International Relations- concerns relationships of states

International System- aggregation of diverse entities characterized by state and non-state actors

Non-state actors/transnational actors:

 International organizations:
 Intergovernmental Organization-Participated by states as members (NATO, African Union
(AU, World Trade Organization(WTO);
 non-governmental organizations-private organizations
 Multinational corporations-interest of company doing business globally do not correspond with
any one state’s interests.
 Individuals

Core Principles in IR

 Dominance- solves the collective good problem by establishing a power hierarchy in which
those at the top control those at the bottom
 Reciprocity- solves collective good problem by rewarding behavior that positively contributes to
the group and punishing behavior that does otherwise
 Identity- solves collective good problem by sacrificing their own interest to help others.

Levels of analysis

 Individual-perceptions, choices of individual human beings

 Domestic-aggregation of individuals within states
 Interstate-focuses on interaction of states; concerns the influence of international system upon
outcomes
 Global-seeks to explain international outcomes in terms of global trends and forces that
transcend the interaction of states themselves.
Theories in International Relations

Theories Key Actors Principle in IR Key Concept/Focus

Realism State Dominance  Struggle for
Power
 States are
rational actor
driven by self-
interests
Idealism International Identity  Moral
Organizations responsibility
 International law
Liberalism Institutions Reciprocity  Fostering peace
 Employing peace
through trade
and cooperation
Socialist Theories Individuals Identity  Looks at society
and individuals as
relevant actors in
shaping the
international
system
 States administer
affairs in the
international
system by social
interactions

Realist Theories

-The struggle for power in the international system by states which are driven by self-interest

-Based on Dominance principle

Common Types of Power

 Force
 Persuasion
 Manipulation
 Exchange
Estimation of Power
 Military/ Coercive capacity
 Capabilities
Elements of Power

 GDP
 Territory
 Geography
  Population
 Natural resources

The International System

 Anarchy and Sovereignty

 Anarchy-the absence of a world or central government
 Sovereignty- states are autonomous and answer to no higher authority
-gives the premise of an invalid intervention to domestic affairs of other states
 Power Balancing
-counterbalancing power in the international system maintain stability
-recurring activity by means of war
 Great Powers and Middle Powers
 Great Powers- main focus of realism: USA, Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, China;
powerful states that exert influence on international events.
 Middle Powers-although relevant, do not attract attention from realists more than Great
Powers: Italy, Canada, Poland, New Zealand, Ukraine, Spain
 Power Distribution
 Emerges in response to power balancing
 Polarity- the number of independent power systems in the world
 Unipolar-more stable, more dominance, steep hierarchy; Bipolar- stable, dominance
within blocs, reciprocity within blocs, split hierarchy; Multipolar-less stable, flat
hierarchy, more reciprocity
 Power Transition Theory- Top power is challenged; top power initiates ‘preventive war’
to obstruct contending states from becoming a bigger threat.
 Hegemony-preponderance of power in the international system; allowing to one state to single-
handedly dominate rules and arrangements by which political and economic relations are
conducted
 Hegemonic Stability Theory- holds that Hegemony provides order to central government in the
international system; deters aggression, promotes free trade, prevents anarchy
 Great Power System
 Established the principles of independent, sovereign states that continue to shape the
international system
 Rules that prevent great powers from preying on smaller unit states; prevents a state from
establishing an empire by means of counterbalancing by another state
 Alliances-coalitions of states; for the purpose of increasing power by pooling capabilities
Great powers: configuration of power in the system
Small states: source of power
Alliance cohesion- ease with which the members hold together an alliance
 Regional Alignments-
 Strategy- used to pursue outcomes in bargaining with one or more actors
 Strategies in IR
o Statecraft-the art of managing state affairs and effectively maneuvering in a world of
power politics among sovereign states
 o Rationality-realists hold that those who wield power while engaging in statecraft are
rational actors in their efforts in influencing the state
o Prisoner’s Dilemma-incorporates game theory; bargaining outcomes
 Types of Strategies in IR
o Deterrence- uses threat to punish other actors if it takes negative action
o Compellence-used after deterrence fails; threat of force to make another state take an
action; Escalation-a series of negative sanctions increasing severity applied in order to
induce another actor to take some action.
o Arms Race-reciprocal process in which two states increase military capabilities in
response to each other

