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A general statement that explains causes and effect of classes of phenomenon.
-Theories are used a general statements as means why explaining international conflict.
-They can be seen as a filter for looking at a complicated picture, or a "lense"
-Mingst and Toft claimed that International Relations, because so complicated and multi-facetted, is explained through theories!
EX: realism, idealism, etc |
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Mingst and Toft were the Authors of "Approaches to International Relations." They thought that internation relations was best studied through means of theories, or generalized statements in order to explain causes AND effects of phenomena!
*USE For referencing the definition theory |
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An education prediction about something that will occur based on a theory!
-The ability to hypothesize plays for the argument that political scientists are like chemists, using scientific method to apply hypothesis
-Hypotheses are use to study causal relationship between things |
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| This is how hypotheses derived from theories are tested, using the scientific method to carry out experiments to find a casual effect |
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| Evidence is empirical examples that support hypotheses. It is broken up into qualitative and quantitative. |
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| Overlap of Theory, Hypothesis, and Evidence |
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| A theory is an explanation of a international phenomena (explaining the occurrence of a war), a hypothesis is a prediction made based off of this theory, and evidence is empirical examples (either qualitative or quantitative) that support this hypothesis or prediction |
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This is one of the international political theories. It lies under the core assumption that human nature is fundamentally good. Under this view, all internatinal conflict is a result of bad environment or institutions that lead to conflict.
-There is a high importance of democracy, capitalism, and cooperation
-Woodrow Wilson is an example of an idealist! He believed that international peace was possibly if the right criteria was put into place, created the 14 points! |
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Wilson's 14 points was an example of idealism! After WWI, Wilson wanted to be sure that something like that never occurred again. To do so, he created his "14 Points" or ideas that would prevent this. They included no secret alliances, freedom of the seas to trade, the League of nations, etc.
USE for Discussing Idealism! |
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This is one of the international political theories. It is the idea that human nature is fundamentally bad, being the opposite of idealism! It is the idea that our human nature is what drive international conflict
-According to Morganthau, International Politics is a struggle for true political power! |
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| Morgenthau was a realist. He claimed that international politics is a nations struggle in terms of power, and that human nature is to conquer and dominate as much as it can! |
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| Thucydides (Melian Dialogue) |
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USE THIS AS AN EXAMPLE FOR REALISM
This was the story describing the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta. It showed how the Athenians showed no mercy to the Melians, when the Melians concluded they wanted to remain neutral, the Athenians attacked them and conquered their territory. |
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This is one of the international political theories. It is based on the idea that international conflict can be explained through economic means, as opposed to being explained by human nature via idealism and realism.
-It is explained in furhter by Johan Galtung, who explained Marxism as two classes of people, the core and the periphery, and the conflict between social classes is what leads to international conflict |
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| Galtung was a Marxist, who believed that there were 2 classes of people, the core (people who control those in the periphery) and the periphery (the workers themselves). Conflict amongst these conditions leads to conflict amongst nations |
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| The was another international political theory. It, unlike realism however, believed that the structure of the political system, and international polarity through distribution of power are what dictate conflict. It is NOT related to human behavior, stating that states act rationally to ensure their survival. Belief that the international system was run by super powers! This was introduced by Kenneth Waltz |
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| Kenneth Waltz was the one who essentially created neorealism, by first coining the idea of international polarity. It was this concept of polarity among super power nations that is the foundation of Neorealism |
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Neoliberalism is an international political theory. It states that nations will always behave "rationally" or do what they can to optimize their own payoffs.
-It is the theory that states that because nations are looking to maximize their own payoffs, cooperation is possible, and the liklihood depends on a nations tendencies.
-In order to aid this cooperation, they believed in International Institutions as the means of allowing nations to cooperate to by finding their best outcome
-The theory demonstrated the Prisoners dilemna, or the idea that a nation will act within its best interest |
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| This is a game theory game, but it is also a staple in the idea of Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the notion that a nation will always do what it can to maximize its own payoffs, or "act rationally." However, that may not always lead to the best outcome, and it is the job of International Institutions to ensure cooperation exists to allow the best social outcome to occur. PD exemplfies this, with one of the nations (players) dominated strategies yielding higher payoffs than the dominant one of both cheating |
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This is an international political theory. It states that international relations is constructed by social interactions of people and states, and that our relations between nations is constantly being "constructed," or the process of interaction with each other shapes how we are to act with each other.
-This can be applied to individual social contexts as well, as constructivists explain why social norms occur
-EX: The US is more worried about North Korean Nuclear Weapons than that of Israel's, because they feel that Israel understands the social constructs of how to behave with these weapons better than North Korea does |
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| Decision Making Approaches |
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This is an international political theory! It states that international relations is affected directly by the decisions of the individuals or leaders of different interacting countries, and their personalities and psychologies.
*Professor Dyson is considered a Decision making approaches!
-Examples are the cuban missle crisis (kennedy, castro, krushchev interaction) or the 2003 Iraq War (Bush and Saddam Hussein) |
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| International Institutions |
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According to Mearsheimer, International institutions are a set of rules that stipulate the ways in which states should cooperate with each other.
*HOWEVER, Mearsheimer OPPOSED international institutions
-International instituions work along with the theory of Neoliberalism for a realm for which nation states can act rationally and cooperate with one another.
-EX: league of nations, European Union, Etc |
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This is an example of an International Institution. It was set up in 1919 after WWI in order to prevent another conflict
-It was proposed by Woodrow Wilson in his 14 points
-It was considered a failure, The US never joined, needed unanimous decision to vote on things, and it could not stand up to dictators in the 1930s! |
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It was set up in 1945, in order to represent the great powers that make international decisions.
-The 5 constant members are US, China, Russia, UK, and France. It also have 15 rotating members and 195 member states.
-It created things such as the Principle of collective security which proposed that War is only legitimate in self defense |
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Currently 28 Members of European countries who work together to encourage economic, social, political, and security integration.
-It was done so to develop a single market and free trade area. Worked on things such as Universal currency (in 2001 Euro was introduced) |
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This crises was brought out by a crash in the US housing market. Loans were given to people who could not afford to repay them, and these risk loads were hidden in complex bundles of loans called CDOs, and sold as safe ones!
-Eventually people couldn't afford their homes and caused the housing markets bubble to burst!
-This lead to a loss of confidence in numerous aspects of the government, and banks had to be bailed out by government (and tax payer).
-This also lead to global imbalance between US and China, with the US borrow a lot from them
-There were also deregulation of financial system, and eventually lead to massive public debt and a recession |
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This was a documentary directed by Errol Morris about the life and lessons learnt from the life of Robert McNamara, former US Secretary of Defense. In the movie Robert McNamara went over his 11 most vital lessons he learned from his experiences in life mainly as Defense Secretary. A few of these lessons were:
-Emphasize with your enemy
-International Warfare should have Proportionality
-Get the Data
-Be Prepared to reexamine your reasoning
-Never say never
Can't change human nature |
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This was a Documentary directed by Charles Ferguson and narrated by Matt Damon. It covers the Global Financial Crisis and sought out to find what exactly caused it. The documentary blamed political and economic elites for allowing the crisis, claiming that it ended with them getting their best interests
These included those who were financiers, auditors, regulators, academics, etc
*Title is a reference of robbing the bank from the inside
-It argues for much more regulation of banks so they may not get away with over lending again |
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