Chapter 1 and 2 - The Emergence of State System

Question 1

What are the fundamental actors of IR (4)?

Answer 1

1) National Leaders
2) States
3) Non-state actors
4) Civil Society (non-governmental and non-commercial)

Question 2

How many states are there currently in the international system?

Answer 2

196 (incl. Taiwan)

Question 3

What is a State?

Answer 3

A political unit

Question 4

What is a Nation?

Answer 4

A collection of people sharing culture, history or language

Question 5

Examples of nation states (2)

Answer 5

1) ALB (95% ethnic albanian)

2) ICE

Question 6

What is an ‘interest’?

Answer 6

Some condition that a state is willing to sustain considerable costs to achieve/maintain

Question 7

What is a ‘strategy’?

Answer 7

How states promote or defend an interest

Question 8

What is an ‘objective’?

Answer 8

a State’s goal (often attainment or maintenance of an interest)

Question 9

What is a ‘policy instrument’?

Answer 9

A tool used by a government to attain its interests (can be persuasive and coercive)

Question 10

What is Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism (3 stages)?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What 2 Phenomena is Lenin’s Imperialism theory trying to explain?

Answer 11

1) Imperialism

2) Great Power War

Question 12

What are 2 inaccuracies of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

What are 3 advantages of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

What is the Realism-Idealism debate? (2)

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What are the different levels of Analysis (3)?

Answer 15

1) The individual level
2) the State level
3) the International level

Question 16

What is ‘Great Power Centrism’?

Answer 16

Tendency to view IR from the perspective of rich/influential states.

Question 17

What is Globalisation?

Answer 17

The process of closer economic and technological integration internationally

Question 18

What are 2 advantages of Globalisation?

Answer 18

1) Countries are more closely connected economically and culturally
2) Permits fast econ development in developing states, eradicating poverty (CHI)

Question 19

What is one disadvantage of globalisation?

Answer 19

It has increased inequality in the developed world (elite has higher income, but lower class has more competition and plataued wages)

Question 20

What is a ‘Dissatisfied State’?

Answer 20

A state feeling that the international situation threatens their values/interests/aspirations

Question 21

How may a dissatisfied state act (2)?

Answer 21

1) Slowly but frustratedly build power

2) become aggressive to advance position

Question 22

What is the ‘Security Dilemma’?

Answer 22

When a state takes actions to become more secure, but ends up less secure due to the reactions of other states

Question 23

How is the ‘Security Dilemma’ related to dissatisfied states?

Answer 23

If a defensive (insecure) state is misperceived as a dissatisfied (aggressive) state, the reactions to its action may lead to a security dilemma.

Question 24

What are 4 Different Types of Power?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

Main form of governance in 1500 CE and examples (5)?

Answer 25

Empire

1) CHI
2) JAP
3) INDI
4) OTT

Question 26

What event marks the beginning of the State system?

Answer 26

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

Question 27

How did attempts at imperialism lead to the State system?

Answer 27

Attempts 1519-1945 at imperialism in EUR led to alliances to counter the efforts
–> independent, interacting and competing states

Question 28

What 4 concepts came with the State system?

Answer 28

1) Sovereignty (inwardly and outwardly)
2) Territoriality (sovereignty over territory)
3) ‘The People’ (nationalism)
4) First steps in multilateralism (international cooperation)

Question 29

When was Concert of Europe established, who were the parties, and what was its goal? (3)

Answer 29

1) 1815
2) BRI, PRUS, AUS, RUS, FRA
3) focused on maintaining status quo (absolutist monarchies)

Question 30

Causes of WWI (5)?

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Causes of WWII (4)?

Answer 31

1) Collapse of Global Economy
2) Rise of dictatorships in EUR
3) Failure to deter aggression by dictators
4) Backlash against ToV

Question 32

Factors creating instability and fragility 1900-45 (5)?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

2 Views of Nationalism

Answer 33

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)

Question 34

2 Schools of Thought on the Existence of nations

Answer 34

1) Essentialists: the nation is god-given and natural

2) Constructivists: the nation is imagined, constructed and artificial

Question 35

What factors caused the formation of national identity (3)?

Answer 35

1) Better roads and means of communication
2) Bureaucracy (financial and military)
3) Printing press (move from latin to national languages)

Question 36

Factors undermining the state system (6)?

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Different Perspectives on the Cause of Cold War (4)?

Answer 37

1) Stalin’s Aggression (Schlesinger)
2) US/Capitalist hostility
3) Tragic Mistake (Halle)
4) Inevitable Clash (Brzezinsko)

Question 38

Who proposed a change to unipolarity after fall of USSR?

Answer 38

Montiero

Question 39

Challenges to US Unipolarity in modern society (3)

Answer 39

1) RUS (military intervention in GEO 2008 and CRIM 2014)
2) CI (south china sea)
3) N.KOR (nuclear weapons)

Question 40

Factors countering globalisation (4)

Answer 40

1) 2008 Financial crisis
2) Populism (increased wealth gap)
3) BREXIT
4) Trump