Exam 3

Question 1

Theories

Answer 1

Sets of propositions that help people to

understand events

• Help describe and explain events
• Can be used for predicting future actions

Question 2

Diversity within Realism, but all realists subscribe to the 3 S’s

Answer 2

• Statism
• Survival
• Self-help

Question 3

Essentials of Realism

Statism

Answer 3

• The state has sovereignty, which is the supreme

authority to make and enforce laws

• Realism assumes problems of domestic order and

security are solved, does not have a domestic level

analysis

• States compete for power and security in an anarchic

world

• World is a zero-sum game: One state gains, another

loses

Question 4

Classical Realism

Answer 4

Politics is governed by

objective laws that have

their roots in human

nature. Human nature is

inherently flawed,

therefore conflict occurs

as a natural outcome of

conflicting nations’

search for power.

Question 5

Liberalism

Answer 5

• Liberalism is both a theory of government within

states and good governance between them

• Tolerance, Freedom, Constitutionalism key Liberal Values
• Seeks to promote cooperation and understanding
• Economic Interdependence Causes Governments To Redefine their Interests in a Way that Makes War Less

Likely.

• Too Busy Making Money to Fight
• War Too Costly in Economic Disruption
• The Greater Economic Interdependence is, the Less

Likely is War.
• In contrast to realism then liberalism think that international

organizations can have some independence from states.

• Liberals believe that international organizations can shape the

preferences of states, influence how they view their interests

• Liberals believe in the idea of relative gains, that through cooperation

everyone can benefit. Versus realists who only believe in absolute or

zero sum gains.

Question 6

Democratic Peace Thesis

Answer 6

• Democracies don’t fight each other. Therefore if there are more

democracies in the world peace becomes more likely.

• Based on Kant’s idea of perpetual peace

Question 7

Kant’s Perpetual Peace

Answer 7

1. “The civil constitution of every state should be republican”
2. “The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states”
3. “The law of world citizenship shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality”

Question 8

Problem solving vs critical theory

Answer 8

• Robert Cox “Theory is always for someone and some

purpose”

• Problem-solving theory
• Accepts the parameters of the present order while

attempting to fix its problems, and thus helps

legitimate an unjust and deeply iniquitous system

• Critical theory
• Attempts to challenge the prevailing order by seeking

out, analyzing, and where possible, assisting social

processes that can potentially lead to transformation

of the existing system

Question 9

Essentials of Marxism

Answer 9

• History has been marked by the rise and demise of a series of world systems
• Modern world system emerged in Europe around the turn of the sixteenth

century

• Expanded to encompass the entire globe
• Driving force was capitalism
• Division between core and periphery

Question 10

CONSTRUCTIVISM

Answer 10

• Constructivists believe that reality is socially constructed
• They also believe that the knowledge that we have about the reality is

socially constructed

• No single universal truth, role of identity central to international

politics

• Identity is a framework in which interests and politics of the states

evolve

Question 11

The Essential Liberalism

Answer 11

• Neoliberalism
• Reaction to structural realism
• Conceded that core assumptions of structural

realism were correct

• Anarchic international structure, centrality of

states

• Interested in how to promote cooperation under

conditions of anarchy

• Neoliberals argue that actors would enter into

cooperative agreements if the gains were evenly

shared

• Cooperation is never without problems, but states

will shift loyalty and resources to institutions if

these are seen as mutually beneficial.

Question 12

Post-positivism

Answer 12

Post-positivists accept that theories, background, knowledge and

values of the researcher can influence what is observed

No separation between the subject and the object of study

Theories about social reality may have an impact and might change

social reality itself

Theories invariably reflect in important ways the social context in

which they were produced; so in a sense the social world shapes the

theories made of it.

Also referred to a reflectivist approaches

Question 13

Neorealism & Neoliberalism

Answer 13

• Neorealists dominate security studies and neoliberals focus on

political economy, human rights & environment.

Question 14

Norms, Institutions, Organizations

Answer 14

• Norms: Collectively shared

understandings of appropriate

behavior.

• Institutions: Sets of rules which

stipulate how to

cooperate/compete.

• Organizations: Institutions

endowed with autonomy and

actor qualities.

