Foundational ideas

Question 1

What are the different types of state interests?

Answer 1

• security and power
• economic or material welfare
• moral, religious, and ideological goals

Question 2

what is sovereignty?

Answer 2

A fundamental principle of international law that defines a state’s authority to govern its territory and the people in it.

Question 3

What is international anarchy?

Answer 3

It refers to the challenges and consequences that arise from the absence of a central governing authority in the international system.

Question 4

Why does international anarchy pose such a big problem in international relations?

Answer 4

Without a world government to perform key functions, serious problems can arise.

Keeping the peace / War
Regulating the economy / Protectionism
Protecting the environment / Pollution
Redistribute income / poverty

Question 5

What are the basic ideas behind the prisoner’s dilemma’s framework that help understand state interactions?

Answer 5

Often, the Prisoner’s Dilemma demonstrates that each player has a dominant strategy, which, regardless of the other player’s choice, will always yield a higher payoff.

In the context of state interactions, this often translates to a choice that is more about self-preservation or gaining a relative advantage rather than cooperative behavior.

Question 6

What happens when actors play a prisoner’s dilemma repeatedly?

Answer 6

the immediate incentives to defect can be overcome by the benefits of sustained cooperation, leading to more stable and predictable international relations.

Question 7

What are institutions?

Answer 7

Sets of rules set by and shared by the relevant community that structure interactions in specific ways

Question 8

What are the main functions of institutions?

Answer 8

• Creating standards of behavior
• Verifying compliance
• Reducing costs of joint decision-making
• Resolving disputes

Question 9

What are some strengths of institutions?

Answer 9

• makes cooperation easier and cheaper
• helps states pursue actions that are good for everyone (tries to get us out of the prisoner’s dilemma)

Question 10

What are some weaknesses of institutions?

Answer 10

• It is not possible to enforce cooperation due to anarchy
• They are often biased (rules are made by someone, often the most powerful)

Question 11

Comment on the enforcement of institutions

Answer 11

Institutions have to be self-enforcing;
- states must want to join them
- states must want to uphold them