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international relations > midterm > Flashcards

midterm Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the Cult of the Offensive?

A

Military and political leaders at the time believed the offense had an enormous advantage
-new tech, machine guns, chemical gas, railroads
It is always in a country’s best interest to preempt
This leads to a prisoner’s dilemma
First strike advantages are a reasonable explanation for the initiation of WWI

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2
Q

What do states mean in IR?

A

Sovereign entities (usa, france, japan, etc)

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3
Q

Information Asymmetrics

A

people in a country might want support the war if conditions are favorable
only the leader knows this, and they can exploit the asymmetry (advantageous to keep secret)

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4
Q

Explain leader retirement

A

even though democratic leaders are more likely to be removed after losing a war, non-democratic leaders face fiercer punishment after removal

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5
Q

Economic interdependence

A

Countries that trade with each other tend not to fight each other.
True for disputes and wars. Finding controls in other factors.

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6
Q

Balancing Interests

A

in security, military power is relative.

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7
Q

Negotiating Trade

A

Many incentives to not trade with each other
-might stop trade from happening even if both want to do it
General concern: grim trigger
How to coordinate expectations:
Develop international institutions to promote trade between member states

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8
Q

What is a sovereignty?

A

The monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a territory
“state” = sovereign entity of a territory
Dispute resolution between two sub states occurs through sovereign states
Expected to ensure their substate actors don’t use force against foreign actors

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9
Q

Why might trade relations cause peace?

A

Trade creates a surplus
states cannot trade if at war
surplus makes war $$$
Given that bargaining range grows with cost of war, trade promotes peace.

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10
Q

Relative Gains resolution

A

A state only makes a relative gain against a rival if they build and the rival doesn’t.

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11
Q

What is the long peace era?

A

Wars have been trending downward following WWII
0 wars between major powers in this period
Unclear if chance or not

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12
Q
A
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13
Q

What is needed for a conflict to be coded as a war?

A

Sustained combat between regular armed forces of two states
at least 1000 combat fatalities total
Each side has at least 100 combat fatalities or at least 1000 armed forces

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14
Q

What is the trivial explanation for WWI starting?

A

Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914

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15
Q

What does the bargaining model say about war’s occurance?

A

For war to happen, you need incomplete information/incentives to misrepresent, shifting power, issue indivisibilities (what is being bargained cannot be separated), or some other mechanism of bargaining failure

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16
Q

What are Tariffs?

A

Tariffs are import taxes on imported goods
Good at bolstering domestic companies

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17
Q

What Is the result of Grim Trigger

A

As long as we are likely to keep interacting in the future, cooperation is possible.
threat of future punishment keeps states in line
states must not know when the interaction will end ahead of time

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18
Q

Does Correlation imply causation?

A

No.

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19
Q

Does the Unitary Actor explanation for war still exist with the leaders?

A

Yes! Draw out the answer

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20
Q

What are the three theories of democratic peace?

A

Culture of Contracts
Transparency
Electoral Incentives

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21
Q

What is a proximate cause?

A

Why did this happen the way it happened?
gives us silly policy recommendations that may not generalize beyond the specific case

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22
Q

who are the major actors in IR?

A

international organizations
domestic leaders
non-gov. organizations
multinational corporations
military alliances
states

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23
Q

Why do we participate in Arms races?

A

Because even though it may be better to hold off, it is always in a state’s best interest to build weapons. Self interest over pass

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24
Q

What two things do you need for war to start

A

Grievance and a bargaining problem.

