Chapter 1 and 2 - The Emergence of State System Flashcards
What are the fundamental actors of IR (4)?
1) National Leaders
2) States
3) Non-state actors
4) Civil Society (non-governmental and non-commercial)
How many states are there currently in the international system?
196 (incl. Taiwan)
What is a State?
A political unit
What is a Nation?
A collection of people sharing culture, history or language
Examples of nation states (2)
1) ALB (95% ethnic albanian)
2) ICE
What is an ‘interest’?
Some condition that a state is willing to sustain considerable costs to achieve/maintain
What is a ‘strategy’?
How states promote or defend an interest
What is an ‘objective’?
a State’s goal (often attainment or maintenance of an interest)
What is a ‘policy instrument’?
A tool used by a government to attain its interests (can be persuasive and coercive)
What is Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism (3 stages)?
1) Scramble for AFR caused by desire for profit and resources
2) Upon allocation, capitalist countries fight to redistribute territory
3) Upon exhaustion of capitalist staters, socialist states would take over
What 2 Phenomena is Lenin’s Imperialism theory trying to explain?
1) Imperialism
2) Great Power War
What are 2 inaccuracies of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism?
1) Investments were directed to other capitalist powers rather than AFR (colonisation not profit driven)
2) Although Great Powers did fight in WWI and WWII they have not exhausted themselves and are actually cooperating
What are 3 advantages of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism?
1) has caused exploration of ‘law of uneven development’ (countries grow at different rates)
2) puts focus on corporations’ influence of foreign policies of capitalist states
3) capitalism is an engine of growth but also a cause of conflict.
What is the Realism-Idealism debate? (2)
1) Realists: since the state system is based on anarchy, force is required to deter war
2) Idealists: IL and international institutions are required to avoid war.
What are the different levels of Analysis (3)?
1) The individual level
2) the State level
3) the International level
What is ‘Great Power Centrism’?
Tendency to view IR from the perspective of rich/influential states.
What is Globalisation?
The process of closer economic and technological integration internationally
What are 2 advantages of Globalisation?
1) Countries are more closely connected economically and culturally
2) Permits fast econ development in developing states, eradicating poverty (CHI)
What is one disadvantage of globalisation?
It has increased inequality in the developed world (elite has higher income, but lower class has more competition and plataued wages)
What is a ‘Dissatisfied State’?
A state feeling that the international situation threatens their values/interests/aspirations
How may a dissatisfied state act (2)?
1) Slowly but frustratedly build power
2) become aggressive to advance position
What is the ‘Security Dilemma’?
When a state takes actions to become more secure, but ends up less secure due to the reactions of other states
How is the ‘Security Dilemma’ related to dissatisfied states?
If a defensive (insecure) state is misperceived as a dissatisfied (aggressive) state, the reactions to its action may lead to a security dilemma.
What are 4 Different Types of Power?
1) Hard Power (mil. or econ sanctions)
2) Soft (attraction through culture/religion)
3) Smart: combinaiton of hard and soft
4) Social/normative: setting rules/regulations/IL etc.
Main form of governance in 1500 CE and examples (5)?
Empire
1) CHI
2) JAP
3) INDI
4) OTT
What event marks the beginning of the State system?
Peace of Westphalia (1648)
How did attempts at imperialism lead to the State system?
Attempts 1519-1945 at imperialism in EUR led to alliances to counter the efforts
–> independent, interacting and competing states
What 4 concepts came with the State system?
1) Sovereignty (inwardly and outwardly)
2) Territoriality (sovereignty over territory)
3) ‘The People’ (nationalism)
4) First steps in multilateralism (international cooperation)
When was Concert of Europe established, who were the parties, and what was its goal? (3)
1) 1815
2) BRI, PRUS, AUS, RUS, FRA
3) focused on maintaining status quo (absolutist monarchies)
Causes of WWI (5)?
1) Belief in inevitable conflict + the sooner the better
2) Alliances
3) Illusion of quick victory (4 months)
4) Loss of control of Crisis in Balkans (assassination)
5) Lack of multilateral cooperation
Causes of WWII (4)?
1) Collapse of Global Economy
2) Rise of dictatorships in EUR
3) Failure to deter aggression by dictators
4) Backlash against ToV
Factors creating instability and fragility 1900-45 (5)?
1) Uneven growth of nation-state power
2) Failure of diplomatic dispute management
3) rise of dissatisfied states with expansionist ideologies
4) Economic collapse
5) Failure of IOs to respond to aggression
2 Views of Nationalism
1) Benedict Anderson: people have innate and primordial sense of national community
2) Ernest Gellner: nationalism invents states where they did not exist (it is a tool)
2 Schools of Thought on the Existence of nations
1) Essentialists: the nation is god-given and natural
2) Constructivists: the nation is imagined, constructed and artificial
What factors caused the formation of national identity (3)?
1) Better roads and means of communication
2) Bureaucracy (financial and military)
3) Printing press (move from latin to national languages)
Factors undermining the state system (6)?
1) HR
2) nuclear weapons
3) Global and Transnational Threats (international crime)
4) Economic and financial globalisation (WTO, IMF)
5) Global Communication networks
6) the EU
Different Perspectives on the Cause of Cold War (4)?
1) Stalin’s Aggression (Schlesinger)
2) US/Capitalist hostility
3) Tragic Mistake (Halle)
4) Inevitable Clash (Brzezinsko)
Who proposed a change to unipolarity after fall of USSR?
Montiero
Challenges to US Unipolarity in modern society (3)
1) RUS (military intervention in GEO 2008 and CRIM 2014)
2) CI (south china sea)
3) N.KOR (nuclear weapons)
Factors countering globalisation (4)
1) 2008 Financial crisis
2) Populism (increased wealth gap)
3) BREXIT
4) Trump
