Midterm 2 Terms Flashcards
Pop Culture as constitutive
Argues that pop culture actively shapes norms, ideas, identities, and beliefs in a state, society or region
Hunger Games test case hypothesis
Hypotheses:
- Fiction increases issue salience (importance)
- Fiction increases narrative persuasion (making certain actions more justifiable)
- Fiction makes students more politically cynical
Issue salience
How much a person/society cares about an issue
Hunger Games experiment method
randomly assigned young people to read or watch parts of dystopian fiction and compared their attitudes to those who watched nothing and only news media
Hunger Games Results
Increased support for radical political methods over legal, peaceful ones when contesting injustice
Defining war
A state of organized, armed conflict between political communities; three characteristics (organized in groups, armed, political purpose)
Clausewitz
Believed that war should be an extension of politics in that there should be a clear political goal
Early approaches to cause of war
human nature is destructive, anthropology: war is culturally constructed, psychology: how people feel they are perceived and how they see themselves affects war
Neorealist study of war
causes of war are found on a systemic level
relational concept of power
a state has power over another state if they can get it to so something it would not otherwise do (power arises out of interactions)
unit-level concept of power
A state has a lot of military capability or economic resources that could translate into military capability (inherently has power)
Key factors in measuring power
geography, economic base, population size, types of forces, nationalism, technology, leadership, regime type, doctrine
Realist paths to war
fundamental conflict of interest, security dilemmas (preemptive war), preventative war, hegemonic war
power transition theory
the probability of a major war is greatest at the point when the declining leader is being overtaken by a rising challenger
Realist paths to peace
balancing, bandwagoning, buckpassing, appeasement
Balancing
internal: building up own military to balance a power
external: creating alliances to counter a power
Bandwagoning
joining a rising power to hopefully gain some benefit (Mearsheimer says is bad)
Buckpassing
letting someone else bear to the costs of checking the aggressor (Mearsheimer says preferred way)
Appeasement
providing a rising power with something it wants in the hope that it will stop them from pursuing more
Strategies for gaining power
war, blackmail, bait and bleed (lead rivals into conflict with each other), bloodletting (stay on sidelines)
Blainey Balance of Power
Says balance of power is only clear in the aftermath of a conflict because power is relational–so states go to war when they disagree about their relative power
Strategic Issues with Nukes
First strike capability: ability to strike a state with a nuke so they can’t strike back
Second strike capability: ability to withstand a nuke attack from another states and launch a retaliatory strike in response
NPT: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
1968: an agreement that only France, US, USSR, UK and China are allowed to have nukes, but they are going to work on reducing the number they have; if others agree not to pursue nukes, they can use nuclear material for civilian purposes
Issues with NPT
some sovereign states have not signed, others have signed but violated, it’s hypocritical for the 5 countries, it’s not taken seriously
Deterrence
To discourage potential actors or aggressors from acting by convincing him or her that the probable cost of their actions will far exceed any anticipated gains
Conditions for deterrence to succeed
clarity, capability, credibility
Issues with deterrence
rationality and self-discipline/state ability
International law
a body of rules which bind states and other agents in world politics in their relations with one another (implicit and explicit)
Institution
set of roles structuring and regulating state interactions
How institutions facilitate cooperation
increase the number of transactions among states, reduce transaction costs of individual agreements, enable closer monitoring, link issues
Concert of Europe
1815: aim was to maintain balance of power in Europe by preventing hegemony; was too informal, elitist, politically conservative and not adaptable to Germany as a rising power
League of Nations
1920: aim was to pursue the liberal idea of collective security for all; but did not reflect the existing distribution of power, limited enforcement capability, unanimity hampered ability to make decisions
UN
1945: has peacekeeping, security council, a judicial organ, and specialized agencies like UNICEF
