What is the metaphor of the sunglasses?
- They don’t change the world out there, only how you see it.
- Theories influence perception.
- Theories can help the observer think critically, logically and coherently by sorting phenomena into categories.
- Appropriate levels of analysis can be chosen, connections and patterns identified.
What types of theory do we know?
- Explanatory Theory = descriptive, causality (how and why) and evidence, objective view of the world (step out of world to view it)
- Normative Theory = what people value in life, prescriptive, what ought to be
- Interpretive Theory = understanding the ‘how’ of events, the ‘real world’ is a ‘series of competing truths and interpretations’ which need to be understood through theory, objectivity not possible.
What is a Security Dilemma?
The dilemma that arises from the fact that a build-up of military capacity for defensive reasons by one state is always liable to be interpreted as aggressive by other states. (Realist concept)
- Leads to Mutually Assured Destruction
What two core assumptions is Realism based on?
- People are selfish and competitive, meaning that egoism is the defining characteristic of human nature
- The state-system operates in a context of international anarchy, in that there is no authority higher than the state (no higher authority to prevent states from getting into conflicts)
What is Neorealism?
- A perspective on international politics that modifies the power politics model by highlighting the structural constraints on the international system;
- selfishness of actors in the international world do not determine outcomes in International Relations: outcomes are determined at the level of the international system
What is Classical realism?
- A form of realism that explains power politics largely in terms of human selfishness or egoism.
- Problem often has to do with human nature
What is offensive realism?
- Power maximizing
- A form of structural realism that portrays states as power ‘maximizers’, as there is no limit to their desire to control the international environment
- To survive in the world you need to expand and maximize your power.
What is defensive realism?
- Security maximizers
- A form of structural realism that views states as ‘security maximizers’, placing the desire to avoid attack above a bid for world power
- Build up defensive capabilities against states that are seen as threatening
- If one state becomes more powerful is not important, what matters is ‘can they protect themselves against that power?’
What is the idea of liberalism?
- The more cooperation, the less conflict you will have – i.e. mutual benefits for all
- Urges international trade and everything that has to do with international cooperation
What three types of liberalism do we know?
- Independence
- Institutional
- Republican
What is Institutional/regulatory liberalism?
- Emphasizes the role of institutions (formal and informal) in the realization of liberal principles and goals
- Institutions do three things: o Facilitate information exchange o Formalize agreements o Enhance cooperation Example: Paris goals for climate change
What is interdependence/commercial liberalism?
- Emphasizes the economic and international benefits of free trade, leading to mutual benefit and general prosperity as well as peace amongst states
- Free trade: mutual (absolute) gains and interdependence, cooperation for peace and prosperity
o This cooperation makes states less likely to go to war
What are absolute gains?
Benefits that accrue to states from a policy or action regardless of their impact on other states
What is republican liberalism?
- Form of liberalism that highlights the benefits of a republican (rather than monarchical) government and, in particular, emphasizes the link between democracy and peace
- Democracies do not go to war with one another, thus democracy should be spread
- States as democracies
Why do countries not go to war with each other, according to the democratic peace thesis?
- Citizens against cost of war (in democracies citizens get a vote)
- Democracies share common values
- Negotiation rather than conflict
- Wars occur because of self-interested, militaristic and undemocratic governments
What is constructivism?
Based on the belief that there is no objective social or political reality independent of our understanding of it; the social world is not something ‘out there’ but it exists ‘inside’ as an inter-subjective awareness and people ‘construct’ the world in which they live and act according to those constructions
What are two types of constructivism?
Culturalist strand of constructivism:
- Actors (states) and the question of identity: ‘who am I, and who is the other?’
Mainstream constructivists and English school strand
- Focuses on states and norms (how ought states to behave)
- Mainstream constructivists and English school strand
- International structure
What is positivism?
- Theory that social and all forms of enquiry should conform to the methods of the natural sciences
- A real world out there
- The world is regular
- We can observe regularities and patterns
- A clear distinction between facts and values
- Empirical knowledge accumulates over time
What is post-positivism?
- Questions the idea of an objective reality, emphasizing the extent to which people conceive or construct the world in which they live
- We impose meaning on our world
- Social science is not value-free
- Knowledge is inherently political
What is problem solving theory?
- Business as usual
- Takes the world as it finds it
- Does not question the present order but legitimizes it
>This is what the main theories (liberalism, realism, constructivism) do too - Positivist way of understanding the world
What is critical theory?
- Social construction of actors
- Underlying processes
- Challenge power
- Transform and emancipate; another world is possible if…
We need to know the IR theories but they are not sufficient to understand the world; we need to think beyond these theories.
What is the prisoner’s dilemma?
Two people committed a crime. Each person is interrogated separately – do you trust your sidekick to keep his mouth shut and not just blame it all on you in order to go free? What will you do?
Realists: you’ll think that he will act in favour of himself. Constructivists: you’ll take your relation and former experience with your sidekick into account when making your decision.
Liberalists: You trust your sidekick to not betray you and you both come out free
