INT Politics Midterm

To whom does international politics matter?

Everyone

International politics can be thought of as which of the following?

A set of puzzles

Military might and a strong economy are both elements of which of the following?

Power

Prestige and the ability to persuade are both key elements of which type of power?

Soft power

Institutional power is best described as which of the following?

The riles of organizations that convey power

Structural power is best described as which of the following?

Unquestioned 'rules of the game' that benefit certain actors

Every argument about politics and politices includes which of the cfollowing

Some hypothesis about cause and effect 

Deciding whether to accept or reject an assertion made about international politics is considered to be which of the following?

The goal of analysis in international politics

Which of the following is true about methodology in political science?

There is profound disagreement among political scientists about which methodological approaches are best.

Which of the following is an example of what both natural scientists and political scientists who study international politics do in their studies?

Collect and observe data 

Political scientists who study international relations are attempting to do which of the following?

Discern generalizable tendencies in the patterns of international affairs

Which of the following best describes theories in political science?

General explanations of how politics work

In political science, theories have three purposes. Which of the following is not a purpose of theory?

Experiment

Whereas policymakers and journalists concentrate on specific problems and look for specific answers, what type of questions do political scientists ask?

General questions about how international politics work

What is the essential question stemming from normative theory?

What goals should we pursue?

What does it mean that a theory is generalized?

That it seeks to explain a series of comparable events

What is the question posed by explanatory theory?

How does the world work?

Which of the following best defines the "domino theory?"

The idea that if one state in a region becomes communist, others will follow

If a political scientist finds a war in which there was not an imbalance of power, should that political scientist rejects the balance of power hypothesis?

Not if it fits with the data better than any other hypothesis

What is one way to categorize theories?

According to their levels of analysis

Which famous political scientist argued that one can explain war at any of the three levels of analysis?

 

Kenneth Waltz

In terms of explaining the causes of war, Waltz prefers a system level of analysis, which focuses on which of the following?

The distribution of power in the international system

Analyses that examine the bureaucracies and small groups that make foreign policy, such as interest groups, are focusing on what level of analysis?

Substate level

What is the right number of levels when categorizing theories by their level of analysis?

 

The "right" number of levels is up for debate

What are the steps in the political science model? What are the processes involved in this model?

• Begin with a question

• Identify potential answers

• Determine what patterns we would observe if each hypothesis were true 

• Decide how to define and measure the key factors 

• Choose a research method 

• Evaluate the findings.

In the sixteenth century, which country founded a colony called Macao in China?

 

Portugal

During which declining Chinese dynasty did Western powers begin to exploit China?

Qing

Which Greek scholar wrote the great study of international politics, the History of the Peloponnesian War?

 

Thucydides

Which two Greek city-states fought in the Peloponnesian War?

Sparta and Athens

What did Thucydides posit in his theory of international politics?

That states are the key actors in international politics and the distribution of power among them is a key factor

According to Thucydides, which key factor, that is still relevant today, helps explain the Peloponnesian War?

 

Power

In what ways was the feudal system in Europe different from the Roman Empire?

While the political authorities during the feudal period were not Christian, those during the Roman Empire were.

In 1648, European countries signed the Treaty of Westphalia. What did the Treaty of Westphalia accomplish?

The treaty ended the Thirty Years’ War.

Which conflict over religion sprang from the Protestant Reformation?

The Thirty Years’ War

In which of the following ways was the Treaty of Westphalia important?

It recognized the existence of sovereign states.

What is the best definition of sovereignty?

Each state has complete authority over its own territory.

Following the Treaty of Westphalia, what/who were the main actors in the international system?

States

Which of the following is true about international politics?

When sovereign states are recognized by other sovereign states, they have a greater chance of surviving.

In political science, which of the following best defines anarchy?

A situation in which there is no central government

The Treaty of Westphalia established a system in which the main actors were states and there was no higher authority than the state. This is known as which of the following?

The sovereign state system

Why did anarchy result from the Westphalian system?

Sovereignty meant that no higher power could tell states what to do, so there was no one to prevent states from attacking one another.

What form did most states take from the end of the Thirty Years’ War until the early 1800s?

Most states were undemocratic monarchies.

Which of the following best describes China during the first millennium BCE?

China’s system varied between an empire, with a single dominant leader, and a pluralistic system.

When did the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan conquer China?

 

The thirteenth century CE

Which of the following social scientists attributed Europe’s economic success to its Protestant Christian values?

Max Weber

European countries were successful in dominating the rest of the world for all the following factors EXCEPT:

English emerging as the dominant language

Which of the following best describes nationalism?

Nationalism is the doctrine by which large groups of people perceive themselves to be fundamentally similar to each other and distinct from other groups

National self-determination is a concept closely related to which of the following?

