certain governments to influence others, the emergence of autonomous actors with private foreign policies that may deliberately oppose or impinge on state policies

1. Attitude changes

2. Promotion of international pluralism = linking of national interest groups in transnational structures

3. Creation of dependence and interdependence = may make all states dependent on forces that none of them controls

Wk 3, Oneal and Russett 1999, The Kantian Peace

Kant declares that we have a duty to work for peaceful international relations. They conduct an in-depth analysis of Kantian ethics and perspectives on democracy, peace, and international relations. Following this analysis, they find and conclude =

1. The more democratic the less democratic state in a dyad, and the more economically important trade is, the greater the likelihood of peace.

2. Realist variables from the analysis perform as expected - a preponderance of power rather than a balance deters conflict; contiguous states are prone to fight, as are those whose homelands are geographically proximate; major powers are involved in disputes more than are smaller states.

3. If a state’s preponderance of power is one standard deviation higher, that reduces the probability of a dispute by 31%, but that result would acquire a fourfold increase in the capabilities of the stronger state.

4. Democracies are more peaceful than autocracies at the national level, as well as dyadically, but find, as Kant expected, that democracies and autocracies are particularly prone to fight one another because of the political distance separating them

5. Economically-important trade has the greatest conflict-reducing benefits, followed by democracy and joint memberships in international organisations.

6. Likelihood of dyadic conflict drops when there are more democracies in the system and trade is more important economically

7. Preponderant power reduces the likelihood of a dispute, as do distance, an alliance, or the absence of a major power in the dyad

8. Dyads that are relatively more involved in international organisations at any point in time tend to be more peaceful, supporting the Kantian hypothesis regarding IGOs

9. When two states are allied, the probability of conflict is lower by 22%

10. Hegemonic stability and power-preponderance theories are realist. They predict that conflict becomes more likely as the power of the leading state declines relative to its principal rivals

11. Conclude = Kant is substantially correct: democracy, economic interdependence and involvement in international organisations reduce the incidence of militarised inter-state disputes. Kant argued that three naturally-occurring tendencies operate to produce a more peaceful world: individuals desire to be free and prosperous, so democracy and trade will expand, which leads to the growth of international laws and organisations to facilitate these processes.

Wk 3, Kant 1795, Philosophical Sketch, Toward Perpetual Peace

Preliminary Articles for Perpetual Peace Among States =

1. No peace settlement which secretly reserves issues for a future war shall be considered valid

2. No independently existing state, irrespective of whether it is large or small, shall be able to be acquired by another state through inheritance, exchange, purchase or gift

3. Standing armies shall be gradually abolished entirely

4. State should not contract debts in connection with its foreign affairs

5. No state shall forcibly intervene in the constitution and government of another state

Claims that:

1. Any government that is not representative is without form

2. While a peace treaty achieves an end to the present war, it does not achieve an end to the state of war

3. What applies under natural law to human beings in the lawless condition cannot also apply to states under international right

Wk 5, Alexander Wendt 1992, Anarchy is what States Make of It

Concludes that:

1. Self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from anarchy. If, today, we find ourselves in a self-help world, it is due to process (interaction and learning) and not structure

2. Argues that there is no logic of anarchy apart from the practices that create and instantiate one structure of identities and interests rather than another

3. Self-help and power politics are institutions, and not essential features of anarchy. Rather, anarchy is what states make of it

4. Self-help and power politics are socially constructed under anarchy

5. Wendt disputes the explanation of neorealism of the contemporary state system as a competitive and self-help world

6. Wendt shows that self-help and competitive power politics may be produced causally by processes of interaction and learning between states in which anarchy plays only a permissive role

7. A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act toward objects/actors on the basis of meanings that the objects have for them i.e. states act different towards friends because friends are not threatening, but different towards enemies because enemies are threatening

8. He says that it is collective meanings that constitute the structures which organise our actions

9. Each state has multiple identities - sovereign, imperial power, leader of the free world, etc. and the salience of particular identities vary but each identity is an inherently social definition of the actor grounded in the theories which actors collectively hold about themselves and one another and which constitute the structure of the social world

