Reviewing Theories and Perspectives

Question 1

Reviewing Theories and Perspectives : Realism

Answer 1

Describes a foreign policy that’s determined by a country’s security and economic interest.

Question 2

Reviewing Theories and Perspectives : Idealism

Answer 2

Describes a foreign policy that is determined by a country’s ideals, moral values, and principals.

Question 3

Realism vs Idealism

What do nations want?

Answer 3

Realism - Power

Idealism -Peace in the world according to principles defined by nation.

Question 4

Realism vs Idealism

What are nations motivated by?

Answer 4

Realism - Self-Interest

Idealism - Values, principles

Question 5

Realism vs Idealism

What is the source of conflict in the world?

Answer 5

Realism - Competing Interests (territory, resources)

Idealism - Competing “isms” (democracy vs monarchy, totalitarianism or communism).

Question 6

Realism vs Idealism

What is the Source of security?

Answer 6

Realism - Faith in power to protect the nation.

Idealism - Faith in law or morality to protect the nation.

Question 7

First Great Debate

Answer 7

• Also known as the “realist idealist great debate
• Was a dispute between idealists and realist
• Took place in the 1930’s and 1940’s
• Was fundamentally about how to deal with Nazi Germany
• Idealist emphasized the possitibility of international institutions such as the League of Nations.
• Realist scholars emphasized anarchical nature of international politics and the need for state survival.

Question 8

Second Great Debate

Answer 8

• Dispute between “scientific IR”
• scholars who sought to refine scientific methods of inquiry in international relations theory who insisted on a more historicist/interpretative approach to international relations theory.
• Debate is termed “realists vs behaviorist” or “traditionalism vs scientism”.

Question 9

Inter-Paradigm Debate

Answer 9

• Sometimes is considered to be a great debate and therefore called the “third great debate”.
• Debate between Liberalism, realism and radical international relations theories.
• Also has been described as being between realism, institutionalism and structuralism.

Question 10

Fifth Great Debate

Answer 10

• Could concern critical realism but goes on to say that better not because the first four debates were pointless affairs.
• Steve smith argues that it is difficult to find any notion of a fifth debate in literature

Question 11

Great Debates : criticism

Answer 11

• Steve Smith has argued that the differing positions have largely ignored each other meaning that it makes little sense to talk of debates between rival theoretical frameworks.

Question 12

Great debates : times

Answer 12

First Debate - 1920’s-1930’s

Second Debate- 1950’s-1960’s

Third Debate- 1980’s

Fourth Debate-1990’s

Question 13

Classical Realism

Answer 13

HUMAN NATURE
Thucydides (The Peloponnesian War) – International politics is driven by an endless struggle for power, which has its roots in human nature.

Question 14

Structural Realism

Answer 14

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
Rousseau (The state of War) – It is not Human nature but the anarchical system that fosters fear, jealousy, suspicion and insecurity.

Question 15

Neoclassical Realism

Answer 15

Zakaira (From Wealth To Power) – Systemic account of world politics provided by structural realism is incomplete. It needs to be supplemented with better accounts of unit-level variables such as how power is perceived, and how leadership is exercised.

Question 16

Liberalism

Answer 16

• Historic alternative to realism
• After the cold war was dominant till 9/11
• Values and institutions embedded in Europe and North America
• Power politics is the product of ideas

• Four-dimension definition: Juridically equal,
legislative, Liberty of the individual, economic.

• Interventionist foreign policies and stronger internationa institutions x pragmatic conception: toleration and no intervention
• Critics: they do not see non-western cultures

Question 17

Neo- realism Structure

Answer 17

anarchy and the distribution of capabilities across units (Waltz)

• “the structure of the international system shapes all foreign policy choices” (Lamy, 2014 in Baylies et al.)

Question 18

Neo- realism: Power

Answer 18

combination of the capabilities of the State

Question 19

Neo- realism: security studies

Answer 19

Offensive: relative power

Question 20

Define Commercial Liberalism

Answer 20

Free trade and market

Question 21

Define Republican Liberalism

Answer 21

Democratic states are more respectful with citizens and less prone to war

Question 22

Define Sociological Liberalism

Answer 22

notion of Community and process of independence

Question 23

Define Liberal or neo-liberal institutionalism:

Answer 23

integrated communities to promote economic growth and respond to regional problems.

Question 24

Define 3rd generations of scholars

Answer 24

more dependence between the actors.

Question 25

some Key points...

