Chapter 7 Flashcards
Define ‘idealism’
Idealism holds that ideas have important causal effects on events in international politics, and that ideas can change. Referred to by realists as as utopianism since it underestimates the logic of power politics and the constraints this imposes on political action. Idealism as a substantive theory of international relations is generally associated with the claim that it is possible to create a world of peace…Idealists seek to apply liberal thinking in domestic politics to international relations: in other words, institutionalize te rule of law (this reasoning = ‘domestic analogy’)…
Define ‘liberalism’
Includes the following four claims (according to Doyle):
- All citizens are juridically equal and have equal rights to education, access to free press, and religious toleration.
- The legislative assembly of the state possesses only the authority invested in it by the people, whose basic rights it is not permitted to abuse.
- A key dimension of the liberty of the individual is the right to own property including productive forces.
- Liberalism contends that the most effective system of economic exchange is one that is largely market-driven and not one that is subordinate to bureaucratic regulation and control, either domestically or internationally.
Define ‘individualism’
The view that structures can be reduced to the aggregation of individuals and their interactions. International relations theories that ascribe to individualism begin with some assumption of the nature of the units and their interests, usually states and the pursuit of power or wealth, and then examine how the broad structure, usually the distribution of power, constrains how states can act and generates certain patterns in international politics. Individualism stands in contrast to holism.
Define ‘state of war’
The conditions (often described by classical realists) where there is no actual conflict, but a permanent cold war that could become a ‘hot’ war at any time.
Define ‘community’
A human association in which members share common symbols and wish to cooperate to realize common objectives.
Define ‘identity’
The understanding of the self in relationship to an ‘other’. Identities are social and thus are always formed in relationship to others. Constructivists generally hold that identities shape interests; we cannot know what we want unless we know who we are. But because identities are social and are produced through interaction, identities can change.
Define ‘anarchic system’
The ‘ordering principle’ of international politics according to realism, and that which defines its structure as lacking any central authority.
Define ‘regimes’
Sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in any given area of international relations.
Define ‘citizenship’
The status of having the right to participate in and be represented in politics.
Define ‘democratic peace’
A central plank of liberal internationalist thought, the democratic peace thesis makes two claims: 1. Liberal polities exhibit restraint in their relations with other liberal polities (the so-called separate peace), and second are imprudent in relations with authoritarian states. The validity of the democratic peace thesis has been fiercely debated in IR literature.
Define ‘development’ (…core ideas, assumptions)
In the orthodox view, the possiblity of unlimited economic growth in a free market system. Economies would reach a ‘take-off’ point and thereafter wealth would trickle down to those at the bottom. Superiority of the ‘Western’ model and knowledge. Belief that the process would ultimately benefit everyone. Domination, exploitation of nature. In an alternate view, sufficiency…
Define ‘harmony of interests’
Common among nineteenth-century liberals was the idea of a natural order between peoples which had been corrupted by an undemocratic state leaders and outdated policies such as the balance of power. If these distortions could be swept away, they believed, we would find that there were no real conflicts between peoples.
Define ‘self determination’
A principle ardently, but selectively, espoused by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in the peacemaking that followed the First World War: namely that each ‘people’ should enjoy self-government over its own sovereign nation-state. Wilson pressed for application of this principle to East/Central Europe, but did not believe that other nationalities (in colonized Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and Caribbean) were fit for self-rule.
Define ‘superpowers’
A term used to describe the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, denoting their global political involvements and military capabilities, including in particular their nuclear arsenals.
Define ‘integration’
The process of ever closer union between states, in a regional or international context. The process often begins with cooperation to solve technical problems, referred to by Mitrany (1943) as ramification.
