POL 101

The Mercantilist Era: the world as a meaningful political and economic unit emerged only after 1500. After 1492, explorers from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands went forth from Europe’s Atlantic nations. European states led expeditions around the world. By 1700, the world was controlled by western Europeans. This changed in the 20th century, with the rise of militarily and economically important non-European powers: the U.S., Japan, Russia, and China. 

Absolute Monarchies in Europe: wanted to ensure their own political and military power and to seek control over ever-greater territories and resources. They wanted access to markets in other parts of the world. Rich natural resources - metals, spices, and tropical crops.  

Mercantilism: a system by which imperial governments used military power to enrich themselves and their supporters, then used those riches to enhance their military power. The goal is to reduce prices that the mother country paid its colonists for what it bought and to raise the prices that the mother country charges its colonists for what it sold. 

Peace of Westphalia: European countries battled one another over wealth and power (Spanish-Portuguese, Spanish-British). It stabilized the borders of the belligerents and attempted to resolve some of the religious conflicts that had complicated their relations. It called on governments not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. The beginning of the modern system of states. Thirty Years War (1618-48) - Anti Spanish Alliance-British, French Dutch. This war ended with the Peace of Westphalia. For 3 centuries after 1492, world politics was dominated by the efforts of the principal European states and to overpower and outmaneuver each other and to control the non-European parts of the world. 

The Hundred Years’ Peace: the century from 1815 to 1914 was different from those that preceded it. The major powers were more interested than they had been before in trading and investing worldwide, including with one another. Cooperation led to economic growth and generally peaceful ties between European countries. 

The Pax Britannica (British Peace): between 1815 and 1914, relations among the European powers were far calmer than they had been for the previous 300 years. British hegemony proved to be a stabilizing force among European nations. Britain tried to prevent the supremacy of any one country on the European continent, acting to maintain a balance of power. 

Free trade: industrial revolution displaced mercantilist interests. Over the course of the 1800s, trade as a percentage of the advanced countries’ economies grew two to three times faster than their economies as a whole. Mercantilism was dead. The opening of world trade was encouraged by, and itself encouraged, major advances in transportations and communications. 

The Gold Standard: the system by which the value of a currency was defined in terms of gold, for which the currency could be exchanged. A country on the gold standard promised to exchange its currency for gold at an established rate. By the 1870s, most of the industrial world had adopted the gold standard essentially sharing one international currency. Free trade, the gold standard, and the new technologies of transportation and communication linked world markets for goods, labor, and capital more tightly than ever before. The world entered its first era of globalization. 

Two world wars and a worldwide economic depression: the collapse of Europe’s diplomatic balance led to three decades of global conflicts on the military, diplomatic, economic, and political fronts. 

Tensions in Europe: the changing European power balance. Weakening empires - the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires. New economic and political actors were joining the world stage - the U.S. and Japan. The rise of Germany. Europe divided into two hostile camps.

World War I: it took the lives of at least 15 million people, including about 7 million civilians. Economic hardship and hyperinflation. In Germany,  prices rose to a level 1 trillion times their postwar level. The dissatisfied middle classes grew to be an important base for extreme right wing movements, such as the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. Radical socialist movements and communism took power. International economic and military predominance of the United States. 

World War II: the economic catastrophe deepened political polarization within nations, bringing extreme right-wing nationalist militaristic governments to power. Fascist governments vs democratic powers along with the Soviet Union. 25 million of the armed forces and 30 million civilians were killed. 7 million or more people, people jews whom the Germans and their allies murdered in a planned genocide. 

The Cold War: the superpowers emerged. Conflicts between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, a capitalist democracy and a communist one-party system. The U.S. favored market-based, capitalist economic activities, while the Soviet Union rejected markets and capitalism in favor of a centrally planned socialism. 

The Cold War Ends: by 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved into 15 new, independent, non-communist countries, and the communist governments of the Soviet Union’s European allies were out of power. The Cold War was over, and only one superpower was left standing. 

Decolonization: the process of colonial possessions winning independence, especially during the rapid end of the European empires in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean between the 1940s and the 1960s. Colonialism was finished, and the world was made up of sovereign states. 

Globalization and its discontents: by the 1990s the world had entered a new era  of relaxed military tension, enhanced global cooperation, and heightened economic integration. The Cold War was over. Western capitalism had triumphed, spearheaded by a strong American-led alliance. Globalization and American dominance seemed to presage a new era in world politics. 

The IR Game Board: the players in an international system both shape, and are shaped by, their actions and interactions as they seek security in its international, economic, and human dimensions. 

The search for security in a changing world: the playing field, international system, consists of players, international actors, and the relationship between them. Non-state actors - governmental organizations - the United Nations, the European Union. Non-governmental organizations - Greenpeace, the Red Cross. Multinational or transnational corporations - General Motors, British Petroleum (BP).