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25
Divisionary war
A war fought to divert attention from a politically unpopular arena to the international arena. may be used by leaders to distract from domestic unrest/bad policies
26
How do we measure data on power?
We use the CINC (Composite indicator of National Capability) scores
27
Agent
The leader may not want to make the decisions the electorates want them to do.
28
What are Tariffs?
a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.
29
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade first nego. 1947 Purpose: reduce tariffs and other trade barriers and promote efficient trade between parties
30
Absolute advantage
Some states are better at producing some goods than others. Make what you're good at making, trade for what you're not
31
What will happen if you defect once in the grim trigger?
I will do great the first time I defect, but I will do worse each time Think of it like you get 6 tickets to Disney World because you snubbed your sister and lied about getting tickets, but then you'll never get tickets to Disney World again because no one will go with you and you fell into financial debt
32
What is another choice besides peace?
Fighting a war Lose: leader removal Win: confirmation of original brilliance
33
What can the prisoner's dilemma predict about taxes?
High levels of tariffs But, that's not really true anymore. Because of free trade
34
Electoral Incentives
Selectorate: the pool of individuals who can make up winning coalitions Winning coalitions: a group of individuals necessary to remain in power. War is costly, but some benefit. Hard to buy off a large number of people Since democracies share the burden of war relatively equally, democratic leaders have less incentive to fight.
35
What are the differences between proximate and underlying causes?
Prox: focus of historical research concerned about the proper nouns of the situation Under: focus of political science research concerned about the abstract details of the case
36
What is an underlying cause?
Why was this asking to happen? tells us how to address what caused the specific case and other otherwise dissimilar cases
37
What is the connections between leaders and uncertainty?
private info is introduced each time a new leader enters office intelligence on previous leader's resolve is thrown out process begins anew
38
Culture of Contracts
Behavioral explanation for the Democratic peace In democracies, citizens have incentive to cooperate through contractual agreements
39
Does war always make sense?
No. No it doesn't. Bargaining makes more sense a lot of the time and is almost always mutually beneficial
40
Pandering
the leader's decision may pander to their winning coalition. Electoral rules can distort international outcomes.
41
B causes A
Peace causes democracy
42
Are democratic countries more peaceful?
Kind of. Democracy + democracy = little war Dem + nondem= some nondem + nondem = some 2 and 3 equation are the same expectation. Democracies are only peaceful towards each other. Most dem v dem data we have is from post Cold War
43
Why might a government instate a tariff
to lead to higher prices on foreign products, protecting certain domestic industries. Effectively ruins trade and is bad for consumers, but creates another winner: the government
44
A and B cause each other
Democracy causes peace but peace also causes democracy
45
What is a militarized interstate dispute (MID)
Cases of conflict in which the threat, display or use of military force short of war by one member state is explicitly directed towards the government, official representatives, official forces, property, or territory of another state
46
Monitoring
The tradeoff between needing government secrecy and requiring government accountability
47
Be able to explain how the prisoner's dilemma works
The only reasonable outcome for this game is for both players to confess, even though the quiet/quiet outcome is preferable Regardless of player 2's choice, player one is better off confessing, and vice versa mutual confession outcome is not Pareto efficient
48
Be able to explain the algebraic and geometric model of bargaining v. war
God help you darling
49
Peace through insecurity
Leaders may still prefer a peace agreement for fear of the removal and punishment following poor war outcomes (War may threaten leader survival) P-A problem brings peace
50
When is trade efficient
At the country level
51
Principal agent problems
1) preferences not allowed 2) monitoring problems 3) future rewards unavailable
52
Grim trigger
Two players will cooperate for all of time, but if someone defects once, their opponent will defect every time onwards. As long as the other guy is nice, you'll be nice. He stops being nice, you never get to be nice again
53
Transparency
Rationalist explanations for war: uncertainty about resolve causes conflict.
54
The Key point of trading
The sum of economic gains by the winning manufacturers and consumers is greater than the economics losses by the losing manufacture
55
What is Anarchy?
The lack of political authority in IR, no one is sovereign over the sovereign is NOT CHAOS
56
Other types of interdependence
exchange of info Change of underlying preferences
57
Gambling for resurrection
When war goes poorly: for the state, peace negotiation is better strategy for leader: punishment after concession/negotiation
58
Why do power shifts lead to war? (Preventative war)
Declining states choose to fight because they prefer a costly war today to an efficient but disadvantageous peace tomorrow
59
The Unitary Actor Assumption
Assume that states are single entity, and their leaders are only interested in maximizing the overall welfare of the state Allows us to analyze the validity of these explanations
60
C causes A and B
wealth causes both peace and democracy
61
What are the barriers to free trade
Gains are highly dispersed Potential losers have the status quo advantage (more likely to be politically connected or have the money to lobby)
62
Please explain Pareto efficiency
Another outcome exists that is better for at least one party without leaving anyone worse off
63
Benevolent Cooperation
Stag hunt! They can credibly commit to cooperation in a one-shot game and the inefficient uncooperative outcome is still possible. It's a coordination gamee
64
How can rival states be uncertain about a democracy's level of resolve?
Public polling is readily available to everyone, including autocrats of the world. Less private info--> less war
65
What is correlation?
When A is present, B tends to be present as well Tells us nothing about causation and democracy
66
How does uncertainty cause war?
Disagreement over who will win Uncertain resolve
67
What is the payoff for cooperating infinitely?
1/(1-p)
68
A causes C which causes B. But D also causes C which causes B
Trade, democracy, and peace
69
Comparative advantage
If you're better at making everything, trade still works. Focus on opportunity cost, what someone has to give up to do something else.
70
Does the extent of the bad outcome matter?
Yes! Non-dem leaders have incentive to avoid randomly fighting wars
71
The McDonalds Peace Theory
Countries with McDonald's restaurants tend not to fight other countries with McDonald's restaurants. Was a perfect country until it wasn't. Countries with McDonalds tend to be better developed and open to trade.
72
How many states are in the world?
200
73
When is war rational when bargaining is an option?
Only rational if value of the good is much larger than the possible side payments
74
What does Autarkic mean? Give some examples of Autarkic states
Economic independency or self-sufficiency North Korea Taliban Afghanistan 1980s Romania Post-civil war spain
75
Treaty of Westphalia
Signed in 1648 Ended the 30 years war established the principle of sovereignty
76
Democratic accountability
Autocrats appear to find war more attractive because they do not pay costs Dems. face electoral accountability and have reason to appease Have pressure to do the right thing Less likely to win reelection if bad war
77
Can you recall the Mexican and California alcohol example and explain how it works
Tariffs everywhere cause everyone to lose (except for the protected businesses).
78
Problems with inferring causation
1. B causes A 2. A and B cause each other 3. C causes. A and B 4. A causes C which causes B. But D also causes C which causes B
79
Do first strike advantages outweigh costs?
Probably not The presence of first strike advantages shrinks the bargaining range, perhaps making it easier for other bargaining frictions to cause problems
80
Principal
citizens or selectorates select leaders to make decisions
81
The shadow of the future
fails to inspire cooperation if the game has a definite end
82
WTO
World Trade Organization Created by GATT renego. in 1995 Much bigger
83
The Democratic peace theory
Democracies tend to not fight other democracies
84
Culture of Contracts
Behavioral explanation: citizens have culture of cooperation
85
Transparency
Transparency reduces private information (uncertainty), which helps reduce war
86
Electoral incentives
Electorate-- the pool of individuals who can make up winning coalitions

international relations (1 decks)

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