Question 15

Post-Structuralism

Answer 15

• Post-Structuralism is a constitutive theory.
• Constitutive theories differ explanatory theories in that they

define theoretical concepts, explain how they are linked, and

instruct us how to use them in analysis of world politics

• Theories about how we should theorize
• Central concepts are: Discourse, deconstruction, genealogy,

intertextuality

Question 16

Poststructuralism elements: Discourse

Answer 16

Poststructuralism understands language not as a

neutral transmitter, but as producing meaning

• Things do not have an objective meaning

independently of how we constitute them in language

• The prevalent discourse thus forms and informs our

take on things and events

Question 17

Poststructuralism elements: Deconstruction

Answer 17

• The codes of words are never truly fixed, because the

connections between words (that create meaning)

is never given once and for all

• Hierarchical dichotomies (such as “civilized” –

“barbaric”) can make a description seem objective

and factual, when it is in fact a structured set of

values

Question 18

Jacques Derrida

Answer 18

French philosopher, whose work

originated the school of deconstruction

Deconstruction shows the multiple

layers of meaning at work in language

all cultures construct autonomous

self-contained worlds of meaning

Thus ethnographic description

distorts native understandings by

forcing them into our own society’s

ways of conceptualizing the world

 Much of his writing he is concerned

with the deconstruction of texts

Derrida argues that the author’s

intentions in speaking cannot be

unconditionally accepted.

Question 19

Poststructuralism elements: Genealogy

Answer 19

• What political practices have formed the present,

and which alternative understandings and discourses

have been marginalized and often forgotten?

• What constructions are dominant, and

how do these constructions relate to past discourses

• Power comes about when discourses constitute

particular subject position as the ‘natural’ ones

Question 20

Poststructuralism elements: Intertextuality

Answer 20

• We can understand the social world as comprising

texts

• Texts for an ‘intertext’ – they are in some ways linked

to texts that came before them

• Intertextuality may also involve images, or interpreting

events that are not exclusive written or spoken

• Popular culture is thus a reasonable object of study –

because it links to other ‘texts’

Question 21

Wallerstein’s World-System Theory

Answer 21

• History has been marked by the rise and demise of a series of world systems
• Modern world system emerged in Europe around the turn of the sixteenth

century

• Expanded to encompass the entire globe
• Driving force was capitalism
• Division between core and periphery

Question 22

Michel Foucault

Answer 22

French philosopher who argued that social

relations between people are characterized

by dominance and subjugation

Dominating people or classes control the

ideological conditions under which

knowledge, truth, and reality are defined

Because modernity is viewed alongside

other configurations of knowledge, as the

product of power, the objective character of

scientific knowledge is shown to be an

historical construct

his work upsets the conventional

understanding of history as a chronology of

inevitable facts and replaces it with layers of

suppressed and unconscious knowledge in

and throughout history

Question 23

Identity and foreign policy

Answer 23

• Identities’ needs to be constantly reproduced
• Identities are simultaneously a product of and the

justification for foreign policies

Question 24

Feminism and Gender

Answer 24

Gender for most feminists is socially constructed.

Gender reflects the imposition of a particular view of the right

social order.

Question 25

Intersectionality

Answer 25

• Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of

oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism,

biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not

act independently of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression

interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the

“intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination.

Question 26

Post-colonialism

Answer 26

• A focus on hybrid and diasporic identities
• A dissolution of the close ties between territorial

location and identity

• A global South exists within and across former colonial

powers

• Colonialism perceived as more complex in nature and

scope

Question 27

Subaltern Studies

Answer 27

Subaltern studies changed the perspective to how history and

contemporary life looked from a subaltern’s (the poorest of the poor)

perspective.

• Subaltern studies began in India

Question 28

Revising history, filling gaps

Answer 28

• Edward Said’s works on Orientalism

are highly influential

• He considers the ways that the Middle

East and Asia have been portrayed in Western novels, biographies and

artworks

• This cultural representation seemed to indicate a degraded society

that was easy to control/conquer

Question 29

The Rejection of Ethics

Answer 29

The doctrine of ‘nihilism.’

The doctrine known as ‘Realism’ in IR theory

e.g. E.H. Carr in his work on the Twenty Year Crisis

– international morality is the morality of the Great Powers

Question 30

Deontological thinking

Answer 30

Some actions intrinsically wrong.

E.g. murder

The proposition ‘murder is wrong’ is a

logically necessary truth, like ‘2+2=4.’’

