World Politics Reading

World Politics Reading Digital Book Week 1: Chapter 1 Keywords and questions: World Politics : The study of how global actors’ activities entail the exercise of influence to achieve and defend their goals and ideals, and how it affects the world at large. Schematic Reasoning: The process of reasoning by which new information is being interpreted according to a memory structure, called a schema, which contains a network of generic scripts, metaphors, and simplified characterizations of observed objects and phenomena. Cognitive dissonance: The general psychological tendency to deny discrepancies between one’s pre-existing beliefs and new information. Mirror Images: The tendency of states and people in competitive interaction to perceive each other similarly—to see others in the same hostile way others see them. Enduring Rivalries: Prolonged competition fueled by deep-seated mutual hatred that leads opposed actors to feud and fight over a long period of time without resolution to their conflict. Actor: An individual, group, state, or organization that plays a major role in world politics. Power: The factors that enable an actor to change another actor’s behavior against its preferences. State sovereignty: A state’s supreme authority to manage internal affairs and foreign relations. State: An independent legal entity with a government exercising exclusive control over the territory and population it governs. Nation: A collectivity whose people see themselves as members of the same group because they share the same ethnicity, culture, or language. Ethnic Groups: People whose identity is primarily defined by their sense of sharing a common ancestral nationality, language, cultural heritage, and kinship. Intergovernmental Organizations IGOs: Institutions created and joined by states’ governments, which gives them authority to make collective decisions to manage particular Main Points: Learning Objectives: - Describe the core difficulty of investigating human phenomena such as international relations 1. people do not want to accept new ideas that do not conform to their prior beliefs. - Explain the different ways in which we perceive reality and how these perceptions influence international politics 1. How we perceive the world determines our attitudes, our beliefs, and our behaviors. 2. We also rely on our intuition without thinking and make emotional decisions 3. People are “nurtured” into their worldviews by their growing-up experiences and stereotype people based on those beliefs. 4. Change in beliefs is possible, but difficult. E.g. The Vietnam War changed the way Americans viewed the use of military force. - Identify foundational concepts and units of analysis used to access world politics 1. Know the terms and vocabulary 2. Identify the primary actors - Not all NGOs are positive. Eg. Drug cartels - Which actors are most active, influential, on which issues and under which conditions? 3. Distinguish levels of analysis - Foreign policy influences sift through a tight leveled strain to become foreign policy decisions. The levels of the strain are 1) systematic influences, 2) State or internal influences, 3) Individual influences, 4) policy-making process. - Start with the “what” question and then move from a description the an explanation with the “why” question. 4. Distinguish change, continuities, and cycles - It is important to reflect on the past to prevent it from being repeated. - Sometimes transformation is immediately obvious. Times include tragic events live 9/11. - Headlines are not trends, and a trend does not necessarily signal a transformation. - We can identify a new global system when we have a new answer to one of the following questions: 1) What are the system’s basic units for global governance? 2) What are the predominant foreign policy goals that these units seek with respect to one another? 3) What can these units do to one another with their military and economic capabilities?

problems on the global agenda. Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs): Transnational organizations of private citizens maintaining consultative status with the UN; They include professional associations, foundations, multinational corporations, or simply internationally active groups in different states joined together to work toward common interests. Levels of analysis: The different aspects of the agents in international affairs that may be stressed in interpreting and explaining global phenomena depending on whether the analyst chooses to focus on “wholes”(the complete global system and large collectives) or an “parts” (individuals states or people). Individual Level of Analysis: An analytical approach that emphasizes the phycological and perceptual variables motivating people, such as those who make foreign policy decisions on behalf of states and other global actors. State level Analysis: An analytical approach that emphasizes how the internal attributes of states influence their foreign policy and behaviors. Systemic level of analysis: An analytical approach that emphasizes the impact of worldwide conditions on foreign policy behavior and human welfare. Transformation: A change in the characteristic pattern of interaction among the most active participants in world politics of such magnitude that it appears that on “global system” has replaced another. Global system: The predominate patterns of behaviors and beliefs that prevail internationally to define the major worldwide conditions that heavily influence human and national activities. Great powers: The most powerful countries, military, and economically, in the global system. Anarchy: A condition in which the units in the global system are subjected to few, if any, overarching institutions to regulate their conduct. Cycles: The periodic reemergence of conditions similar to those that existed previously.

