MHCC, PS 215 Lecture #2: Theories of International Relations.

1. PS 215, MHCC

2. Anarchy and Sovereignty
Anarchy: the lack of a central government that can enforce rules.
Self-help: because in international anarchy all global actors are independent, they
must rely on themselves to provide for their security and well-being (prepare for the
worst).
National interests: the goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to
be selfishly best for their country.
Norms: shared expectations about what behavior is considered proper.
Sovereignty (traditionally the most important norm): means that a
government has the right, in principle, to do whatever it wants in its own
territory.
States are separate and autonomous (lack of world police to punish states).
Not supposed to interfere in the internal affairs of other states.
Security Dilemma: a situation in which actions taken by states to
ensure their own security threaten the security of other states.
Unsolvable for realists; liberals think it can be solved through the
development of norms and institutions.

3. Power
The factors that enable one actor to
manipulate another actor’s behavior
against its preferences.
Relative power: the ratio of the power
that two states can bear against each
other.
Power explains influence, and influence
measures power.
Capability (GDP)
Power of ideas (soft power)

4. Elements of Power
Long term:
GDP, population, territory, geography, and
natural resources, power of ideas, credibility.
Political culture, patriotism, education of the
population, and strength of scientific and
technological base. (less tangible)
Short term:
Military power, morality,
Geopolitics: the use of geography as an
element of power (location, location,
location).

5. Balance of Power
A theory that peace and stability are
most likely to be maintained when
military power is distributed to prevent a
single superpower, hegemon, or bloc
from controlling the world.
One or more states’ power being used to
balance that of another state or group if
states.
Counterbalancing occurs regularly and
maintains the stability of the international
system.

6. Power Distribution
Neorealism (structural realism): explains patterns of
international events in terms of the system structure
rather then the internal makeup of individual states.
States’ behavior is determined by differences in their
relative power within the global hierarchy, defined
primarily by the distribution of military power, instead of by
other factors such as their values, type of government, or
domestic circumstances.
The structure of the global system determines the
behavior of transnational actors within it (structural
realism).
Power transition theory: the largest wars result from
challenges to the top position in the status hierarchy,
when a rising power is surpassing (or threatening to
surpass) the most powerful state.

7. Hegemony
One state’s holding a preponderance of power in the
international system, allowing it to single handedly dominate the
rules and arrangements by which international political and
economic relations are conducted (19th century Britain and Post WWII
America).
Hegemony of ideas such as democracy and capitalism, and the global
dominance of U.S. culture.
Hegemonic stability theory: hegemony provides some order
similar to a central government in the international system :
reducing anarchy, deterring aggression, promoting free trade,
and providing a hard currency that can be used as a world
standard (isolationists vs. internationalists).
Hegemons can help resolve or keep in check conflicts
Can enforce rules and norms unilaterally, avoiding the collective goods
problem.
Hegemony may seem an infringement of state sovereignty; unjust or
illegitimate (unilateralism vs. multilateralism).

8. Alliances
A coalition of states that coordinate their actions to
accomplish some end.
Formalized in written treaties, concern a common threat and
related issues of international security, and endure across a
range of issues and a period of time (vs. coalitions).
Purpose: augmenting power by pooling capabilities.
Based on national interests and can shift as nation interests
change.
Client states: when great powers form alliances with smaller
states.
Alliance cohesion: the ease with which members hold
together an alliance.
Burden sharing: who bears the costs of the alliance.
Realists emphasize the fluidity of alliances; based on
convenience

9. Liberalism
Predicated on the hope that the
application of reason and universal
ethics to international relations can lead
to a more orderly, just, and cooperative
world.
Assumes that anarchy and war can be
policed by institutional reforms that empower
international organization and law.

10. Liberal Worldview
1) Belief in reason and the possibility of
progress.
2) View individual as the seat of moral value
and assert that human beings should be
treated as ends rather than means.
3) Emphasize ethical principle over the
pursuit of power; institutions over military
capabilities.
4) Politics at the global level is more of a
struggle for consensus and mutual gain
than a struggle for power and prestige.

11. Liberal Worldview cont’d
5) The need to substitute attitudes that stress unity of
humankind for those that stress parochial national
loyalties to independent sovereign states.
6) The importance of individuals – their essential dignity and
fundamental equality and the need to place the protection
and promotion of human rights and freedom ahead of
national interests and state autonomy.
- instead of blaming international conflict on the lust for
power, liberals blame the conditions under which people
live. (reforming those conditions increases peace)
7) The use of the power of ideas through education to arouse
world public opinion against warfare.
- politics is not a zero-sum game; the use of persuasion
rather than coercion and a reliance on judicial methods to
settle rival claims are the primary means of dealing with
conflict.

