PST Comps Flashcards
(46 cards)
Gideon Rose, Neoclassical Realism and Theories of FP
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.
Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory
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.
Robert Jervis, Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate
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.
Robert Pfaltzgraff and James Dougherty, Contending Theories of IR (Chp 2)
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.
Michael Nicholson, Realism and Utopianism Revisited
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.
Harry Clor, Woodrow Wilson
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.
Kenneth Waltz, The Theory of International Politics
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.
Jack Kalpakian, Ibn Khaldun’s Influence on Current IR Theory
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.”
Joseph Nye, The Future of Power
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.
Robert Dahl, The Concept of Power
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.
Barry Posen, Pull Back
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.
Hal Brands, Fools Rush Out: The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing
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.
Anthony Wanis-St John, Back-Channel Negotiation
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.
Dean Pruitt, Back-Channel Communication in the Settlement of Conflict
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.
Dennis Drew and Donald Snow, Grand Strategy
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.
Liddell Hart, Theory of Strategy
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.
Michael Howard, The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy
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.
Donald Nuechterlein, Defining National Interests
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.
Michael Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs
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.
Christopher Layne, Kant or Can’t: The Myth of the Democratic Peace
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.
John Owen, How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace
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.
Sebastian Rosato, The Flawed Logic of DPT
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.
Bruce Russett, Why Democratic Peace?
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.
John O’Neal and Bruce Russett, The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and IOs
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.