Anarchy: the lack of a central overarching authority that governs world politics and the actors involved in it. In the anarchic international system, the main players (states) have sovereignty, which means they govern themselves. There is no central authority to govern the members of the system. 

Interdependence: the mutual connections that tie states and other players to each other. No state is fully independent and able to provide for all its needs and manage all its problems, and the mutual dependencies that exist and grow link players together. This interdependence creates significant connections between the players that force them to interact with each other and often results in greater cooperation than would otherwise be expected. 

Security dilemma: the consequence of self-help. A situation that arises when one state’s efforts to defend itself makes other states feel less secure. Self help; states must depend on themselves to provide for their own security and protect their own interests. How does one society increase its own security without seeming to jeopardize the security of others? The security dilemma captures the idea of seeking security while trying not to create the very war one hopes to avoid by unintentionally threatening others. 

Cooperation: cooperation occurs when two or more actors adopt policies that make at least one actor better off without making any other actor worse off, a positive-sum game.

Bargaining: interactions in which actors must decide how to distribute, or divide, something of value. Increasing one actor’s share of the good decreases the share available to others. 

Coordination: a type of cooperative interaction in which actors benefit from all making the same choices and subsequently have no incentive to not comply. 

Collaboration: a type of cooperative interaction in which actors gain from working together but nonetheless have incentives to not comply with any agreement. 

The Prisoner’s Dilemma: two criminals have been detained by the police for commiting a crime together. There is not enough evidence to convict them on felony charges but can convict each suspect of a misdemeanor. Presents them both with the following offer - “if neither of you is willing to testify, I will share both of you with a misdemeanor and sentence you each to one year in prison. If you defect on your accomplice by providing evidence against him, I will let you go free and will put him in prison for 10 years; however, he has been offered the same deal. If he provides against you, you’ll be the one behind bars. Finally, if you both squeal on one another, you’ll each be charged with a felony, but your sentences will be reduced to five years in exchange for testifying.” Best outcome: the prisoner defects while his partner cooperates, meaning that he is freed immediately while his partner jailed for 10 years. Second best outcome: the prisoner and his partner both cooperate and therefore each spends only 1 year in prison. Third-best outcome: the prisoner and his partner both defect and each is imprisoned for 5 years. Worst outcome: the prisoner cooperates while his partner defects, meaning that he goes to prison for 10 years while his partner goes free. 

Public goods: products that are nonexcludable and nonrival in consumption, such as national defense. Many global environmental issues such as ozone depletion and climate change are public goods. If the good is provided to one person, others cannot be excluded from enjoying it as well. If one person in a country is protected from foreign invasion, all other citizens are also protected. Second if one person consumes or benefits from the public good, the quantity available to others is not diminished. 

Iteration: repeated interactions with the same partners. 

Linkage: the linking of cooperation on one issue to interactions on a second issue. 

Information: availability of information. When actors lack information about the actions taken by another party, cooperation may fail because of uncertainty and misperception. 

Coercion: a strategy of imposing or threatening to impose costs on other actors in order to induce a change in their behavior. 

International conflict: conflict and war have long been regarded as the central problems of international relations. The survival and safety issues connected to conflict and war are the most important matters of world politics. 

War and its types: war: organized, violent conflict between two or more political actors that reaches a minimum threshold of severity. Interstate war: armed conflict between two or more states. Civil war: armed conflict between competing factions within a country or between government and a competing group within that country over control of territory and/or the government. Conventional war: armed conflict between two or more states in which military forces of each side are used against each other and in which weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are typically not used. Unconventional war: armed conflict in which traditional battles between the organized militaries of the participants are less prominent.  

Asymmetric war: armed conflict between two or more groups of very different military size or power. Terrorism: a form of unconventional and asymmetric war. Indiscriminate violence aimed at noncombatants to influence a wider audience. 

What is the purpose of war?: the absence of a central authority capable of policing interstate relations means that wars can happen because there is nothing to stop states from using force to get their way. Anarchy creates insecurity and motivates states to compete for power. Two primary dynamics that can lead to war: preventive motive: the desire to fight in order to prevent an army from becoming relatively more powerful. Security dilemma that arises when efforts that states make to defend themselves, such as enlarging their militaries, make other states fear that they will be attacked. If these threatened states arm themselves in response, the result is a spiral of fear and insecurity that may end in war.

Preemptive war: a war initiated by a state that anticipates an imminent attack from an adversary. 

Preventive war: a war begun by a state to prevent an adversary from becoming a stronger threat in the future. 

