midterm Flashcards
What is the Cult of the Offensive?
Military and political leaders at the time believed the offense had an enormous advantage
-new tech, machine guns, chemical gas, railroads
It is always in a country’s best interest to preempt
This leads to a prisoner’s dilemma
First strike advantages are a reasonable explanation for the initiation of WWI
What do states mean in IR?
Sovereign entities (usa, france, japan, etc)
Information Asymmetrics
people in a country might want support the war if conditions are favorable
only the leader knows this, and they can exploit the asymmetry (advantageous to keep secret)
Explain leader retirement
even though democratic leaders are more likely to be removed after losing a war, non-democratic leaders face fiercer punishment after removal
Economic interdependence
Countries that trade with each other tend not to fight each other.
True for disputes and wars. Finding controls in other factors.
Balancing Interests
in security, military power is relative.
Negotiating Trade
Many incentives to not trade with each other
-might stop trade from happening even if both want to do it
General concern: grim trigger
How to coordinate expectations:
Develop international institutions to promote trade between member states
What is a sovereignty?
The monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a territory
“state” = sovereign entity of a territory
Dispute resolution between two sub states occurs through sovereign states
Expected to ensure their substate actors don’t use force against foreign actors
Why might trade relations cause peace?
Trade creates a surplus
states cannot trade if at war
surplus makes war $$$
Given that bargaining range grows with cost of war, trade promotes peace.
Relative Gains resolution
A state only makes a relative gain against a rival if they build and the rival doesn’t.
What is the long peace era?
Wars have been trending downward following WWII
0 wars between major powers in this period
Unclear if chance or not
What is needed for a conflict to be coded as a war?
Sustained combat between regular armed forces of two states
at least 1000 combat fatalities total
Each side has at least 100 combat fatalities or at least 1000 armed forces
What is the trivial explanation for WWI starting?
Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914
What does the bargaining model say about war’s occurance?
For war to happen, you need incomplete information/incentives to misrepresent, shifting power, issue indivisibilities (what is being bargained cannot be separated), or some other mechanism of bargaining failure
What are Tariffs?
Tariffs are import taxes on imported goods
Good at bolstering domestic companies
What Is the result of Grim Trigger
As long as we are likely to keep interacting in the future, cooperation is possible.
threat of future punishment keeps states in line
states must not know when the interaction will end ahead of time
Does Correlation imply causation?
No.
Does the Unitary Actor explanation for war still exist with the leaders?
Yes! Draw out the answer
What are the three theories of democratic peace?
Culture of Contracts
Transparency
Electoral Incentives
What is a proximate cause?
Why did this happen the way it happened?
gives us silly policy recommendations that may not generalize beyond the specific case
who are the major actors in IR?
international organizations
domestic leaders
non-gov. organizations
multinational corporations
military alliances
states
Why do we participate in Arms races?
Because even though it may be better to hold off, it is always in a state’s best interest to build weapons. Self interest over pass
What two things do you need for war to start
Grievance and a bargaining problem.
Divisionary war
A war fought to divert attention from a politically unpopular arena to the international arena.
may be used by leaders to distract from domestic unrest/bad policies
How do we measure data on power?
We use the CINC (Composite indicator of National Capability) scores
Agent
The leader may not want to make the decisions the electorates want them to do.
What are Tariffs?
a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
first nego. 1947
Purpose: reduce tariffs and other trade barriers and promote efficient trade between parties
Absolute advantage
Some states are better at producing some goods than others.
Make what you’re good at making, trade for what you’re not
What will happen if you defect once in the grim trigger?
I will do great the first time I defect, but I will do worse each time
Think of it like you get 6 tickets to Disney World because you snubbed your sister and lied about getting tickets, but then you’ll never get tickets to Disney World again because no one will go with you and you fell into financial debt
What is another choice besides peace?
Fighting a war
Lose: leader removal
Win: confirmation of original brilliance
What can the prisoner’s dilemma predict about taxes?
High levels of tariffs
But, that’s not really true anymore. Because of free trade
Electoral Incentives
Selectorate: the pool of individuals who can make up winning coalitions
Winning coalitions: a group of individuals necessary to remain in power.
War is costly, but some benefit.
Hard to buy off a large number of people
Since democracies share the burden of war relatively equally, democratic leaders have less incentive to fight.
What are the differences between proximate and underlying causes?
Prox:
focus of historical research
concerned about the proper nouns of the situation
Under:
focus of political science research
concerned about the abstract details of the case
What is an underlying cause?
Why was this asking to happen?
tells us how to address what caused the specific case and other otherwise dissimilar cases
What is the connections between leaders and uncertainty?
private info is introduced each time a new leader enters office
intelligence on previous leader’s resolve is thrown out
process begins anew
Culture of Contracts
Behavioral explanation for the Democratic peace
In democracies, citizens have incentive to cooperate through contractual agreements
Does war always make sense?
No. No it doesn’t. Bargaining makes more sense a lot of the time and is almost always mutually beneficial
Pandering
the leader’s decision may pander to their winning coalition.
Electoral rules can distort international outcomes.
B causes A
Peace causes democracy
Are democratic countries more peaceful?
Kind of.