12. Kant and Peace
Peace and cooperation are possible because:
1) States could develop organizations and rules to facilitate
cooperation, specifically by forming a world federation (UN).
2) Peace depends on the internal character of governments.
- Republics with legislative branch will be more peaceful.
- Democracies do not fight each other (democratic peace theory)
3) Trade promotes peace; it increases wealth, cooperation, and
global well-being; makes it difficult that governments will want
to disrupt any process that increases wealth.
- as trade increases, states will become mutually dependent
(interdependence).
- realists argue that one state’s reliance on another creates
more tensions in the short term because states are nervous
that another actor has an important source of leverage over
them.

13. Liberals and Free Trade
Unfettered trade helps prevent disputes from
escalating to wars:
1) Commercial intercourse creates a material incentive
to resolve disputes peacefully
- War reduces profits by interrupting vital economic
exchanges.
2) Cosmopolitan business elites who benefit most from
these exchanges comprise an interest group with a
stake in promoting amicable solutions to
disagreements.
3) The web of trade between countries increases
communication, erodes national selfishness, and
encourages both sides to avoid ruinous clashes.

14. International regimes
A set of rules, norms, and procedures around
which the expectations of actors converge in a
certain issue area.
Participants in the international system have similar
ideas about what rules will govern their mutual
participation: each expected to play by the rules.
Regimes help solve collective goods problem
by increasing transparency.
Come together to coordinate the behaviors of
individual states.
Intervening variables.
Regimes, hegemons, establishment of
regimes, maintenance of regimes.

15. Liberal Institutionalism
Collective security: 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)
The majority of states could unite to punish any
one state that committed aggression.
Success depends on two points:
1) Members must keep their alliance
commitments to the group.
2) Enough members must agree on what
constitutes “aggression.” (UN)

16. The Limitations of Liberalism
Institutions today exert minimal influence on state behavior.
International organizations cannot stop states from behaving according to balance-of-
power logic and relentless competition.
Most studies of international institutions appear in the low politics arena
of commercial, financial, and environmental affairs, not in high politics
arena of national defense.
Collective security organizations naively assume that all members perceive threats
the same way, and are willing to run the risks and pay the costs of countering those
threats.
Global institutions cannot provide timely, muscular response to
aggression.
On security issues, states will trust in their own power, not in the promises of
supranational institutions.
Liberals tend to turn foreign policy into a moral crusade.
The international community has no obligation to use armed force to stop flagrant
violations of human rights.
Skepticism about liberal claims of moral necessity.
If there are no universal moral standards then policy decisions can be judged only
in terms of their consequences in particular circumstances.

17. Realism
(Machiavelli & Thomas Hobbes)
Realism: the premise that world politics is
essentially and unchangeably a struggle
among self-interested states for power and
position under anarchy with each competing
state pursuing its own national interests.
Idealism: emphasizes international law, morality, and
international organization, rather than power alone,
as key influences on international events.
○ Human nature is essentially good; principles flow from
morality.
○ International system where states have potential to
work together to overcome mutual problems.

18. Realism cont’d
Role of state as the most important actor
Answers to no higher political authority;
states are sovereign
IR best explained by the choices of
individual states operating autonomously
and rationally to pursue their own interest.
• Ideologies, religions, cultural factors do not
matter much.
• Foundation for solving the common good
based on the principle of dominance.

19. Rationality and Realism
Realists assume that those who wield power
while engaging in statecraft behave as rational
actors in their efforts to influence others.
1) The assumption of rationality implies that states
and other international actors can identify their
interests and put priorities on various interests: a
state’s actions seek to advance its interests.
- The actor exercising power is a single entity that can
“think” (unitary actor assumption)
2) Assumes that actors are able to perform a cost-benefit
analysis (calculating the costs incurred by a
possible action and the benefits it is likely to bring).
- States don’t enter wars they intend to lose.

20. Limitations of Realism
Vague; offered no criteria for determining
what historical data were significant in
evaluating its claims and what
epistemological rules to follow when
interpreting relevant information.
Does it account for significant new
developments in world politics?
Realisms disregard of ethical principles
and about the material and social costs
that some of its policy prescriptions
seemed to impose