Answer 25

* The neo-neo debate is not between two polar opposite worldviews. They share an epistemology, focus on similar questions, and agree on a number of assumptions about international politics. * Neo-liberal institutions and neo-realist study different worlds of International politics. Neo realist focus on security and military issues. Neo-liberal institutionalist focus on political economy, environmental issues, and human rights issues. * Neo-realists explain that all states must be concerned with the absolute and relative gains that result from international agreements and cooperative efforts. Neo-Liberal institutionalists are less concerned about relative gains and consider that all will benefit from absolute gains. * Neo-realist are more cautious about cooperation and remind us that the world is still a competitive place where self-interest rules. * Neo-liberal institutionalist believe that states and other actors can be persuaded to cooperate if they are convinced that all states will comply with rules, and that cooperation will result in absolute gains.

Question 26

Liberalism

Answer 26

• Historic alternative to realism • After the cold war was dominant till 9/11 • Values and institutions embedded in Europe and North America • Power politics is the product of ideas • Four-dimension definition: Juridically equal, legislative, Liberty of the individual, economic. • Interventionist foreign policies and stronger internationa institutions x pragmatic conception: toleration and no intervention • Critics: they do not see non-western cultures

Question 27

Marxist Theory of Internatonal Relations

Answer 27

* Capitalist global system * Powerful in expense of powerless and por * Context in wich international events occurs * Society is sistematically pronte to class conflict * World-system theory (Immanuel Wallertein): Core, semi- periphery, periphery * Feminist marxist: role of women * Critical theory: Frankfurt School

Question 28

characteristics of a core nation

Answer 28

* Democratic government * High wages * Import raw materials * Export manufactures * High investment * Welfare services

Question 29

characteristics of a Semi-Periphery

Answer 29

* Authoritarian governments * Export: mature manufactures and raw materials * Low wages * Low welfare services

Question 30

characteristics of a Periphery

Answer 30

* Non-democratic governments * Export raw materials * Import manufacture’s * Below substance wages * No welfare services

Question 31

Social- Construtivism

Answer 31

* Social theory * How actors interpretate their material reality * Denaturalize what is taken for granted * Power also as production identities, interest and meanings * Rational choice in a social theory * Knowledge shapes how individuals see the world

Question 32

Poststructuralism

Answer 32

* Influenced by social and philosophical theory * Key of the cold war: enemy construccions of East x western * Cristical statism * Discourse, deconstruction, genealogy and intertextuality.

Question 33

PostColonial Theory on IR : Epistemological criticism

Answer 33

* place of speech and production of knowledge * Questioning the links between knowledge and power (universalist narratives and cartographic imagination) * Critical geopolitics, production of subjectivities and genealogy

Question 34

PostColonial Theory on IR : Criticism-Other:

Answer 34

the decolonization of knowledge from post- colonial theory: • Assumption of Western precepts and extension to other areas of analysis • Critique of Orientalism and Occidentalism (Said, Boatcã) • The Movement of Non-Aligned Countries

Question 35

Postcolonialism

Answer 35

* Bottom-up approach * Fiction and personal testimonials as sources * Colonial and post-colonial relations * Some post-colonial states formed the non- aligned movement * Fictions: proeminent in feminist IR * Subaltern can speak or Western researchers will put them on their frameworks: must find a meeting point * Post-colonial era: continuities and discontinuities with colonialism

Question 36

Critical Theory

Answer 36

Critical analysis and renewal of social theory: • The Frankfurt School: critical rationalism, hermeneutics and analysis of cultural production • Emancipation and potentiality of democratic rationality: Habermas's theory of communicative action • The inheritance in International Relations: moral borders of the international community (Linklater) and hegemony and interstate system (Robert Cox and critical theory in IR).

Question 37

Feminism in International Relations:

Answer 37

looking towards less traditional spaces, repositioning world politics and highlighting everyday places and scales from different lenses or currents

Question 38

Liberal feminism

Answer 38

institutional, positivist and universalist approach

Question 39

Critical feminism

Answer 39

material-symbolic confluences in the analysis of power

Question 40

Constructivist feminism

Answer 40

mechanisms and processes of ideas and representations about gender and its influence on global politics and vice versa

Question 41

Poststructural feminism

Answer 41

analysis of language and knowledge production

Question 42

Postcolonial feminism

Answer 42

criticism of western universalism and the homogenization of western feminism (situated knowledge and place of speech)