Democracy + democracy = little war
Dem + nondem= some
nondem + nondem = some
2 and 3 equation are the same expectation. Democracies are only peaceful towards each other.
Most dem v dem data we have is from post Cold War
Why might a government instate a tariff
to lead to higher prices on foreign products, protecting certain domestic industries.
Effectively ruins trade and is bad for consumers, but creates another winner: the government
A and B cause each other
Democracy causes peace but peace also causes democracy
What is a militarized interstate dispute (MID)
Cases of conflict in which the threat, display or use of military force short of war by one member state is explicitly directed towards the government, official representatives, official forces, property, or territory of another state
Monitoring
The tradeoff between needing government secrecy and requiring government accountability
Be able to explain how the prisoner’s dilemma works
The only reasonable outcome for this game is for both players to confess, even though the quiet/quiet outcome is preferable
Regardless of player 2’s choice, player one is better off confessing, and vice versa
mutual confession outcome is not Pareto efficient
Be able to explain the algebraic and geometric model of bargaining v. war
God help you darling
Peace through insecurity
Leaders may still prefer a peace agreement for fear of the removal and punishment following poor war outcomes (War may threaten leader survival)
P-A problem brings peace
When is trade efficient
At the country level
Principal agent problems
1) preferences not allowed
2) monitoring problems
3) future rewards unavailable
Grim trigger
Two players will cooperate for all of time, but if someone defects once, their opponent will defect every time onwards.
As long as the other guy is nice, you’ll be nice. He stops being nice, you never get to be nice again
Transparency
Rationalist explanations for war: uncertainty about resolve causes conflict.
The Key point of trading
The sum of economic gains by the winning manufacturers and consumers is greater than the economics losses by the losing manufacture
What is Anarchy?
The lack of political authority
in IR, no one is sovereign over the sovereign
is NOT CHAOS
Other types of interdependence
exchange of info
Change of underlying preferences
Gambling for resurrection
When war goes poorly: for the state, peace negotiation is better strategy
for leader: punishment after concession/negotiation
Why do power shifts lead to war? (Preventative war)
Declining states choose to fight because they prefer a costly war today to an efficient but disadvantageous peace tomorrow
The Unitary Actor Assumption
Assume that states are single entity, and their leaders are only interested in maximizing the overall welfare of the state
Allows us to analyze the validity of these explanations
C causes A and B
wealth causes both peace and democracy
What are the barriers to free trade
Gains are highly dispersed
Potential losers have the status quo advantage (more likely to be politically connected or have the money to lobby)
Please explain Pareto efficiency
Another outcome exists that is better for at least one party without leaving anyone worse off
Benevolent Cooperation
Stag hunt! They can credibly commit to cooperation in a one-shot game and the inefficient uncooperative outcome is still possible. It’s a coordination gamee
How can rival states be uncertain about a democracy’s level of resolve?
Public polling is readily available to everyone, including autocrats of the world.
Less private info–> less war
What is correlation?
When A is present, B tends to be present as well
Tells us nothing about causation and democracy
How does uncertainty cause war?
Disagreement over who will win
Uncertain resolve
What is the payoff for cooperating infinitely?
1/(1-p)
A causes C which causes B. But D also causes C which causes B
Trade, democracy, and peace
Comparative advantage
If you’re better at making everything, trade still works. Focus on opportunity cost, what someone has to give up to do something else.
Does the extent of the bad outcome matter?
Yes! Non-dem leaders have incentive to avoid randomly fighting wars
The McDonalds Peace Theory
Countries with McDonald’s restaurants tend not to fight other countries with McDonald’s restaurants.
Was a perfect country until it wasn’t. Countries with McDonalds tend to be better developed and open to trade.
How many states are in the world?
200
When is war rational when bargaining is an option?
Only rational if value of the good is much larger than the possible side payments
What does Autarkic mean? Give some examples of Autarkic states
Economic independency or self-sufficiency
North Korea
Taliban Afghanistan
1980s Romania
Post-civil war spain
Treaty of Westphalia
Signed in 1648
Ended the 30 years war
established the principle of sovereignty
Democratic accountability
Autocrats appear to find war more attractive because they do not pay costs
Dems. face electoral accountability and have reason to appease
Have pressure to do the right thing
Less likely to win reelection if bad war
Can you recall the Mexican and California alcohol example and explain how it works
Tariffs everywhere cause everyone to lose (except for the protected businesses).
Problems with inferring causation
- B causes A
- A and B cause each other
- C causes. A and B
- A causes C which causes B. But D also causes C which causes B
Do first strike advantages outweigh costs?
Probably not
The presence of first strike advantages shrinks the bargaining range, perhaps making it easier for other bargaining frictions to cause problems
Principal
citizens or selectorates select leaders to make decisions
The shadow of the future
fails to inspire cooperation if the game has a definite end
WTO
World Trade Organization
Created by GATT renego. in 1995
Much bigger
The Democratic peace theory
Democracies tend to not fight other democracies
Culture of Contracts
Behavioral explanation: citizens have culture of cooperation
Transparency
Transparency reduces private information (uncertainty), which helps reduce war
Electoral incentives
Electorate– the pool of individuals who can make up winning coalitions
