Week 3+4 PowerPoint

Question 1

What do states fight over?

Answer 1

Territory: more than half of all wars since 1700 have been over territory. To enrich the state (resources), Strategical importance, Historical or ethnical significance.

Question 2

What is bargaining?

Answer 2

Actors try to resolve disputes over allocation of goods

Question 3

What is crisis bargaining?

Answer 3

An interaction in which at least one party has threatened the use of force if demands are unmet

Question 4

What is coercive diplomacy?

Answer 4

One state seeks to influence the bargaining outcome by threatening to use force

Question 5

What are the two crucial assumptions behind bargains?

Answer 5

1. War is costly 2. A settlement that both sides would prefer to war generally exists

Question 6

What are the two dynamics resulting from Anarchy Realists believe lead to wars?

Answer 6

1. A preventive motive (nip a rising power in the bud) 2. A security dilemma

Question 7

What is a risk-return trade off?

Answer 7

A trade-off between trying to get a good deal and reducing the risk of war

Question 8

Provide info about wars from incomplete information

Answer 8

•typically shorter •previously private information becomes public during •reduced uncertainty makes striking a bargain easier

Question 9

What is resolve?

Answer 9

How much of a country’s resources it will be willing to mobilise to fight

Question 10

What is brinkmanship

Answer 10

A form of the chicken game

Question 11

What is “tying hands”

Answer 11

Public pronouncements that raise audience costs

Question 12

What is “praying for power”

Answer 12

Committing resources (mobilising troops)

Question 13

What is preventative war?

Answer 13

War in response to first-strike advantages or when rising powers cannot commit not to exploit bargaining advantages in the future

Question 14

What does the commitment problem suggest?

Answer 14

War is more likely when the good in dispute is a source of power to those who possess it (WMD, strategic lands) •Preventive incentives emerge when rapid military power shifts are afoot •Bargaining failures are more common when a military-strategic situation offers big first-strike advantages

Question 15

How can we make war less likely?

Answer 15

•raise cost of war (increase trade, develop nuclear weapons) •Increase transparency •Outside enforcements (UN peacekeepers) •Divide indivisible goods… via issue linkage or joint/shared control (ex. Berlin after WWII)

Question 16

Why don’t states resolve their disputes non-violently?

Answer 16

A failed bargain, Incomplete info, commitment problems, Issue indivisibility

Question 17

What are realism’s assumptions on dominant actors?

Answer 17

Nation states

Question 18

What are R’s assumptions of interests?

Answer 18

Security and/or power sought through self-help in a rational decision-making framework

Question 19

What are R’s assumptions on interactions?

Answer 19

Bargaining trumps coordination

Question 20

What are R’s assumptions on Institutions?

Answer 20

The international system is anarchic. Institutions have little autonomous power and reflect interests of powerful states

Question 21

What are R’s assumptions on causal mechanism?

Answer 21

Relative power of states

Question 22

What are some of the influential writers of realism?

Answer 22

Thucydides (classical), Hans Morganthau (realism), Kenneth Waltz (neo-realism), John Mearsheimer (offensive realism)

Question 23

What are Liberalism’s assumptions of dominant actors?

Answer 23

Many types are relevant

Question 24

What are L’s assumptions of interests?

Answer 24

Security and/or power is important, but so is economic wealth

Question 25

What are L’s assumptions on interactions?

Answer 25

substantial areas for cooperation; conflict is not inevitable

Question 26

What are L’s assumptions on institutions?

Answer 26

Facilitate cooperation by developing rules, providing information, create means for collective decision making

Question 27

What are L’s assumptions on causal mechanism?

Answer 27

State preferences over a range of issues

Question 28

Who were the influential writers of Liberalism?

Answer 28

John Locke (classical liberalism), Immanuel Kant (democratic peace), Robert Keohane (Liberal institutionalism), Joseph Nye (soft power), and Bruce Russett (democratic peace)

Question 29

Who are the key actors in foreign policy?

Answer 29

Bottom: general public then interest groups then bureaucracy then leaders

Question 30

What are particularistic interests?

Answer 30

Interests that are particular to an individual, group of individuals or other subnational group.

Question 31

What are the challenges of collective action?

Answer 31

1. smaller groups tend to be better organised 2. larger groups suffer from free-riding 3. groups may shape policy towards their interests

Question 32

What is the rally around the flag effect?

Answer 32

A short-term boost in government approval from a foreign policy crisis

Question 33

How do domestic institutions shape the costs and benefits of war?

Answer 33

•They shape: who runs govt. how decisions are made. how disputes are resolved. •They can concentrate decision-making power, or establish checks and balances that disperse it. They can both shape incentives for and constraints on going to war

Question 34

What are the different types of domestic groups?

Answer 34

1. political parties 2. economic interest groups 3. ideological or ethnic interest groups 4. Bureaucratic interests (ex. military)