PST Comps

Question 1

Gideon Rose, Neoclassical Realism and Theories of FP

Answer 1

The primary subject of all the major neoclassical realist works is the impact of relative power on FP. Neoclassical realists stress the primacy of relative power. They differentiate themselves from structural/neorealists, though, by introducing the intervening variable of decision-makers’ perceptions, through which system pressures must be filtered. That said, a second intervening variable, the strength of a country’s state apparatus and its relation to the surrounding society, is needed since leaders may not have access to the tools of power.

Question 2

Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory

Answer 2

In response to Mearsheimer’s scathing critique against institutionalism, Keohane and Martin argue that major states have willingly invested resources in international institutions, and international institutions are not the only independent variable, but rather they exist along with power and interests and interact with them.

Question 3

Robert Jervis, Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate

Answer 3

The author argues that the realist/neoliberal disagreement over conflict focuses around whether it’s necessary or unnecessary given states’ goals. He believes realists claim institutions aren’t autonomous in that they’re not more than a tool of statecraft. There are offensive realists and defensive realists, which disagree over the role of the prisoner’s dilemma in international politics. The author rejects the belief that realism denies possibility of international cooperation. Neoliberalists believe states can cooperate (largely through institutions) to mitigate the effects of anarchy, produce mutual gains, and avoid conflict.

Question 4

Robert Pfaltzgraff and James Dougherty, Contending Theories of IR (Chp 2)

Answer 4

In international relations theory, the school of thought known as realism has evolved from its original classical form into two other versions, neorealism and neoclassical realism. Each new version of realism has subtle differences and refinements from that of its predeccesors, but the defining characteristic of all three still remains the same: the maintenance of state power in an anarchic international system.

Question 5

Michael Nicholson, Realism and Utopianism Revisited

Answer 5

Although realism and utopianism were believed to be different in the past, nowadays, they have some relevance mutually as well as some differences. Perhaps the best way to view utopianism is that it is an aim at improvement vice a dream of the perfect world.

Question 6

Harry Clor, Woodrow Wilson

Answer 6

Domestically, Wilson saw the separation of powers in a state of imbalance; that power gravitated to the Legislative Branch; Wilson called for reform. Part I speaks to leadership, to transparency in government, to responsible and accountable use of concentrated power. Part 2 of the article speaks to domestic economic reform, the de-centralization of big business with freedom and credit of new businesses to compete, a renewal of personal independence and social justice. Part 3 takes Wilson’s domestic enlightenment to the international stage of promoting peace, where “peace without victory,” “collective security,” and the League of Nations emerged.

Question 7

Kenneth Waltz, The Theory of International Politics

Answer 7

Waltz sets out his view of how students of IR should approach theorizing, then argues that a unit level explanation of international politics is inadequate, preferring a systems approach. He then finally defines the salient characteristics of the structure of the international system, that is to say those characteristics which are separate from the characteristics of the unit-level actions and interactions of the system.

Question 8

Jack Kalpakian, Ibn Khaldun’s Influence on Current IR Theory

Answer 8

Khaldun’s three major themes of ‘asabiyah, the dynastic cycle and the relationship between religion and power can be seen as the ancestral forms of what is called today identity, the hegemonic cycle and the notion of “civilizations.”

Question 9

Joseph Nye, The Future of Power

Answer 9

In this fourth installment on power from Nye, he reiterates his past ideas on the differences between hard power, soft power, and smart power, and outlines [the primarily obvious] reasons for how power is changing in the 21st century.

Question 10

Robert Dahl, The Concept of Power

Answer 10

The concept of power, defined in a scientific way that can be used for systematic inquiry, has been elusive. Many former giants – from the classical philosophers to the modern IR theorists – speak of power without defining it. Dahl attempts to explicate the primitive notion that seems to lie behind all the concepts of power, control, authority, influence, etc.

Question 11

Barry Posen, Pull Back

Answer 11

Both the GOP and Democratic parties believe the US needs to preserve its massive lead in the global balance of power, consolidate its economic preeminence, enlarge the community of market democracies, and maintain its outsized influence in the international institutions it helped create. It has done this through security commitments, expansion of NATO, enhancing its security agreement with Japan, and protecting the flow of oil in the Gulf. Posen believes the time has come to pull back from all this.

Question 12

Hal Brands, Fools Rush Out: The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing

Answer 12

A growing chorus of scholars and strategic thinkers now believe the US should dramatically reduce, and perhaps eliminate, its network of security commitments and overseas force deployments, saying instead that it’s become unnecessary and counterproductive. In its place, they argue, should be a minimalist strategy of “offshore balancing” which would lead to greater security at lesser cost. Author analyzes this line of thinking, finding it an illusion.