To concede that an action ‘X’ is an act of

murder, whilst arguing that it is nonetheless one which ought to be performed (that it is ‘right’ or ‘ethically

permissible’ to perform it) is to contradict oneself.

Such actions ought never to be committed, no matter what the circumstances.

Question 31

Humanatarianism

Answer 31

Needs-based humanitarianism central in international

humanitarian law.

• Traditional approaches to humanitarian action are

needs based. The principle of impartiality is central,

but stress is also put on neutrality and independence.

• Example: The Red Cross
• Relief of suffering

Question 32

Ethical Consequentialism

Answer 32

There are no actions which are absolutely right or wrong.

Everything depends on the circumstances, especially the

consequences of performing one action rather than

another.

How much ‘good’ does the action bring into the world?

‘The priority of the good over the right.’

Question 33

Consequentialist Thinking in New

Humanitarianism

Answer 33

Rights-based humanitarianism

• This approach accepts that political engagement is both a proper and

necessary part of humanitarian action. It tends to see coherence

between humanitarianism and a range of other agendas including

development and conflict reduction.

Question 34

Global Citizenship

Answer 34

The term global citizenship or world citizenship typically defines a person

who places their identity with a “global community” above their identity as

a citizen of a particular nation or place. The idea is that one’s identity

transcends geography or political borders and that the planetary human

community is interdependent and whole; humankind is essentially one.

• The idea is that one’s identity transcends geography or political borders

and that responsibilities or rights are or can be derived from membership

in a broader class: “humanity”. This does not mean that such a person

denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but

such identities are given “second place” to their membership in a global

community. The idea leads to questions about the state of global society in

the age of globalization

Question 35

Glocalization

Answer 35

• Glocalization is a term that describes the adaptation of international products around the particularities of a local culture in which they are sold.
• Glocalization primarily encompasses how regional tendencies intersect with the proliferation of global corporations.
• The worldwide spread of McDonald’s restaurants is a commonly cited

example of glocalization, especially since the restaurant’s menu is often customized to suit local tastes. Regardless of industry, glocalization broadly involves the altering of an overarching brand or product so as to better

appeal to customers within a specified country or region. This

phenomenon is the relative inverse of Americanization and the suppressing

of local preferences in favor of providing goods and media whose content

has been dictated by foreign entities. Glocalization can also involve the use

of culturally friendly media to encourage the acceptance of foreign

products among a local audience

Question 36

When globalization clashes with domestic regulatory

arrangements

Answer 36

• Labor standards
• Domestic labor laws protect workers from displacement through the hiring of child
• Environmental, health and safety standards
• If European citizenry want to apply a higher precautionary standard than other

labor; should trade be allowed to contravene this norm?

countries, should trade rules prevent them?

• Regulatory spillovers
• Should countries allow free trade in financial assets by default, even if these assets

are poorly regulated by issuing jurisdictions (e.g., trade in CDOs)

• Regulatory “takings”
• Should foreign firms in the U.S. receive greater protection from domestic policy

changes than domestic firms (as NAFTA and BITs may require)?

• Currency “manipulation”
• Does it make sense that WTO rules permit

for undervalued currencies?

Question 37

Held’s Key Idea

Answer 37

• Increasing globalization means nation-states are losing control in key

policy areas.

• We are seeing the `unbundling’ of the relationship between
• Sovereignty
• Territoriality
• Political power
• Thus, we need to consider moving toward some forms of

transnational democracy.

Question 38

Shaping Public Opinion

Answer 38

• “Framing”
• How the media casts an issue affects

the sustentative judgments people

make about the issue.

• “Priming”
• The priority the media gives to an

issue affects the priority people give to

the issue.

Question 39

Case Study: Somalia

Answer 39

“We went into Somalia because of horrible

television images; we will leave Somalia

because of horrible television images.”

• Marianne Means
• “We had been drawn to this place by

television images; now we were being

repelled by them. The President immediately

conducted a policy review that resulted in a

plan for withdrawal over the next six

months.”

• Colin Powell

Question 40

Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

Answer 40

• Public opinion often doesn’t have a direct effect on foreign policy, but

can make certain actions more or less likely. I.e. If the majority of the

public doesn’t support an active American role in world affairs

• Largely reactive
• Misinformed due to lack of American knowledge about the world