10. Self-help is an institution, one of various structures of identity and interest that may exist under anarchy

11. Process of identity-formation under anarchy is concerned first with preservation or security of the self.

Wk 5, Ayoub 2014, With Arms Wide Shut

1. Uses an original survey to explore and explain why norms governing LGBT rights mobilise an active resistance in some cases but not in the others

2. Compares Poland and Slovenia, article shows that differing perceptions of threat define the way international norms are received in distinct domestic realms

3. Threat perception is heightened in cases where religion is historically embedded in the essence of the popular nation - Poland, Catholic Church created a role for itself as a symbol of the nation, so domestic opposition succeeded in framing a narrative that linked LGBT rights to external forces threatening national values

4. Slovenia - Catholic Church could neither maintain nor reestablish similarly strong ties to the popular nation, stifling the opposition’s ability to mobilise a robust popular resistance

5. European actors - EU, Council of Europe, fostered change by propagating LGBT rights and by introducing the issues into the domestic discourse of various European states, but even in this region there is substantial variation in the domestic reception of the international norm

6. Article explores how LGBT rights norms are contrastingly received in various contexts, comparing the link between national identity and religion in Poland and Slovenia, finding that different perceptions of threat in distinct national contexts influence responses to international norms

7. Slovenia - activists were able to foster change in favour of LGBT people without a strong and resonant domestic resistance

8. Poland - mobilised resistance to LGBT rights was routine as the issue gained visibility

9. ARGUMENT = religion contributes to counter mobilisation in cases where its moral authority is historically embedded in the popular idea of the nation

10. Poland, domestic opposition succeeded in framing a narrative that linked LGBT rights to external forces threatening national values

11. By contrast, Slovenia catholic church could neither maintain nor reestablish similarly strong ties to the popular nation after the WWII

12. LGBT rights norms provoke a lesser resistance in states where the Church has lost its moral authority as a constitutive part of national identity

13. Article argues that religion plays a role in moderating the effect of international LGBT norms but only in contexts where it has become linked to the popular nation

14. Resistance in degree and scope is linked to society’s perception of a possible threat

Wk 5, Klotz 1995, Norms Reconstituting Interests

• The article suggests that we should conceive of state interest formation as a global rather than an insulated domestic process

• Using apartheid in South Africa as an example, the article argues that US sanctions against SA are an anomaly for conventional realist and regime explanations of international politics and outlines an alternative constructivist perspective

• Article argues that successful transnational anti-apartheid advocates’ demands for sanctions demonstrate the crucial role of a global norm of racial equality in reconstituting US interests

• They offer empirical evidence of the constructivist claim that norms can reconstitute interests, and suggest coalitions under which that claim may hold in other cases

• Transnational anti-apartheid movement’s success in mobilising support for sanctions against South Africa was predicated on uniting concern over the twin issues of US race relations and apartheid

• Activists framed the apartheid issue in the context of the prevailing civil rights discourse of equality, and increasing their institutional access to decision-making power. The result was increased salience of their argument that US interests were best served by actively promoting racial equality and democracy in South Africa

Wk 5, Ruggie 1998, What Makes the World Hang Together

• What makes the world hang together?

• Claims that rationalist theories miss the social foundations of international politics, arguing that neoutilitarian approaches treat the international system as made up of self-interested states with fixed preferences who interact under anarchy and cooperate only when it serves material interests. He critiques that these theories take too much for granted, assuming states’ preferences and the system in which they interact instead of explaining where these come from.

• Ruggie argues that states’ interests are not fixed or given but rather socially constructed through interaction, learning, norms and shared understandings

• Ruggie emphasises that norms, rules, institutions, collective meanings make the world hang together

• Argues that institutions also shape identities and interests, helping us define what a state is and how it should behave

Wk 5, Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, International Norm Dynamics

• Article asks questions like: how do we know a norm when we see one, where do norms come from, how do norms change?