Question 13

Anthony Wanis-St John, Back-Channel Negotiation

Answer 13

BCNs are official negotiations conducted in secret between the parties to a dispute. They operate in parallel with or replace acknowledged “front-channels” of negotiation. They can be described as the “black markets” of negotiation, providing separate negotiation spaces where bargaining takes place in the shadows.

Question 14

Dean Pruitt, Back-Channel Communication in the Settlement of Conflict

Answer 14

Secret BCC’s value lies partly in the flexibility and future orientation it brings to talks. It’s cost-effective, provides political cover, and doesn’t require formal recognition of the adversary. Heavy reliance can produce flimsy agreements, but this problem can be avoided if enough time is spent assembling a broad central coalition.

Question 15

Dennis Drew and Donald Snow, Grand Strategy

Answer 15

Grand national strategy-making is a process of determining what interests the nation has, what priorities to place on various interest, and what national instruments of power are available, appropriate, and acceptable for achieving individual interests and the aggregate of those interests.

Question 16

Liddell Hart, Theory of Strategy

Answer 16

Strategy is not simply movement of forces but the effect of forces. It not only should consider the instruments of war but the regulation of the use of such instruments so as not to damage the peace. The government, on the other hand, must clearly define the policy objectives and determine when to engage militarily or not.

Question 17

Michael Howard, The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy

Answer 17

Michael Howard attempts to explain strategy in simple terms. He does this by looking at four key dimensions that make up strategy, namely operations, logistics, social and technology. No strategy is successful without taking all four of these dimensions into consideration when developing strategy. His article then offers examples of how these functions of strategy have been used in the past to great success…or failure.

Question 18

Donald Nuechterlein, Defining National Interests

Answer 18

National interest, properly defined, is an exceptionally useful way to understand the foreign policy (FP) goals of nation-states. Author puts forth an “interest matrix” to help policymakers consider systematically the values they hope to uphold and the costs that might have to be paid.

Question 19

Michael Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs

Answer 19

Liberalism has achieved extraordinary success in maintaining peace among liberal states, while contributing confusion to (and perhaps even exacerbating) the relations between liberal and illiberal states. Doyle traces the liberal legacy to Kant’s notion of a “pacific union,” arguing that Kantian liberalism provides a better explanation of the liberal peace than realism.

Question 20

Christopher Layne, Kant or Can’t: The Myth of the Democratic Peace

Answer 20

Layne critiques the causal logic of DPT and compares its predictive power to that of realism. He first identifies the strands of DPT: (a) institutional constraints, and (b) democratic norms and culture. He argues that (a) is not persuasive and so DPT actually rests on (b). In contrast to DPT, structural realism argues that unit level factors do not alter the structure of international politics. Because survival and security are always at risk, democratic states respond similarly to both democratic and non-democratic rivals.

Question 21

John Owen, How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace

Answer 21

Owen puts forth six hypotheses to test why liberal democracies do not fight each other but do fight other nations. He does this with the hopes of finding a theoretical base for one of the main critiques of DPT.

Question 22

Sebastian Rosato, The Flawed Logic of DPT

Answer 22

Democracies do not reliably externalize their domestic norms of conflict resolution and do not trust or respect one another when their interests clash. Moreover, elected leaders are not especially accountable to peace loving publics or pacific interest groups, democracies are not particularly slow to mobilize or incapable of surprise attack, and open political competition does not guarantee that a democracy will reveal private information about its level of resolve thereby avoiding conflict. Thus, there may be peace among democracies, but it may not be caused by the democratic nature of those states.

Question 23

Bruce Russett, Why Democratic Peace?

Answer 23

Democracies are less likely to use lethal violence toward other democracies than toward autocratically governed states or than autocratically governed states are toward each other. Two models for the “democratic peace” are examined: a cultural/normative model (culture, perceptions, and practices are externalized and permit compromise and peaceful resolution of conflicts between democracies) and a structural/institutional model (institutional constraints make it difficult for democratic leaders to move toward war so democracies will not fear surprise attack from one another). Russett finds greater empirical support for the cultural/normative model.

Question 24

John O’Neal and Bruce Russett, The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and IOs

Answer 24

The authors test Kantian and realist theories of interstate conflict using data extending over more than a century, treating those theories as complementary rather than competing. As the classical liberals believed, democracy, economic interdependence, and international organizations have strong and statistically significant effects on reducing the probability that states will be involved in militarized disputes. Moreover, the benefits are not limited to the Cold War era. Some realist influences, notably distance and power predominance, also reduce the likelihood of interstate conflict. The character of the international system, too, affects the probability of dyadic disputes. The consequences of having a strong hegemonic power vary, but high levels of democracy and interdependence in the international system reduce the probability of conflict for all dyads, not just for those that are democratic or dependent on trade.

