EXAM 2

Question 1

What is Religion?

Answer 1

-belief system shared by the community of people that is identified by the following set of criteria
-scriptures
-institutions
-historical development
-a common class of beliefs, rituals, and practices

Question 2

Integrative Theory of Religion in IR?

Answer 2

-from M&H it integrates aspects of primordialist, instrumentalist, and constructivist theses on religion and world politics with the logic of political survival to explain the roles of religion in international and domestic outcomes
-social structure(religious homogeneity/heterogeneity
-institutional structure-relations between political and religious institutions
-external environment: degree of similarity between religious composition of society and its politically relevant International environment
-circumstantial incentives to use religion- degree of political stability of a state

Question 3

what is the CoC thesis?

Answer 3

The CoC thesis states that principle conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations
-conflict will be along cultural and civilizational lines
-“the west vs the rest”

Question 4

What is Huntington’s definition of “Civilization”

Answer 4

“civilization is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of what distinguishes them from other species”
-shared religion is the most important indicator of a civilization therefore, clashes of civilizations are usually conflicts “between peoples of different religions”

Question 5

What is causing the CoC thesis?

Answer 5

-for the first time, global politics is multipolar and multi-civilizational
-the balance of power among civilizations is shifting: the west is declining in influence, asian civilizations are increasing in overall strength, islam is expanding demographically and non-western civilizations generally are reaffirming the value of their own cultures
-a civilization-based world order is emerging

Question 6

the clash of c emerged as a result of?

Answer 6

-the heightened interaction of peoples from different civilizations
-the de-westernization of elites in non-western states
-increased economic regionalization
-a global resurgence of religious identity
-a demographic and economic shift in the balance of power towards non-western states

Question 7

what are the CoC’s empirical claims?

Answer 7

-in the post- Cold War era, states of different civilizations are more likely to fight each other
-during the Cold War era, the superpowers constrained intercivilizational conflict
-throughout history(prior to the Cold War) states of diff civilizations have been more likely to fight each other than those that share a common civilization

Question 8

Tickner’s feminist theory

Answer 8

-objectivity is masculinist
-interest can not be defined only in terms of power
-national interest is multidimensional
-

Question 9

Enloe’s feminist theory

Answer 9

-insists that women and girls are often “hidden in plain sight” in IR
-they often fail to appreciate the role of women in the major issues that they examine
-kindnapping,rape, extortion is all apart of being a women in IR

Question 10

sylvesters postmodern thesis

Answer 10

-focusing on “empathetic cooperation” as the mechanism for change in world politics

Question 11

empirical feminist findings?

Answer 11

-Caprioli and Boyer’s findings suggest that the relationship between gender and armed conflict is more complex than it is assumed by most feminist arguments
-Inglehart and Norris argue that differences with respect to women’s rights and gender issues chiefly account for what is the coc thesis
-Melander:

Question 12

Walt’s balance of threat?

Answer 12

-it is a foreign policy orientation in which states balance against a perceived “threat” rather than power alone; and states may bandwagon with more powerful states against less powerful threatening states.

Question 13

power preponderance thesis

Answer 13

realist theses which asserts that wars occur most frequently when power is uniformly distributed among the major powers;

Question 14

power parity thesis

Answer 14

proposed by organski, it asserts that shifts in power in the direction of balance or parity, should lead to war

Question 15

Du Bois’s thesis on imperialist war

Answer 15

-a pan-africanist analysis of imperialism
-Du Bois emphasizes the role of racism in western impearlism, which he associates with the dominance of racism in the domestic policies of the western major powers
-racism and white supremacism

Question 16

Readings about Gender and Armed Conflict

Answer 16

-Caprioli and Boyer: examined the relationship between gender equality and the severity of violence in international crises from 1900-1994
-Melander: gender equality is associated with lower levels of intrastate conflict
-Webster et al: Webster et al.’s quantitative study evaluates changes in equal access to civil liberties along ethnic and gender lines

Question 17

Readings about Race and International Conflict

Answer 17

-DuBois: white supremacism, imperialism, and racism using Africa as an example
-Buzas: racial identities and how they shape threat perceptions and how racial differences inflate them. Using the example of the anglo-Japanese alliance
-Ward: status quo and Japanese revisionism

Question 18

Readings about evaluating the CoC

Answer 18

-Inglehart:
-Henderson: says that the conflicts Huntington is discussing are not among civilizational lines
-Walt: rejects Huntington’s claim that conflict before the 1980s was inter-civilizational. Also, he says that the post cold war era is not the first time conflict has been multipolar and multicivilizational