Week 6 Flashcards
(21 cards)
What are the key aspects of liberal political thought?
- Belief in primacy of reason
- Toleration of differences
- Individual freedom
- Opposition to arbitrary governance (monarchy)
- Hostility to militarism and emphasis on peace
- Support for demcoracy
What are some domestic policy implications of liberalism?
- Political inclusion and extension of rights
- Freedom of speech, association and political dissent
- Even application of the rule of law
- Multi-party elections and political pluralism within the state
- Maximisation of political and economic freedoms (small state, free market)
What are some international policy implications of liberalism?
- Collective security through treaties and institutions
- International law and human rights, freedom of movement, to seek asylum, from enslavement
- Extension of the market, free trade and even application of trade rules
- Economic development and reduction of poverty
- Encouragement of the expansion of democracy
What are some liberal global institutions?
- UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, World Health Organisation
What was the First Great Debate and when did it take place?
- A realist critique of idealism
- 1930s - 1940s
- Concerned how to deal with Nazi Germany
- Realists emphasised the anarchical nature of international politics and the need for state survival
- Idealists emphasised the possibility of international institutions (e.g. League of Nations)
What were E.H. Carr’s contributions to the First Great Debate?
- Left a foundation stone for realist theory in (1939 The Twenty Year’s Crisis)
- Saw history as a sequence of cause and effect, can be analysed by intellectual effort NOT (as utopians believe) directed by imagination
- Theory does not create practise (as utopians believe), instead practise creates theory
- Politics not (as utopians believe) a function of ethics, but ethics are a function of politics
Who was E.H. Carr?
- Historian, Diplomat, Author, Journalist, IR theorist
- Covered history of Soviet Union
- Attended 1919 Paris Peace Conference
- Increasing left-leaning over course of career
Who was Hans Morgenthau?
- Academic, Intellectual, participant in public sphere
- Survivor of the Holocaust
- Consultant to the US State Department twice
What were Hans Morgenthau’s views?
- Critical of marxism and nationalism
- Aligned with Machiavelli
- Development and foreign aid is a ruse which masks real political interests (eg. EU/Turkey migrant deal)
What did Hans Morgenthau’s 1948 text “Politics Among Nations” outline?
- Human Nature is flawed
- Power drives all action
- Ethics is shaped by self-interest
What are some types of foreign aid?
- Humanitarian (altruistic)
- Subsistence (maintaining or supporting oneself, especially at a minimal level)
- Military
- Bribery
- Prestige
- Economic Development
What are the realist critiques of liberalism?
- The Great Divide
- Anarchy
- Statism, Survival, Self-Help, Sovereignty (4 S’s)
- Power
- National Interest
- Balance of Power
What are some critiques of realism?
- There is no great divide, cannot separate the domestic and international
- Identity politics, individual and state identities
- Non-state actors, terrorists, civil society, whistle blowers
- Non-state issues, climate change, GFC
What are some critiques of liberalism?
- Naivety
- Are there really universal values?
- Is there hidden a mask of self-interest? imperialism?
- Not as democratic as it purports
- Cooperation of some states occurs at the expense of others
What are the 4 frameworks for understanding the current international system?
- International anarchy
- International society
- Global governance
- Globalisation
Why the Cold War matters
- Represents culmination of global ideological conflicts
- Risk of global annihilation was arguably at its peak
- It helped determine the current economic and political distribution of power
- De-colonisation changed nature of continents and the UN
How was the Cold War a time of change?
- Absence of great power wars
- Development of nuclear weapons
How was the Cold War a time of continuity?
- Great power struggles
>Communism vs. Capitalism
>Democracy vs. Totalitarianism
Why did the Cold War start? (Individual level)
- Difference of perceptions and views of Roosevelt, Truman, Mao and Stalin
Why did the Cold War start? (State level)
- Clash between identities democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism
- Western imperialism and capitalist expansion
Why did the Cold War start? (System level)
- Bi-polarity of US and USSR’s military power