• Article makes three arguments =

  • First, ideational turn of recent years is actually a return to some traditional concerns of the discipline, but it has not brought us back to precisely the same place we began

  • Second, norms evolve in a patterned life cycle and that different behavioural logics dominate different segments of the life cycle

  • Third, the current tendency to oppose norms against rationality is not helpful in explaining many of the most politically salient processes we see in empirical research, which we call strategic social construction in which actors strategise rationally to reconfigure preferences, identities or social context

Wk 2, Morgenthau 1960, Excerpts from Politics among Nations

1. Morgenthau lays out the foundation for classical realism, which is a theory of international relations explaining state behaviour and conflict through the lens of human nature, which it views as inherently self-interested, fearful, and power-seeking

2. He says that politics follows universal laws, and these laws are grounded in unchanging human nature. He specifies that this nature surrounds how humans have an inherent drive to seek power, and thus international politics is fundamentally a struggle for power since humans are power-seeking

3. Claims that states think and act in terms of interest defined as power, power is both a means and an end

4. Morgenthau emphasises that power is multifaceted, and that power includes military strength, economic capacity, geography, population, and more.

5. The balance of power is the central stabilising mechanism, and Morgenthau argues that the balance of power is the main way order is maintained in an anarchic international system

6. The balance of power works by preventing any one state from becoming dominant and encouraging counterbalancing behaviour, and without it, the system tends toward domination or war

7. There are different strategies used by states - alliance formation (joining others to counter a stronger power), armaments, territorial compensation and adjusting borders to maintain equilibrium, preventing others from uniting (divide and rule).

8. Morgenthau argues that the balance of power is necessary and flawed, and says that it is essential for stability, but also uncertain, difficult to measure, contextual, and dependent on perception and miscalculation.

Wk 2, Jervis 1978, Cooperation under the Security Dilemma

1. In an anarchic international system where there is no absolute sovereign, states must ensure their own survival, since no one else can be relied on to do it for them

2. When one increases its security, such as by building arms, others feel less secure since that one state now has an increased capacity to attack the other state

3. This creates a dilemma since actions created for defence are often and can be interpreted as offensive by other states

4. Even status quo states (those with no expansionist goals) can end up in conflict

5. A key problem in the security dilemma thing is uncertainty. Actions are difficult to interpret, and there is no way for states to reliably know others’ intentions. The same military capacity that they’re building up for their defence can also be used on the offensive, creating a climate of fear so profound that building up arms for the defensive actually isn’t fully aiding in ‘defending’ a country, but rather potentially rendering it more susceptible to conflict

6. As a result of the above, states assume the worst-case scenario, leading to various tensions, arms races etc

7. Jervis is not purely pessimistic, and does acknowledge that cooperation is indeed possible under anarchic conditions, but it depends on how severe the security dilemma is, and he identifies two crucial variables for this: offence-defence distinguishability and balance.

8. Offence-defence balance = is it easier to attack or easier to defend? In an offence-dominant world, high risk of war and low trust, and vice versa.

9. Offence-defence distinguishability = can other states/states in general easily distinguish between defensive and offensive weapons? Distinguishable = states can signal peaceful intentions, while non-distinguishable = more room for mistrust

10. But the key problem here is that this is all subjective i.e. a weapon that is seen as purely defensive by one state, such as Israel’s Iron Dome, can be seen as offensive by another state → there is no surefire way to distinguish

11. Jervis argues that arms races are not inevitable, but rather rational. They can be rational responses/buildups to uncertainty and are not necessarily caused by aggression.

12. Overall, Jervis argues that under anarchy, the security dilemma causes even well-intentioned states to mistrust each other and compete, but the intensity of this dilemma depends on whether offence or defence has the advantage and whether they can be distinguished.

Wk 2, Waltz 1979, Excerpts from Theory of International Politics

1. He lays out the foundations of neorealism, and his argument is a direct shift away from explaining international politics through human nature like Morgenthau toward explaining it through the structure of the international system

2. He first criticises reductionist theories which explain international politics through human nature, claiming that these cannot explain recurring patterns in international politics

3. He proposes systemic theory which explains outcomes by looking at the structure of the international system as a whole and not individual units

4. Waltz defines structure in a precise way, three units = anarchy, states are functionally similar and all must ensure survival, polarity and how power is distributed

5. States that anarchy forces states into self-help. The international system is one wherein “the principle of self-help” governs states since “states must do whatever they can to ensure their own survival since no one else can be relied on to do it for them”

6. Survival is the primary goal, states are constantly concerned with their security

7. States are functionally similar with their goals, but they differ with the extent to which they can pursue it depending on how much power they have

8. He says that the balance of power is not its own policy but rather an outcome of the international system, wherein states tend to balance against stronger states through alliances because failing to do so risks domination or alienation etc.

