Summary

Midterm Exam Readings Summary

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Course
Core module International relations (73220031LY)

Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)

Readings covered: Introduction, Waltz (1959) Here's Why Mearsheimer's Realist Take is So Exasperating, Pepinksy (2022) Global International Relations and Regional Worlds, Acharya (2014) Theoretical Perspectives of Global Political Economy, O'Brien and Williams (2016) Social Forces, States, ...

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unveristy of amsterdam
readings notes
midterm exam
core module international relations

Institution
Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
Education
Politicologie
Course
Core module International relations (73220031LY)

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1. Summary - Ir readings and lecture notes for final exam
2. Summary - Midterm exam readings summary
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Midterm Summary

Week 1: Realism vs Idealism

“Introduction,” Waltz (1959)

- Balance of power approaches: even if a state may want peace, it may have to
undertake a preventative war; if it does not strike first when the movement is
favorable, it may be struck later when the advantage has shifted to the other side
- Answers to “where are the major causes of war to be found” can be ordered
under three headings/images: within man (international actors), within the
structure of separate states, and within the state system (anarchic in nature)
- To estimate the merit of propositions, ask the following questions:
1. Can the final proposition be implemented, and how?
2. Does the prescription attack the assigned causes?
3. Is the image adequate?
4. How will attempts to fill the prescription affect other goals?

“Here’s Why Mearsheimer’s Realist Take is So Exasperating,” Pepinsky (2022)

- Problem with Mearsheimer’s analysis is that realism conflates description with
prescription; people want IR to explain “how the world works,” “how it should
work,” and “what should we do given how the world works”
- Realist way of thinking is indeterminate because it leads to statements about
what state’s security interests which are lacking intelligence or subjective

“Global International Relations and Regional Worlds,” Acharya (2014)

- IR has neither fully accounted for nor come to terms with colonialism and its
legacy; thus the IR community is complicit in the marginalization of the
postcolonial world in developing the discipline
- Global International Relations:
1. Founded upon a pluralistic universalism; not “applying to all,” but
recognizing and respecting diversity around us
2. Grounded in world history

, 3. Includes existing IR theories and methods
4. Integrates the study of regions, regionalism, and area studies, and views
them as dynamic, purposeful, and socially constructed spaces
5. Avoids exceptionalism (presenting characteristics of one’s own group as
homogenous, unique, and superior, which justifies domination)
6. Recognizes multiples forms of agency beyond material power, including
resistance, normative action, ideation, and local constructions of global
order; ignored the statescraft that existed in non-Western civilizations

Week 2: Realism vs Liberalism vs Marxism

“Theoretical Perspectives of Global Political Economy,” O’Brien and Williams (2016)

Aspect Economic Nationalist Liberal Critical

Major figures Hamilton, List, Krasner, Smith, Ricardo, Kant, Marx, Lenin, Frank, Cox
Gilpin, Strange Wilson, Keynes, Hayek,
Keohane, Nye

Variants Mercantilism, realism Free trade, Marxism, feminism,
interdependence environmentalism

Human nature Aggressive Cooperative Malleable

Units States Firms, states, NGOs, Class, gender, planet,
IGOs, individuals global capitalism

View of states Unitary actor Pluralist state: diverse Representative of class
interest interest groups

View of TNCs Beneficial/harmful Beneficial Exploitative

Behavioral dynamic State as power seeking Individual as rational Dominance and
rational actor actor but outcomes not exploitation within and
always optimal between societies

Market relations Potentially negative Positive Exploitative

System structure Anarchy/conflictual Cooperative/ Hierarchy/conflictual
interdependence

Game metaphor Zero sum Positive sum Zero sum

Hegemony Importance of a Post-hegemonic Hegemony in state and

, dominant state cooperation society

International Not very significant Important Serve interests of
institutions wealthy (states, firms,
classes)

“Social Forces, States, and World Orders,” Cox (1981)

- Theory can serve two distinct purposes:
1. To be a guide to help solve the problems posed within the terms of the
perspective; prevailing social and power relations and institutions as
given framework, aim is to make relations work smoothly; fragmented
among a multiplicity of spheres or aspects of action
2. To become clearly aware of the perspective which gives rise to theorizing
and its relation to other perspectives and to open the possibility of
choosing different valid perspectives; asks how world order came about
and origins of social and power relations and institutions

Week 3: Positivism vs Constructivism

“Anarchy is What States Make of it,” Wendt (1992)

- Self-help and power politics do not follow logically or causally from anarchy and
if we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process not structure; they
are institutions not essential features of anarchy
- Collective meanings constitute the structure which organize our actions; actors
acquire identities, and identities are relational
- An institution is a stable set or “structure” of identities and interests often
codified in formal rules and norms, but only in virtue of actor’s socialization to
and participation in collective knowledge
- The process of signaling, interpreting, and responding completes a “social act”
and begins the process of creating intersubjective meanings and concepts of the
self and the other regarding the issue at stake in the interaction
- Competitive systems of interaction are prone to security dilemmas;
aggressive behavior of predators forces other states to engage in
competitive power politics, source of predation also matters

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