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Complete Notes of the Lectures of Theories of International Relations
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Complete document from the lectures for Theories of International Relations. Sufficient to take the exam.
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Samenvatting Theories of International RelationsCollege 1 - Scientific Discipline
World Views & Theories
- help to manage the flood of information
- our worldviews result from socialization, historical experiences and our societal
position
- IR theories are somewhat akin to worldviews
→ depending on which we privilege, we consider particular actors, structures and
processes to be important and decisive
→ have served to organize and focus the disciplines
- characterization of theories
1. transcension of observable facts and historical incidents
2. identification of the essential and typical patterns and general causes, effects
and relationships
3. helps us formulate general statements with respect to these patterns, their
causes and effects
4. may be speculative
- selective function
- additional functions
1. descriptive
2. causal
3. normative
Building Blocks of Theories
1. actors
- societal actors
- disposition
2. structures
- normative structures (regulative vs. constitutive)
- resource-based structures
- distinction of voluntaristics and determistics theories
3. processes
- pattern of social interaction
- strategic processes (interdependence)
- normative process
4. dynamics
- feedback mechanism
,College 2 - Classic Realism I
Classic Realism (Morgenthau)
- background: philosophical roots in Machiavelli and Hobbes
→ theory to which other theories reacted
- principle of realism
1. politics are governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature
2. interest is defined in terms of power
→ politics as an autonomous sphere of action
→ amoral theory of politics
3. the second principle is a objective category that is universally valid
→ exact meaning of the concept is not fixed
4. the only moral is prudence: weighing the consequences of alternative political
actors
→ it is your official duty to act in the national interest
5. it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us
both from moral excess and political folly
6. intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere
Patterns of Balancing
1. direct opposition
2. competition
3. divide & rule
4. compensation
5. armaments
6. alliances
7. holder of the balance
→ structure of the balance of power: dominant and dependent states
College 3 - Classical Realism II
Evaluation of the Balance of Power
1. uncertainty
- exact power is difficult to measure
2. unreality
- requires to always seek maximum power, however this is never really
achieved
- limitless aspiration of power
- race to the top
3. use as ideology
- legitimization of the use of power through appeal to principles
- ‘in the name of the balance of power’
Lebow’s Perspective on Classic Realism
, - Order & Stability
a. no distinction between domestic and international politics
b. difference in degree in which order is provided
c. taming effects of community bonds
d. laws, institutions and norms direct the struggle of power into rationalized and
socially acceptable channels
→ variations across historical epochs
e. because of anarchy in IR, the struggle cannot readily be tamed
- Interest & Justice
a. strategies and tactics needed to transform raw attributes of power
b. power is not equal to influence (psychological relationship)
→ successful use of power requires sophisticated understandings of goals,
strengths and weaknesses
c. influence without the regard of justice is irrational and self-defeating
→ regard of justice is important, because it determines how other understand
and respond to you, and it is a powerful source of self-restraint (Machiavelli)
- Change & Modernization
a. shifting identities and discourses
→ undermines values and norms which had restrained individual and state
b. solution: restoring order
College 5 - Structural Realism I
Waltz’ Perspective on Realism
- behaviouralism: law-like statements of international politics
→ parsimonious theory
- comparison to economics
- three images
1. individual behaviour
2. societal framework
3. framework of world politics
→ according to Waltz, 3 provides the best explanation
- reductionist theories
a. internal forces produces external outcome
b. unit-level explanation
c. theory about the behaviour of parts
- systematic theories
a. structure of system acts as constraining and disposing forces
b. explains why units show similar behaviour despite of differences
→ explains continuities, recurrences and repetitions
Problems with Reductionist Theories
1. it cannot explain similar outcome despite unit-level differences
2. the texture of international politics remains highly constant: the relations prevail
international seldom shifts rapidly in type of quality
→ they are marked instead of dismaying persistence
Political Structures
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