Liberal theories

Immanuel Kant’s grounds for fostering peace and cooperation: reciprocity, government characteristics,
interdependence

 Reciprocity- states could develop the organizations and rules to facilitate cooperation,
specifically by forming a world federation resembling today’s United Nations.
 Governments- operating at a lower level of analysis, was that peace depends on the internal
character of governments. He reasoned that republics, with a legislative branch that can hold
the monarch in check, will be more peaceful than autocracies.
 Interdependence- trade promotes peace, relies on the presumption that trade increases wealth,
cooperation, and global well-being—all while making conflict less likely in the long term because
governments will not want to disrupt any process that adds to the wealth of their state.

 Liberal theories emphasize the potential for rivalries to evolve into cooperative relationships as
states recognize that achieving mutual benefits is most cost effective in the long run.
 Nearly all liberal theories focus on solving the collective action problem using the reciprocity
principle. Whether because of international or domestic institutions, states come to expect
reciprocal behavior regarding cooperation from other states. In this way, their calculations of
interests move from short-term concerns to long-term considerations.

Liberal institutionalism

 Refers to the states capacity to follow rules enforced by international institutions in the
international system.
 The core principle of reciprocity lies at the heart of this approach, because international
institutions operate through reciprocal contributions and concessions among formally equal
members (peers)
 Kant argued that states, although autonomous, could join a worldwide federation like today’s
UN and respect its principles even at the cost of forgoing certain short-term individual gains.
  The concept of COLLECTIVE SECURITY,
-which grows out of liberal institutionalism, refers to the formation of a broad alliance of
most major actors in an international system for the purpose of jointly opposing aggression
by any actor.
- Kant laid out the rationale for this approach. Because past treaties ending great power wars
had never lasted permanently, Kant proposed a federation (league) of the world’s states.
(League of Nations, present-time UN)
- Kant proposed, the majority of states could unite to punish any one state that committed
aggression, safeguarding the collective interests of all the nations while protecting the self-
determination of small nations that all too easily became pawns in great power games.

Neoliberalism
 approach differs from earlier liberal approaches in that it concedes to realism several important
assumptions—among them, that states are unitary actors rationally pursuing their self-interests
in a system of anarchy.
 Neoliberal scholars try to show that even in a world of unitary rational states, the neorealists’
pessimism about international cooperation is not valid. States can create mutual rules,
expectations, and institutions to promote behavior that enhances cooperation.

International Regimes
 international regime is a set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of
actors converge in a certain issue area (whether arms control, international trade, or Antarctic
exploration).
 The convergence of expectations means that participants in the international system have
similar ideas about what rules will govern their mutual participation: each expects to play by the
same rules.
 Regimes can help solve collective goods problems by increasing transparency— because
everyone knows what everyone else is doing, cheating is riskier.
 International regimes are sets of rules, norms, and procedures, not always codified into
institutions, that govern the behavior of actors in IR.
 the survival of regimes rests on their embedding in permanent institutions such as the UN,
NATO, and the International Monetary Fund.

Democratic Peace

 Democracies fight far against authoritarian states but not with other democracies.
 It may be that democracies do not tend to have severe conflicts with each other, as they tend to
be capitalist states whose trade relations create strong interdependence (war would be costly
because it would disrupt trade). Or, citizens of democratic societies (whose support is necessary
for wars to be waged) may simply not see the citizens of other democracies as enemies.

Social Theories

-rely on social interaction to explain individuals’ and states’ preferences.

Constructivism

-an approach rather than a theory

 interested in how actors define their national interests, threats to those national interests, and
their interests’ relationships to one another.
 Constructivists advance that states act more than just purely by interests but by social
interaction. The identity principle takes place because states value shared histories, shared
alliances and shared norms.
 Socialization- a process of interaction among states in which policies are shaped and state
identities become complex and changing.
 Constructivist theories, based on the core principle of identity, see actors’ preferences as
constructed by the actors rather than given “objectively.” These theories may do better than
realist or liberal approaches in explaining major changes in a state’s foreign policy goals and
image in the world that arise from internal changes and new self-concepts rather than external
constraints or opportunities.

