International relations (IR) summary for final term
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Course
International relations (73210027FY)
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
This is a comprehensive summary of the second part of international relations (bsc political science at uva). It includes notes from all the lectures relevant for the final term. For this exam I received a 8.8 having used this summary for studying. Good luck!
LECTURE II.1
One discussion has long prevailed in American foreign policy: should there be isolationism
or internationalism?
This has especially been the case after the end of the second world war (with the impact of
total war), after the Vietnam war and after the end of the Cold War (with the end of history it
was thought that there was no need for an active foreign policy).
However, internationalism is the side of the discussion that has actually materialised in
American foreign policy. This was the result of America being too big of a country and having
too many vested interests abroad to isolate.
There are different varieties of internationalism; Hamiltonianism and Wilsonianism - as
coined by Mead in 2002 (special providence).
Hamiltonianism is the kind of internationalism that stands for power politics. It is the idea that
involves defending American vested interest abroad. It is more in line with the realist,
unilateral and perhaps republican thinking. Unilateralism is the idea that America needs no
support from its allies.
Wilsonianism is the kind of internationalism that stands for an open-door policy and making
the world safe for democracy. It is more in line with the liberal tradition, a world-order
strategy and perhaps the democrats. Moreover, multilateralist in the sense that it
emphasises the role of cooperation and alliances.
That this is the divide between republican and democrats - we’ll see that it is not necessarily
the case.
There are different kinds of decision making theories within the study of foreign policy:
- Rational actor model (RAM): This theory takes the state as a unitary/rational actor; so
one we talk of the US foreign policy we talk of it as a singular actor. Here the foreign
policy does not depend on political affiliations, rather there is an action-reaction
pattern that enables prediction.
- The Bureaucratic politics model: This criticises the above model in two ways:
1. The state is not a unitary actor, rather the state/bureaucracy is composed of
different and sometimes even competing elements. This is because there are
different and competing interests within the state apparatus.
=> The bureaucracy in the EU and the US, for instance, is very complex and
can as a result not be regarded as a unitary actor.
=> Different sectors within the bureaucracy have different interests.
2. Within these sectors, group-thinking can occur which causes individuals to
make suboptimal and irrational decisions. Thus, individuals are not rational.
- Cognitive processes/constructivist turn: Focuses on the psychological aspects of the
decision-making process. It stresses that there are cognitive constraints, especially in
times of crisis. This inhibits the individual from being rational. Moreover,
constructivists claim that norms, values, ideas, and traditions are important in
explaining the foreign policy of states. For instance, in terms of strategic cultures; e.g.
Scandinavian countries in their tradition in their development policies or the Swedish
tradition of being neutral.
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,- Theory of the military-industrial complex: This was a pluralist approach and an elite
theory to the making of foreign policy. It focused on the powerful alliance between the
ministry of defence, the army ad the defence industry. This was a new group-thinking
focused on continuation. It turned to rationality or, more specifically, bounded
rationality.
=> Dwight Eisenhower said that the military-industrial complex was:
- unwanted influence;
- potential for misplaced power;
- endangering the liberty of the American people;
- endangering the democratic process and;
- had vested interest in an arms race with the USSR.
=> But has this complex lost its value in the post-Cold-War era with the end of the
arms-race?
- The comparative politics approach: This approach sought to compare different
(independent) variables explaining the foreign policy. This was the essence of
Rossenau’s pre-theory.
Examples are given in the next two pictures of different objects of comparison:
=> The ambition was to create a typology of foreign policy to address correlations.
=> But the list of issues have changed in the post-cold war era: e.g. security in this
new context can not be narrowly defined as military security.
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, => The conclusion, as presented in J/S/M is that there is no single theory that can explain
the formulation, operationalisation and implementation of foreign policies.
=> Both the comparative politics approach and the bureaucratic politics model are critiquing
on the rational actor model.
The Cold War had an impact on the development of IR as a subject:
- The structural neorealist meaning and defensive realism (Waltz).
- The combination of the balance of power (bipolarity) and the spheres of influence.
- The security dilemma that resulted from the build-up of nuclear weapons and IBMs
(MAD: mutual assured destruction) which lead to the arms race.
=> This is an alternative explanation to the Cold War which explains the Cold-War
through action-reaction.
- The three worlds and the primacy of the East-West confrontation.
=> The third world (those who did not want to chose) was always seen in the
dilemma of what to chose.
- The clash/war of ideologies.
- The real and existing alternative; that communism would infiltrate in the West and
that the liberalism would infiltrate in the East.
The move from the Cold War to the post-Cold-War gave rise to the International Security
Studies (ISS).
Around the 1990s the Copenhagen School of ISS/Critical School became prominent.
During the Cold War, especially after the Second World War;
- the focus was on preventing wars.
- security was narrowly defined as the absence of nuclear war.
- But with Critical Peace Studies security was broadened. The notion of positive peace
developed; this entails the absence of causes of war both between states and people
as opposed to negative peace which merely is the absence of war. Thus positive
peace focuses on structural violence, e.g. poverty and inequality. Moreover, with the
oil crisis and the crisis of Fordism environmental consciousness and economic
security also grew in importance in relation to security.
With the end of the Cold War, there was a deepening of security studies. Some keywords in
this deepening includes:
- Societal security: Focuses on the protection of national identity during globalisation
(e.g. because of migration)
- Human security: Focuses on the level of individuals and includes, among others;
human rights, health, welfare and unemployment.
- Securitisation: This is the ideas that something that was not a problem becomes a
problem and a matter of security (e.g. migration). It can also work the other way
around, this is termed de-securitisation.
- Post-colonialism: This argues that security studies during the Cold War was centred
on the West. Thus, it concentrated on the security concerns of the West. It then
argues that we should also focus on security in the post-colonial countries and that
we should focus on migration not only to the West but also (the majority) migration to
neighbouring countries.
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