9. Waltz argues that bipolar systems are more stable than multipolar systems, stating that this is why the Cold War didn’t break out into actual conflict

10. In an anarchic system also, states are concerned with relative gains or relative power rather than absolute power, in contrast to what Morgenthau argues

Wk 2, Mearsheimer 2001, Anarchy and the Struggle for Power

1. He presents offensive realism, which is more aggressive than Waltz’s structural/defensive realism

2. He agrees with Waltz that the international system is anarchic and states are rational actors who are survival-oriented

3. But he goes further by Waltz, who argues that states are security-maximising who are concerned with having ‘enough’ power compared to their rivals. Rather, Mearsheimer argues that states are inherently power-maximising, and they are not satisfied with enough power but rather seek to maximise power

4. No guarantee about others’ intentions, best way to ensure survival is to become as powerful as possible

5. His most famous claim is that great powers strive to become regional hegemons, since they cannot become global hegemons due to like geography, distance, etc. so they have to dominate their own region and prevent other regions from being dominated by rivals

6. Mearsheimer builds his theory from 5 key assumptions = anarchy, uncertainty of intentions, primary goal of survival, offensive capabilities, rationality

7. Even if states aren’t inherently aggressive they can’t trust others, constant security competition, he says that you want to outstrip rivals as much as possible

Wk 2, Coggins 2011, Friends in High Places

1. Claims that many groups declare independence but very few become states

2. Secessionist entities succeed when they gain backing from powerful states, especially great powers

3. Because great powers provide recognition, offer military support and economic support, etc.

4. Coggins says that great powers recognise new states when it aligns with their strategic or geopolitical interests (serves their interests)

5. New states are more likely to emerge and be recognised when great powers are competing

Wk 4, Lenin 1916, Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism

1. Argues that imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general

2. Capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites

3. To give the briefest possible explanation of imperialism = imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism

4. The division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up

5. Imperialism as a stage of capitalism is characterised by the shift from free competition to the monopoly domination of finance capital

6. This era is defined by extreme industrial concentration, export of capital over goods, the formation of international combines, and the complete territorial division of the world among the great powers

Wk 4, Gunder 1966, The Development of Underdevelopment

1. Foundational text of dependency theory

2. Argues against the modernisation theory’s idea that poor countries are simply behind the richer ones

3. Argues that underdevelopment is not an original condition or a natural stage before development, but rather actively produced by the historical development of global capitalism

4. Gunder argues that many poor countries today are poor because they were forcefully integrated into the global capitalist system, and that the wealth of advanced capitalist countries was built primarily on the exploitation of these countries, which have become poor as a result of that exploitation

5. He says that development and underdevelopment cannot be studied separately i.e. you cannot study rich and poor countries separately because the way they are today means that they are interlinked

6. Colonialism matters a lot when trying to figure out why rich countries today are rich and poor countries are poor

7. National bourgeoisies are often linked to this exploitation

Wk 4, Cox 2008, The Point is Not to Explain the World, But to Change It

1. Cox argues that the study of international relations should focus first on the key issues affecting the biological survival of the human race, and then on the pursuit of justice in the condition of peoples, which is essential to maintaining their support for a survivable world order

2. A list of priorities to focus on in the world FIRST before moving on to solving other problems are = avoiding nuclear war, survival of the biosphere, moderating the rich and poor gap, assuring protection for the most vulnerable people, effective arrangements for negotiating conflict resolution

3. He argues that it is essential to understand the world as people are making it to gain control over where we are going, to then be able to use this understanding to solve further problems after we resolve those problems that impact the survival of the human race

Wk 4, Vitalis 2000, Making Racism Invisible

1. Institution of racism, has proven resilient in the face of decades of resilience and despite the reasoned arguments of countless would be norm-entrepreneurs