Question 25

David Spiro, The Insignificance of the Liberal Peace

Answer 25

Author sets out to prove the absence of wars between liberal democracies is not a significant pattern for most of the past two centuries and argues that much of the quantitative literature on democracy and war has little to do with the theories it seeks to confirm, and that the results rest on methods and operationalization of variables that undergo contortions before they yield apparently significant results.

Question 26

Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch

Answer 26

Kant tries to describe how a real and permanent peace might be instituted despite the irrational and immoral behavior of mankind that, either through selfishness or chicanery, frustrates practical reason and makes conflict possible. He has, through the use of his own moral reasoning, determined optimal reforms for a civil, international, and cosmopolitan constitution, that could install a perpetual peace, and goes further to suggest that such reforms are inevitable as humankind gradually develops a rational social order where politics and morality are intertwined.

Question 27

Claus Ryn, The Ethical Problem of Democratic Statecraft

Answer 27

Ryn evaluates the possibility of effective and ethical statecraft by democratic governments in a hostile world. He criticizes populist or “plebiscitary” democracy, in which foreign policy is shaped by public opinion. Ryn endorses constitutional democracy, which gives decision makers some leeway from the popular, temporal sentiment in making more “enlightened” decisions. Ryn criticizes abstract, utopian views of morality that should guide democratic states. He is also critical of Machiavelli’s pessimistic view of man. He lies in between, altering the definition of morality to find a more “realist” perspective to its place in politics.

Question 28

Richard Shultz, Can Democratic Governments Use Force in the War Against Terrorism

Answer 28

Under specific circumstances, the use of military force is justified. However, the use of force alone is not useful. It should be a last resort and accompanied by other measures including non-military methods.

Question 29

Ian Hurd, Constructivism

Answer 29

Anarchy is the result of a process that constructs the rules or norms that govern the interaction of states. The condition of the system of states today as self-helpers in the midst of anarchy is a result of the process by which states and the system of states was constructed. It is not an inherent fact of state-to-state relations. Thus, constructivist theory holds that it is possible to change the anarchic nature of the system of states.

Question 30

Halford Mackinder, The Geographical Pivot of History

Answer 30

Is not the pivot region of the world’s politics that vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to ships, but in antiquity lay open to the horse-riding nomads, and is today about to be covered with a network of railways? There have been and are here the conditions of a mobility of military and economic power of a far-reaching and yet limited character. Russia replaces the Mongol Empire. Her pressure on Finland, on Scandinavia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, on India, and on China, replaces the centrifugal raids of the steppemen. In the world at large she occupies the central strategical position held by Germany in Europe. She can strike on all sides and be struck on all sides, save the north. The full development of her modern railway mobility is merely a matter of time. Outside the pivot area, in a great inner crescent, are Germany, Austria, Turkey, India, and China, and in an outer crescent, Britain, South Africa, Australia, the US, Canada, and Japan.

Question 31

Friedrich Kratochwil, Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System

Answer 31

Changes in the function of boundaries throughout history help to illuminate differences in the nature and patterns of interactions of different domestic and international systems. The world system appears to be characterized by two conflicting trends: (1) the virtually universal recognition of territorial sovereignty as the organizing principle of international politics, and (2) a tendency toward erosion of the exclusivity associated with the traditional notion of territoriality due to the growth of transnational relations and interdependencies.

Question 32

Jeffrey Checkel, The Constructivist Turn in IR Theory

Answer 32

This essay did three things: (1) showed that constructivism has expanded theoretical discourse, (2) showed that despite this, constructivism lacks a proper theory of agency, and (3) argued that constructivists need to develop the theory further to show how, why, and when social construction occurs, the actors involved, etc, in doing so merge their insights with middle range theory.

Question 33

Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations

Answer 33

The next pattern of conflict is based on differences between civilizations. The nature of civilizations remains as the highest cultural grouping above nation states. Civilization will clash both at the micro level and the macro level. The fault lines between civilizations hold outgoing energy, which may lead to conflicts. Civilization is rallying support from kin when faces conflicts. In the context of the west versus the rest, non-western powers will isolate themselves, accept the west, or balance the west by power. The Confucian-Islamic connection is the biggest developing civilization, which will confront the west.

Question 34

Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics

Answer 34

Wendt recasts the realist/liberal debate as an argument over the determinants of state action in the international system. He puts forth a constructivist argument rejecting the realist belief that the structure of the international system – anarchy and self-help – forces states to play competitive power politics. Rather, Wendt argues that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from anarchy. If they exist, it is due to process, not structure. Thus, Wendt argues that state identities and interests are shaped and transformed within the international system, rather than existing as exogenous variables.