Nationalism

Which two developments in European politics made possible Napoleon’s rise in the late eighteenth century possible?

Nationalism and democracy

What was one of the most significant changes that Napoleon initiated in warfare?

He mobilized the entire population behind his war effort.

When was the Concert of Europe established?

At the Congress of Vienna

Which of the following helped cause Napoleon’s defeat?

Russia’s huge army and the frigid winters in Russia

Which of the following is true about the Concert of Europe period?

Only a few limited wars occurred

What is it called when one country controls another country or its territory?

 

Imperialism

The 2014 Ebola outbreak reportedly originated in which part of the world?

Western Africa

After the Cold War, nationalism led to the fragmentation of which of the following three states in Europe?

The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia

What did the collapse of communism lead to?

A new wave of democratization that led to some successful transitions to democracy and other less than successful transitions that ended in authoritarian regimes

When did the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ushered in the end of the Cold War, occur?

1989

Which of the following is an example of a nonstate actor?

 

The European Union

What did the poor, oil-producing countries do in the 1970s in order to stimulate their economic development?

 

They banded together into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in order to force global oil prices higher.

How many members does the European Union consist of?

27

The World Bank is considered which type of nonstate actor?

An international organization

Which of the following is a company with business operations in more than one country?

A multinational corporation

What major problem do most third world countries share?

Poverty

After World War II, from which country did Vietnam seek independence?

France

In 1955, many African and Asian nations met to create an agenda that was to avoid taking sides in the Cold War. What was this group called?

 

The Non-Aligned Movement

What are the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Ogaden War all an example of?

Proxy wars

What were “proxies” during the Cold War?

Countries in the developing world that were used by the superpowers to wage war indirectly through their allies

Why was the Vietnam War waged?

In part, the Vietnam War was waged because the United States feared that Vietnam would join China in the communist camp

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was the precursor to which of the following?

The World Trade Organization (WTO)

Which of the following was the central goal of the Bretton Woods system?

The Bretton Woods system sought to expand international trade.

A new system of post-World War II international economic stability and coordination came from which agreement?

Bretton Woods agreement

Which of the following best characterize the state of theory in international politics?

Disagreement and debate

What appears to be the primary reason the Iranian government is pursuing a nuclear weapons program?

To make itself more secure

Which U.S. military actions apparently increased the Iranian government’s fears of a U.S. attack?

The success of US air power in Iraq in 1991

Should Iran develop a nuclear weapon, which of the following states in the region would apparently also be tempted to develop nuclear weapons in response?

Saudi Arabia

Why are paradigms used instead of theories?

Because a paradigm is broader than a single theory and may encompass many theories

Which of the following are the two oldest theories of international politics?

Socialism and Marxism

Realism focuses on

Power

Ofr the following US presidents, which waa the only political scientist and international relations scholar 

Woodrow Wilson

Henry Kissingger Served as national secruity advisor during which of the following administrations

Nixon

paradigm determines which questions are asked and which questions are not asked.

In international politics, what is the definition of a theory?

A specific statement about how international politics works

Which of the following is an assumption that realism Realism makes about human nature at the individual level?

Realism assumes that human nature is inherently conflictual.

Which paradigm includes democratic peace at the state level of analysis?

 

Liberalism

Which paradigm examines international politics through the lens of gender?

Feminism

An aggregation, such as the individual or group, where analysis takes place, holding the other aggregations constant, is known as which of the following?

 

A paradigm

A set of beliefs about what should be taken for granted and what needs to be investigated, about what sorts of forces are most important in the world, and about what assumptions should begin the analysis is known as which of the following?

A paradigm

Under what paradigm does the following statement fall: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must?”

Realism

Which of the following figures was not associated with realism?

Locke

What does “so far as right and wrong are concerned ... there is no difference between the two….” mean?

It means that in international politics there is no shared morality, so morality cannot be the basis for action.

A situation in which there is no central ruler is known as which of the following?

Anarchy

Which of the following is NOT an assumption of realism?

International cooperation is the best way to prevent problems.

Which of the following undermines the Westphilian System

The influence of trsnasnational nonstate actos

In realism. what does the assumption that states are rational actors mean

The staes have consistent, ordered preferences and calculate the costs and benefits of all policies in order to maximize their utility 

If states are to survive, thet must trly on thier own means. Which term best fits this statement 

Self-help

What is national interest

 

It is a foreign policy that avoids all international conflict

When journalists or historians write “Russia did X” or “Washington believes Y,” they are implicitly advancing the state-centered view of which theory?

Realism

What is the security dilemna

The tendency for one state’s efforts to obtain insecurity in others

What is the game theory scenario in which noncooperation is the rational strategy but leads to both players being worse off than if they had cooperated called?

 

The prisoner’s dilemma