Bargaining model of war: anarchy leads to a world in which states often use or threaten to use military force to further their interests and that states address conflicts through bargaining rather than institutions like courts. Prevention and the fear of attack are two several motives that can lead to war. The use of military power imposes costs on states, so even if threatening force is useful to get a better deal, states are generally better off if they do not have to actually use force. 

An alternative to the bargaining model: it emphasizes the role of misperceptions or mistakes. The costs of war often far exceed any potential benefits, scholars conclude that wars must occur because decision makers inaccurately estimate their chances of winning or the costs that they will have to pay. Wars are fought not because they serve the interests of states but because they serve the interests of influential groups within states, such as corporations, arms merchants, and the military. Wars are fought in spite of their costs because these costs do not fall on the actors who call the shots. Wars are fought because states value something more than the cost of war and cannot come to an agreement. 

What do states fight over?: territory (causes conflict if more than one state wants the same piece of territory). It might contribute to the wealth of the state, particularly if it contains valuable resources such as oil, natural gas, or minerals. It can be economically valuable because it would add to the industrial or agricultural resources at the state’s disposal. Military or strategic value of territory. It might be valuable for ethnic, cultural, or historic reasons. 

Bargaining: interactions in which actors try to resolve disputes over the allocation of a good. A crisis occurs when at least one state invokes a threat of military force in an attempt to influence the outcome of bargaining. 

Crisis bargaining: a bargaining interaction in which the consequence of not reaching an agreement can involve the use of force, including war. The best possible outcome for a state in crisis is to get the entire good without having to fight. If the other side gives in, the state gets its most preferred settlement of the underlying issue and avoids paying the costs associated with war. It is quite likely that a state would also accept something less than its most preferred settlement, given that the alternative of fighting is costly. 

Compellence: an effort to change the status quo through the threat of force (forces opponent to act). 

Deterrence: it seeks to preserve the status quo by threatening the other side with unacceptable costs if it engages in some undesirable behavior (discourages an opponent from acting). 

Factors leading to conflict: nation state creation: the search for statehood and independence. Ideology: 20th century wars over fascism and communism WWII and Cold War). Economics: competition for economic resources, markets, and or transportation. Human sympathy: ethnicity, religion, and war; acting on behalf of others out of sympathy particularly to protect perceived religions and ethnic kin abroad, or for humanitarian purposes. Other factors: to defend allies or restore the balance of war. 

Democratic peace: countries with democratic governments are less likely to go to war with other democracies. 

Where are the police in international politics?: collective security organizations like the United Nations can influence interactions between adversaries in ways that promote peaceful outcomes; however, these institutions face significant challenges in achieving their goals.

Alliances: institutions that help their members cooperate militarily in the event of a war. Specify standards of behavior, or expectations, about how states are to behave under certain conditions. May include procedures for joint decision making and provisions for monitoring and verifying each member’s compliance. Small groups of actors work together to meet common threats or address common needs. Collective security organizations are like governments, alliances more resemble neighborhood associations. 

Offensive alliance: an agreement between states to join one another in attacking a third state. 

Defense alliance: states pledge to come to one another’s defense in the event that one of them is attacked. The British and French pledges to Poland had this character. NATO.

Bandwagoning: states team up with the more powerful side in a despite. Often, bandwagoning alliances are offensive. 

Culture, religion, and ideology: shared cultural or religious identity explain why some pairs of states see each other as attractive allies. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq alliance against Egypt. U.S. - Israel alliance. 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization: established in 1949 in response to the Soviet military presence in Eastern Europe. Covered most states of Western Europe and bound them in a collective defense treaty with the U.S.. Article 5: each member would consider an attack against one or more members to be an attack against all. Expanded conception where the main threat lies with terrorism and the ability of terrorists to take root in chaotic, war-torn regions.

The contributions and limits of the U.N.: The U.N.’s effectiveness is hampered by the same 3 challenges that affect every other aspect of world politics: anarchy: the U.N. depends in large part on the willingness of its members - sovereign states - to support and participate in its activities. Doesn’t have the ability to enforce international law or agreements. Diversity: hampered by the array of perspectives and preferences held by the widely diverging member states, nations, and nongovernmental organizations with which it works. Complexity: the tasks confronting the U.N. are not simple but instead are complicated and increasingly linked. It has fallen short of its primary purpose: collective security. Has struggled to contribute to peace operations since post-Cold War conflicts - especially the civil wars and non-state conflicts of the past 30 years. Political divisions among key members - growing differences between the U.S., Russia, and China - have continued to constrain its roles and actions. When we consider the contributions of the U.N. to fighting disease, protecting the environment, caring for refugees, and promoting and protecting human rights, and the far-reaching impact of the U.N.’s specialized economic agencies in building and facilitating economic interdependence and cooperation, we see that these are the U.N.’s greatest accomplishments.

The dilemmas of collective security: collective action problem and joint decision-making problem.