Question 35

Jonathon Bendor and Thomas Hammond, Rethinking Allison’s Models

Answer 35

This article is a highly critical review of Allison’s 1969 article and 1971 book about decision making and the Cuban missile crisis. The authors attack all three of Allison’s models and accuse him of straw-manning rational choice in Model 1 and therefore discarding it prematurely. They argue Model 2 is plain wrong, that there is no reason to expect simple rules (SOPs) to yield simple outcomes, and they argue that Model 3 is not only flawed but too complex to be useful for anything but history.

Question 36

Derek Clollat and James Goldgeier, The Scholarship of Decision-Making: What Do We Know How We Decide

Answer 36

This article speaks to the themes that have led to the formulation of generalizable propositions regarding bureaucratic politics, organizational routines, or individual responses to the external environment with a goal to go from questions to hypotheses to testing and refinement in order to develop limited theories of behavior.

Question 37

Robert Putnam, Diplomacy and Domestic Politics

Answer 37

In this article, Putnam tries to answer the question, “how do domestic politics and international relations get entangled?” He rejects state-as-unitary-actor models and strong/weak-state models and tries to construct a two-level, win-set-based model while eyeing a general equilibrium theory for the interaction of domestic and international factors. This article provides only a basic sketch of the bargaining of international agreements, largely relying on the impact of the size of the win-set to constrain or enhance bargaining power and increase or decrease the likelihood of agreement. He does not offer a detailed model of domestic politics; instead, he concentrates on a model with the negotiator as an honest agent with no independent motives.

Question 38

Herbert Simon, Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science

Answer 38

Article compares two theories of human rationality in poli sci: bounded rationality from contemporary cognitive psychology and substantive rationality from economics. Using examples draw from recent literature of poli sci, the article concludes that the model predictions rest primarily on the auxiliary assumptions rather than deriving from the rationality principle. The analysis implies that the principle of rationality, unless accompanied by extensive empirical research to identify the correct auxiliary assumptions, has little power to make valid predictions about political phenomena.

Question 39

Stephen Walt, Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies

Answer 39

The author is concerned about the prominence of formal rational choice theory and ask whether the increased prominence is necessary, inevitable, and desirable. In his opinion, a debate on the merits of formal theory is valuable because it will affect the future direction of scholar researches and focuses. His argument is based on the claim that the central aim of social science is to develop knowledge that is relevant to understanding important social problems. Unless formal theory achieves that goal, it should not enjoy higher privileges than other approaches.

Question 40

George Kennan, Morality and FP

Answer 40

Morality has its place in American foreign policy, but our statesmen should be pragmatic and not let their thoughts get carried away with their moral sympathies over the realistic and necessary decisions that need to be made in the pursuance of our national interest.

Question 41

Nathan Tarcov, Principle and Prudence in FP

Answer 41

By the nature of the United States’ very existence out of revolution, the U.S. can adequately justify and regulate the use of force. The wording within The Declaration of Independence contains the fundamental American prescription for the use of force.

Question 42

Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Answer 42

What Tom Friedman means by the phrase “the world is flat” is that the global competitive playing field is being leveled. It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world. This “flattening” is the result of ten factors.

Question 43

M. Patrick Cottrell, Hope or Hype: Legitimacy and US Leadership in a Global Age

Answer 43

For those who believe the US should take on a more prominent role in international institutions and otherwise to address the world’s problems, it is imperative to first examine what legitimate leadership entails and determine whether such leadership is even possible.

Question 44

Norman Angell, The Great Illusion

Answer 44

Arguably the best exposition of the classical liberal case against war. Angell maintains that the commerce and industry of a people do not depend upon the expansion of political frontiers; that military power is socially and economically futile and can have no relation to the prosperity of the people exercising it.

Question 45

Thomas Wright, Sifting Through Interdependence

Answer 45

Despite the fact that extending interdependence and tightening economic integration among nations is a positive development that advances peace, stability, and prosperity, in the past five years it has become clear increasingly apparent that interdependence and integration carries strategic risks and challenges with it.

Question 46

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation

Answer 46

The intrinsic processes of the 19th century economic system were the mechanisms of its own destruction. To the degree the liberal market expanded in industrial Europe, it created counterpressure among the social groups most vulnerable to its excesses, especially labor. As labor mobilized, it increasingly sought through politics to social protection that the economic order could not provide, but in so doing undermined the market system itself. As these groups gained the franchise, noninterventionist policies became harder to maintain. Liberals rallied around the gold standard as the critical feature of the economic system, and sacrificed everything, including the free market, in a vain attempt to sustain it. Polanyi concludes that the 19th century proved unstable the utopian dream of the self-regulated market, and the future economic order cannot make the mistake of institutionally separating politics from the economy.