Post-Modernism

A central idea of postmodernism is that there is no single, objective reality but a multiplicity of
experiences and perspectives that defy easy categorization. For this reason, postmodernism itself is
difficult to present in a simple or categorical way. Postmodern scholarship in IR preceded, set the stage
for, and has largely been supplanted by constructivism.

Postmodernists seek to “deconstruct” such constructions as states, the international system, and the
associated stories and arguments (texts and discourses) with which realists portray the nature of
international relations. To deconstruct a text—a term borrowed from literary criticism—means to tease
apart the words in order to reveal hidden meanings, looking for what might be omitted or included only
implicitly. The hidden meanings not explicitly addressed in the text are often called the subtext.

Marxism

-hold that both IR and domestic politics arise from unequal relationships between classes.
-emphasizes class struggle
-more powerful classes exploit less powerful by denying their fair share of the surplus they create.

Peace Studies
-connects war and peace by drawing focus away from interstate levels to individual, domestic and global
levels of analysis
-conflict resolution- peace strategies; alternatives to violent forms of leverage
 Mediation-the use of third party to mediate two conflicting parties
 Militarism-structuring society through war

Gender Theories

 Liberal Feminism-men and women are equal; deplores the exclusion of women from power
positions but do not believe that women would change the nature of the international system
 Women play games the same way men do in IR; integrate women into the overwhelmingly male
preserves of foreign policy making and the military

 Difference Feminism-believe that women have greater potential than men in conflict resolution
and group decision making
 Postmodern Feminism- denies the passivity of difference feminism and the glorification of
feminine attributes of women; overlooks women as subject to war; provides that women are
participants in warfare tied to both genders; deconstructs the language of realism

Foreign Policy

-an interaction of policies between sovereign states

-foreign policy process is the process of decision making

-decision making is a steering process in which adjustments are made as a result of feedback from the
outside world

Decision Making as Steering

Models of Decision Making

 Rational Model-organizing options based on practicality; opting for the highest benefit for
lowest cost;
 Individual Decision Making- revolves around individual rationality
o Systematic Ways that Affect Diversion on Individuals Decision from Rational Model
o Decision makers suffer from misconceptions
o Rationality of individual
 o Cognitive Biases
 Two Modifications to the Rational Model
o Model of Bounded Rationality-takes into account the cost of seeking and processing
information
o Prospect Theory-editing phase-frame available options with probable outcomes;
evaluation phase-assess options and choose one
 Group Psychology- promotes rationality by balancing out blind spots and biases of any
individual
o Groupthink-refers to the tendency for groups to reach decisions without assessing
consequences accurately
 Crisis Management
o Crises- are foreign policy situations in which outcomes are very important and time
frames are compressed.
o In crisis, decision makers operate under tremendous time constraints
o Participants in Decision Making: Sleep Deprivation, Psychological stress, Physical
Exhaustion

 Government Bargaining (Bureaucratic Governments) Model-foreign policy decisions result

from bargaining process of states with diverging interests; foreign policy decisions reflect the
interest of states agencies
 Organizational Process Model-relies on standard operating procedures

Domestic Influences

 Bureaucracies-non-elective body; challenges the notion of state as unitary actors by promoting

foreign policies to increase their power
a. Diplomats
 Diplomats-appointed by nation-state to protect nations interest abroad
 Ambassador--official representatives to other states and international organizations
 Political Appointee
b. Interagency Tensions- clashes from states shape foreign policy
 Interest Groups- influence foreign policy through lobbying
 Military-Industrial Complex- shape foreign policies through the augmentation of interlocking
networks to supply for military forces
 Public Opinion- governments adapt public approval to maintain domestic legitimacy
 Legislatures-have direct role in shaping foreign policy by activities such as passing budgets,
creating trade law, etc.