Summary: This chapter discussed some specific ways to study world politics. People are hesitant to change the way they view the world. Worldviews affect everything about a person. To study world politics, one must be able to know the terms, identify the actors, distinguish levels of analysis, and distinguish change, cycles, and continuities. Digital Book Week 1: Chapter 2 Keywords and questions: Theory: A set of hypotheses postulating the relationship between variables or conditions advanced to describe, explain, or predict phenomena, and make prescriptions about how to pursue particular goals and follow ethical principles. Paradigm: derived from the Greek paradeigma, meaning an example, a model, or an essential pattern. A paradigm structures thought about an area of inquiry. Neoconservative: a political movement in the United States calling for the use of military and economic power in foreign policy to bring freedom and democracy to other countries. Realism: a paradigm based on the premise that world politics is essentially and unchangeably a struggle among self-interested states for power and position under anarchy, with each competing state pursuing its own national interests. Self-Help: the principle that because in international anarchy all global actors are independent, they must rely on themselves to provide for their security and well-being. Relative Gains: conditions in which some participants in cooperative interactions benefit more than others. National Interest: the goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to be selfishly best for their country. Security Dilemma: the tendency of states to view the defensive army of adversaries as threatening, causing them to arm in response, so that all states’ security declines. Balance of Power: the theory that peace and stability are most likely to be maintained when military power is distributed to prevent a single superpower, hegemon, or bloc from controlling Main Points: Learning Objectives: 1. Identify how theories are defined and articulate why they are important in world politics. - Theories of international relations specify the conditions under which relationships between two or more factors exist, and explain the reasons for such linkages. - They deepen understanding of patterns - Theory has 3 important applications: 1) Diagnostic value: Helps policy makers asses issues they face by facilitating their ability to discern patterns and focus on important casual factors. 2) Prescriptive value: Provides a framework for conceptualizing strategies and policy responses. 3) Lesson-drawing value: Facilitates critical assessment so that policy makers reach accurate conclusions about the successes and failures of a policy. 2. Summarize the realist worldview, including its key concepts, evolution, and potential limitation. - The realist worldview centers around the idea that humans are inherently bad and therefore need strong government control. - Realism views the state as the most important actor on the world stage because it answers to no higher political authority. - World politics is a struggle for power. - Realism has roots reaching way back to ancient Greece. - Modern realism evolved after world war 2 - Realism has little criteria for determining how to react to situations so realist often disagree among themselves on policy decisions. - Realism has not pointed to any new development. 3. Summarize the liberal worldview, including its key concepts, evolution, and potential limitations. - Liberalists believe that humans are inherently good, so they opt for resolving conflict through the use of diplomacy and other similar options. - They believe in reason and the possibility of progress - They view the individual as the seat of moral value - Liberalism made its entrance after world war 1 - It is limited because they cannot force states to stop thinking from a realist perspective.

the world. Kellogg-Briand Pact: a multilateral treaty negotiated in 1928, that outlawed war as a method for settling interstate conflicts Neorealism: A theoretical account of states’ behavior that explains it as determined by differences in their relative power within the global hierarchy, defined primarily by the distribution of military power, instead of by other factors such as their values, types of government, or domestic circumstances. Agency: The capacity of an actor to make choices and achieve objectives. Defensive Realism: A variant of realist theory that emphasizes the preservation of power, as opposed to the expansion of power, as an actor’s primary security objective. Offensive Realism: A variant of realist theory that stresses that, in an anarchial international system states should always look for opportunities to gain more power. Neoclassical Realism: A variant of realist theory that explains state behavior in terms of the constraints of binding systemic level structure and the influence of domestic politics and perceptions of state policy makers. Liberalism: A paradigm predicated on the hope that the application of reason and universal ethics to international relations can lead to a more orderly, just, and cooperative world; Liberalism assumes that anarchy and war can be policed by institutional reforms that empower international organization and law. Diplomacy: Communication and negotiation between global actors that is not dependent upon the use of force and seeks a cooperative solution. Zero-sum: An exchange in a purely conflictual relationship in which what is gained by one competitor is lost by the other. Collective security: A security regime agreed to by the great powers that sets rules for keeping peace guided by the principle that an act of aggression by any state will be met by a collective response from the rest. Adjudication: A conflict-resolution procedure in which a third party makes a binding decision about a dispute in an institutional tribunal. Transnational relations: Interactions across state - They also tend to turn foreign policy into a moral crusade 4. Summarize, the constructivist, worldview, including its key concepts, evolution, and potential lamentations. - Constructivists think that world politics is best understood through the prism of intersubjective human actions and the socially constructed nature of political life. - The actors are nongovernment organizations and individuals. - It is all about the social aspect - Came about in the 20 th century - It si limited because it can explain change, but it cant really create change. - Additionally many view it as a theory and less of an actual worldview. 5. Discuss the tenets of feminism and Marxist perspectives, and illustrate how they diverge from those of realism, liberalism, and constructivism. - Feminist is all about exploring how gender identity shapes foreign policy decision making. - Marxist believe that the lack of authority has caused problems 6. Understanding the need for multiple theories and worldviews in developing a comprehensive understanding of world politics.

boundaries that involve at least one actor that is not the agent of a government or intergovernmental organization. Complex Interdependence: A model of world politics based on the assumptions that states are not the only important actors, security is not the dominate national goal, and military force is not the only significant instrument of foreign policy: this theory stresses crosscutting ways in which the growing ties among transnational actors make them vulnerable to each other’s actions and sensitive to each other’s needs. International regime: Embodies the norms, principles, rules and institutions around which global expectations unite regarding a specific international problem. Neoliberalism: The “new” liberak theoretical perspective that accounts for the way international institutions promote global change, cooperation, peace, and prosperity through collective programs for reforms. Responsibility to protect. (RtoP, R2P): Unanimously adopted in a resolution by the UN general assembly in 2005, this principle holds that the international community must help protect populations from war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Consequentialism: An approach to evaluation moral choices on the basis of the results of the action taken. Constructivism: A Paradigm based on the premise that world politics is a function of the ways that states construct and then accept images of relativity and later responds to the meanings given to power politics and consensual definitions change it is possible for either conflictual of cooperative practices to evolve. Social constructivism: A variant of constructivism that emphasizes the role of social discourse in the development of ideas and identities. Agent-oriented constructivism: A variant of constructivism that sees ideas and identities as influenced in part by independent actors. Norms: Generalized standards of behavior that once accepted, shape collective expectations about appropriate conduct. Feminist Theory: Body of scholarship that