Week 3+4 PowerPoint Flashcards
What do states fight over?
Territory: more than half of all wars since 1700 have been over territory. To enrich the state (resources), Strategical importance, Historical or ethnical significance.
What is bargaining?
Actors try to resolve disputes over allocation of goods
What is crisis bargaining?
An interaction in which at least one party has threatened the use of force if demands are unmet
What is coercive diplomacy?
One state seeks to influence the bargaining outcome by threatening to use force
What are the two crucial assumptions behind bargains?
- War is costly 2. A settlement that both sides would prefer to war generally exists
What are the two dynamics resulting from Anarchy Realists believe lead to wars?
- A preventive motive (nip a rising power in the bud) 2. A security dilemma
What is a risk-return trade off?
A trade-off between trying to get a good deal and reducing the risk of war
Provide info about wars from incomplete information
•typically shorter •previously private information becomes public during •reduced uncertainty makes striking a bargain easier
What is resolve?
How much of a country’s resources it will be willing to mobilise to fight
What is brinkmanship
A form of the chicken game
What is “tying hands”
Public pronouncements that raise audience costs
What is “praying for power”
Committing resources (mobilising troops)
What is preventative war?
War in response to first-strike advantages or when rising powers cannot commit not to exploit bargaining advantages in the future
What does the commitment problem suggest?
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
How can we make war less likely?
•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)
Why don’t states resolve their disputes non-violently?
A failed bargain, Incomplete info, commitment problems, Issue indivisibility
What are realism’s assumptions on dominant actors?
Nation states
What are R’s assumptions of interests?
Security and/or power sought through self-help in a rational decision-making framework
What are R’s assumptions on interactions?
Bargaining trumps coordination
What are R’s assumptions on Institutions?
The international system is anarchic. Institutions have little autonomous power and reflect interests of powerful states
What are R’s assumptions on causal mechanism?
Relative power of states
What are some of the influential writers of realism?
Thucydides (classical), Hans Morganthau (realism), Kenneth Waltz (neo-realism), John Mearsheimer (offensive realism)
What are Liberalism’s assumptions of dominant actors?
Many types are relevant
What are L’s assumptions of interests?
Security and/or power is important, but so is economic wealth