2. Article treats white supremacy as a global norm, and analyses its role in constituting the world order

3. Article inquires into the role of norms, identities and social realities

Wk 4, Ayyash 2025, The Western Imperial Order on Gaza

1. Argues that Palestine remains the quintessential case that reveals not just the current configuration of the international order of nation-states as one that is built for the promotion of Western imperial interests, but just as critically, it shows how committed the Western states still are to the project of colonial modernity

2. The article explains why/elaborates on how Western governments have largely supported and actively participated in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

3. It explains how since October 2023, US-led Western imperial alliance has not only refused to stop the genocidal onslaught, but has provided military, economic and diplomatic support that is essential to Israel’s ability to carry out the genocide

4. Article talks about how the ideological fault line between the imperial west and large parts of the neocolonised and postcolonised world is becoming more pronounced in international state discourse

5. The paper argues, with the example of South Africa taking Israel to court over the genocide, that the fault line between the imperial West and Global South is increasingly being pushed through major international institutions like the ICJ as a de-colonial and anti-imperial struggle, with Palestine at the heart of it

6. The article examines the two cases brought before the ICJ, the genocide case and the status of the Israeli occupation, as part of a counter-hegemonic campaign waged by Global South states against US imperialism and Israeli settler colonialism

Wk 8, Slantchev and Goemans 2024, Obstacles to Diplomacy in Ukraine

1. Acknowledges that, after two years of fighting, the Russia-Ukraine war has come to an impass, constituting a mutually occurring stalemate

2. To make peace in a conflict situation both parties have to be willing to accept the others’ minimum requirements, but neither are willing to

3. Kiev cannot accept Russia’s demand for new leadership, while Russia cannot acceded to Ukraine’s demand for reparations

4. They argue that, unless there is a drastic change on the battlefield or within either state’s governments, it is highly unlikely that the two sides will revise their requirements in the long term

5. When this war ends, it is unlikely to be with a compromise agreement that grants Russia many of its demands. Instead, they argue that it will end when either Ukraine grows strong enough to wrest control of newly conquered lands and has the capability to deter Russia from attempting to regain them OR after the Kremlin prevails more on the battlefield and Ukraine’s resources are only enough to defend what independent land remains

6. Says that Russia’s demands are too extreme for Ukraine to countenance, and they are unlikely to soften since Putin is ideologically committed to subjugating Ukraine

Wk 8, Bakke et al. 2025, Conflict Exposure and Democratic Values

1. How do experiences of violence in war shape ordinary people’s commitment to democratic principles?

2. There is a possibility that war can either strengthen or weaken support for democracy, but the paper argues that the effects vary across different dimensions of democracy

3. Public opinion surveys fielded in Ukraine in October 2022 and July 2024 were conducted to examine how experiences of wartime violence affect people’s commitment to protecting three core liberal democracy principles: minority rights, freedom of speech, free and fair elections

4. Most consistent finding = people who have been physically injured, lost a close family or friend are less likely to be supportive of safeguarding the protection of minority rights.

5. There is weaker but still suggestive evidence that these experiences relate to attitudes toward freedom of speech

6. In contrast, it is found that experiences of violence do not systematically influence views on safeguarding free and fair elections

7. Conclusions =

8. Even during times of war, there is strong commitment to the protection of minority rights and freedom of speech, but the analysis also suggests that support for protecting minority rights is diminished by experiences such as losing family members and close friends and attacks by Russian troops. Respondents express a more cautious stance regarding the holding of free and fair elections, likely attributed to the formidable challenges associated with conducting elections during wartime, but these attitudes are not shaped by experiences of violence. Combined, findings suggest that while wartime violence does not wholly erode support for democratic principles, certain experiences of violence can diminish the depth of commitment to inclusivity.

