IAF 253 Midterm Study Guide

Criteria of Statehood

Established in the Montevideo Convention of 1933

1. A permanent population

2. A defined territory

3. A government

4. The capacity to conduct international relations

Sovereignty

State governments have authority over their external autonomy and foreign policy. State governments have authority over their internal law enforcement and domestic politics

Power

Ability of an actor to cause another to do something it would not otherwise do.

Hard Power

Resource Power

Often relates to coercive power. Mostly measurable and material such as: Military size, Combat capabilities, Economic resources

Soft Power

Relational Power

Often relates to persuasive power. Mostly non-military and social such as: Cultural relations, Religious legitimacy, Commercial production

Individual level of analysis

The personalities and (mis-)perceptions of individual leaders and statespeople

Internal level of analysis

The features of a country’s domestic economic, political, and societal institutions and/or interests

International Level of analysis

The structure and distribution of capabilities and power between states

Anarchy

Absence of a global authority to fully enforce or regulate interactions between sovereign states. There is no world government

Security Dilemma

Under conditions of anarchy, measures that one party takes to increase its security will make others feel less secure. The others seek to increase their own security. This undermines the original party’s security.

Logic of Consequences

Actions based on a rational cost-benefit calculation of the expected material consequences

Logic of Appropriateness

Actions based on concepts of appropriate actions derived from beliefs and identities

Intersubjectivity

The tendency for meanings and concepts to be collectively constructed and shared

Identities

Understanding and expectations about oneself which form the basis of interests

Norms

Shared expectations about appropriate behavior held by a collectivity of actors

Cultural Match

The degree to which an international norm connects with historically constructed domestic norms.

There can be a: Positive match (+) Null match (0), Negative match (-)

Triple Alliance

Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary

Triple Entente

Great Britain, France, Russia

Truman Doctrine

U.S policy to support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling to Soviet influence

Marshall Plan

U.S. economic program to rebuild Europe. Offered to the USSR and Eastern European states, but it was not accepted by them.

First World

The U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO)* and East Asian allies

Second World

The USSR, the Warsaw Pact, China, and Cuba

Third World

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)*

Glasnot

A Gorbachev reform of Political openness

Perestroika

A Gorbachev reform of Economic restructuring

Operation Desert Shield

Operation Desert Storm

Operation Desert Fox

Operation Enduring Freedom

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Mearsheimer

Five Bedrock Assumptions:

1. The international system is anarchic

2. Great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability which give the wherewithal to hurt and possibly destroy each other

3. States can never be certain about other states’ intentions

4. Survival is the primary goal

5. Great powers are rational powers

Three General Patterns

1. Fear

2. Self-help

3. Power Maximization

Wendt

Self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from anarchy and that if today we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process, not structure. Anarchy is what states make of it.

Competitive Security System: States identify negatively with each other’s security so that ego’s gain is seen as alter’s loss.

Individualistic Security System: States are indifferent to the relationship between their own and other’s security

Cooperative Security System: States identify positively with one another so that the security of each is perceived as the responsibility of all.

Sagan

Argues against the cult of the offensive model which argues that: a shared and mistaken belief in offensive advantage held by military organizations led to war.

Sagan’s Strategic Interests Model: The “Political objectives and alliance commitments of the great powers” led to offensive war.

Wohlforth

Three keys to understanding the end of the Cold War

1. Decision-makers’s assessment of power are what matters

2. Declining challengers are more likely than declining hegemons to try to retrench and reform rather than opt for preventive war.

3. Sudden decline or civil strife on the losing side of a struggle is less destabilizing globally than such decline or strife on the winning side.

Flibbert

Four sets of mutually reinforcing ideas

1. A belief in the necessity and benevolence of American hegemony

2. A Manichaean conception of politics

3. A conviction that regime type is the principal determinant of foreign policy

4. Great confidence in the efficacy of military force