Wk 8, Walter Barbara 2021, Astonishing Success of Peacekeeping

1. Many people believe that peacekeeping is ineffective and harmful

2. Many additionally believe that the UN is an ineffective organisation

3. These negative views have been used to justify Americans’ deep cuts to the UN peacekeeping budget

4. Washington has still also not paid for its peacekeeping obligations and is roughly 1 billion in arrears

5. Resultantly, there have been no newly fielded peacekeeping missions since 2014, despite an increase in civil wars

6. This is a shame since the article argues that the negative perceptions of peacekeeping are dead wrong

7. Decades of academic research has demonstrated that peacekeeping not only works at stopping conflicts but works better than anything else experts know

8. It’s effective at resolving civil wars, reducing violence during wars, preventing wars from recurring, rebuilding state institutions

9. Succeeds at protecting civilian lives and reducing sexual and gender-based violence

10. Does all this at a v low cost esp compared to counterinsurgency campaigns, peacekeeping’s closest cousin among forms of intervention

11. To reduce violence worldwide, the US and partners need to increase their financial and personnel support for peacekeeping missions

12. They must be more willing to green-light campaigns, invest in more training for peacekeeping forces

13. Washington has a strategic reason to act, since China is stepping in to provide more resources to peacekeeping missions, and appears to wanna control more agencies within the UN

14. But the US also has a moral imperative, greater commitment to peacekeeping would bring more global stability and save countless lives

Wk 8, Waxman 2011, Israel’s Palestinian Minority

1. There are Palestinians in Israel, who are approximately 20% of Israel’s total population

2. This Palestinian population has almost been completely ignored by the international community

3. Two state solution proposals only address the needs of Palestinian diaspora and those within West Bank, etc.

4. Talks about how Palestinians in Israel are discriminated against, around 50% live below the poverty line, many are angry and resentful because they feel that Israel has long ignored them

5. Very little socialisation or social contact between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel

Wk 8, Hirsch-Hoeflet et al. 2016, Conflict Will Harden Your Heart

1. Core argument is that exposure to conflict-related violence increases psychological distress, which in turn strengthens psychological barriers to support peace

2. Argues that violence doesn’t just materially, physically affect people, but rather also produces psychological distress which then influences political attitudes and willingness to support compromise and peace

3. Key psychological barriers to peace are distrust of the other side, fear of harm, beliefs that the conflict is zero-sum

4. Exposure to violence → increased psychological distress → reduced support for peace

Wk 8, Levy 1998, Causes of War and Conditions of Peace

1. The central claim is that no single theory in International Relations explains war, and critiques attempts to explain war solely through stuff like human nature, the international system, etc.

2. Recognises that causes of war operate at three different levels of analysis = system-level, state-level, individual-level

3. Argues that different theories explain different kinds of war. For example, balance of power theories explain great power wars, psychological theories explain miscalculations, etc.

4. He identifies several major recurring causes of war, which are = security dilemma dynamics, power imbalances and shifts in the balance of power, domestic political pressures, economic and resource factors.

5. Also argues that conditions for peace stem from mitigating the conditions causing war. So to have peace you need to have stable balances of power, less domestic political pressures, etc.

Wk 9, Hardin 1968, The Tragedy of the Commons

1. Argues a classic argument about resource overuse and collective action problems

2. Argues that when individuals act rationally in their own self-interest in a shared resource system, they collectively produce irrational and destructive outcomes

3. The cow in the field logic

4. Hardin generalises this to explain many real-world issues, such as pollution, overfishing, resource overuse, etc, basically saying that these problems happen because resources are finite, scarce and shared

5. He claims that freedom in the commons brings destruction, arguing that the freedom to act according to your own self-interest brings destruction since humans don’t really have built-in incentives to restrain use

6. He also says that some problems don’t have just technical solutions, i.e. you can’t solve all problems with just technical solutions or technology improvements

7. His proposed solution is that societies must collectively impose limits on individual freedom to protect shared resources; survival of the collective may require restricting individual liberties.

Wk 9, Keohane and Victor 2016, Cooperation and Discord

1. They examine why global cooperation regarding the climate is that difficult

2. They first acknowledge how climate change is a global commons problem, impacting everyone, and thus requires cooperation among many states with different interests, levels of development, and capacities to contribute

3. They argue that there are strong incentives for countries to free ride on their climate commitments and cooperation towards climate change

4. They are skeptical of a single, top-down agreement for all countries to be bound to to resolve the climate crisis, because there are too many actors with conflicting preferences, and enforcement is also difficult at the global level - take the example of developing/developed countries, exploitation

5. They argue that progress towards addressing the climate crisis stems from incremental, bottom-up efforts

Wk 9, Aklin and Mildenberger 2020, Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma

1. They critique analyses and those scholars who treat the climate crisis or climate politics as a collective action and free-rider problem, rather arguing that it is a distributive conflict over who bears the costs and benefits of decarbonisation

2. Climate policies create uneven costs and benefits - the question is who pays how much, and who contributes how much?

3. Distributive conflict also trickles down into domestic politics, within a state various people like interest groups, activists etc. campaign differently since all policies impact them all differently

Wk 9, Green 2020, Less Talk More Walk

1. About the role of scholars and academic institutions in addressing climate change

2. Core argument is that climate change is so urgent and structurally entrenched insofar as academics cannot remain just neutral observers - they have a responsibility to engage in active, policy-relevant and politically engaged work

3. They argue that neutral scholarship is insufficient since climate change is urgent

4. They also acknowledge how academia has real-world influence and should thus harness this influence and leverage to encourage greater climate action

Wk 9, Buhaug, Halvard, Rudolfsen 2015, A Climate of Conflicts

1. Political violence and conflict overlaps and correlates strongly with climate change

2. Questions - if conflicts cluster in certain climates, could climate itself be a contributing cause? They consider how lots of civil wars happen in dry, arid climates compared to colder, continental countries

3. The lack of evidence of a direct climate-conflict link suggests that these two are causally unrelated, but they argue that this conclusion might be premature and possibly false

4. The complex and reciprocal nature of the long-term climate-conflict relationship makes it very difficult to isolate and quantify the true causal contribution of climate change on armed conflict risk.

5. Much of the statistical empirical research to date is limited to considering possible aggregate and general effects between climatic anomalies and armed conflict

6. Qualitative work as well as relevant policy and NGO reports typically stress the indirect and interactive nature of climate driven impacts, portraying climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ in vulnerable regions.

Wk, 10 Milner 2005, Globalisation, Development and International Institutions

1. Globalisation and international institutions do not operate independently of domestic politics; their effects on development depend crucially on internal political institutions, distributional conflicts, and state capacity, so both normative claims and positive theories must be grounded in domestic political realities

2. Globalisation has distributional consequences within states, arguing that globalisation doesn’t affect all actors equally and creates winners (export sectors, skilled workers), losers (low-skilled labour, import-competing sectors). So it is not uniformly beneficial since it produces domestic redistributional conflict.

3. Claims that the effects of global institutions depend on domestic political institutions - key mediators include regime type, electoral systems, state capacity

4. International institutions - do matter but their impact is conditional, indirect, mediated by domestic political structures

Wk 10, Hobolt 2016, The Brexit Vote

1. Argues that Brexit vote was driven primarily by deep political and identity-based divisions within the UK, amplified by informational biases and competing interpretations of EU membership, rather than by a simple economic cost-benefit calculation

2. There was a highly polarised British electorate, and the vote was not a measure of a unified national preference but rather a clash between fundamentally different political worldviews

3. Identity mattered more than economics for most voters

4. There was asymmetric information, and limited information about the EU, so campaigns shaped discourse significantly

Wk 10, Kreps and Kriner 2023, How AI Threatens Democracy

1. AI increases the scale of political manipulation

2. Amplifies misinformation, weakens epistemic trust, accelerates political manipulation

3. AI undermines citizens’ ability to form informed judgements necessary for democratic accountability

Wk 10, Schoeman and Aldan, 2024, The Rise of Multiplexity

1. Contemporary world is moving away from a single, US-led liberal international order towards a multiplex world characterised by multiple overlapping, decentralised and diverse international orders rather than one dominant system

2. Argues that the post-1945 US-led liberal international order is under strain, key foundations such as liberal norms, etc. are eroding

3. Argues that common IR terms like multipolarity are not enough to describe today’s world, because they still assume a single, structured system of power

4. Multiplexity = multiple overlapping world orders

5. World is becoming more decentralised and heterogeneous

Wk 10, Inken 2019, Hello Goodbye

1. Argues that international organisations are shaped by both entry and exit decisions of states, and exit threats are crucial sources of bargaining power and institutional change

2. Exit is politically important

3. States use threats to leave as bargaining leverage to get what they want

4. International organisations adapt to prevent the exit of states, especially important ones

5. Also, for exit threats to actually be bargaining power, their credibility matters