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Flashcards in ID's For MIDTERM Deck (45)
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1
Q

Sovereignty

A
  1. the expectation of legal or political supremacy– ultimate authority– within territorial boundaries.
  2. Since all states are sovereign, the international system is in a condition of Anarchy.
  3. In the modern system of ‘states,’ states are expected to respect one another’s sovereignty within their borders.
2
Q

Interests

A
  1. what actors want to achieve through political action.
  2. There are three main categories of interests that
    are most relevant to IP: Power and Security, Economic or Material Welfare and Ideological Goals
  3. Interests at any level can conflict, and strategic interaction with other actors explains why not all actors can obtain their interests, even when playing a best response strategy
3
Q

Power

A
  1. The ability of Actor A to get Actor B to do something that it would not otherwise do.
  2. In international Politics, the more power an actor has, the more it can expect to get in the final outcome of bargaining.
  3. There are three ways that power is exercised in IP: using coercion, outside options or through agenda setting
4
Q

Cooperation

A
  1. An interaction in which two or more actors adopt policies that make at least one actor better off relative to the status quo without making others worse off.
  2. Cooperation gives small social benefits to a lot of people but has a large individual cost.
  3. While society would benefit from collective
    cooperation, each individual prefers to defect, as shown in Prisoners Dilemma
5
Q

Particularistic Interests?

A
  1. Interests held by only a relatively small
    number of actors within the country, such as a particular business, an ethnic minority group, or individuals within government.
  2. Staying in power requires that autocratic leaders to prioritize policies that keep selectorates satisfied, privileging particularistic interests over the public good.
  3. It can be argued that oil in the middle east is a particularistic interest rather than a national interest because companies stand to gain a lot from access to Middle East oil supplies.
6
Q

Realism

A
  1. Realism is an international politics theory based on the idea that states are unitary, self interested actors, driven by national interests of maximizing security and power.
  2. Realists assert that because of the anarchic nature of the international system, international institutions are weak and exert little independent effect on world politics.
  3. Many important political figures have their
    views shaped by this theory, in fact, most scholars and politicians during the Cold War viewed international relations through a realist lens
7
Q

Credibility

A
  1. A credible threat is a threat that the recipient believes will be carried out, while a credible commitment is a commitment or promise that the recipient believes will be honored.
  2. Sometimes the information that would allow peaceful bargains and prevent war cannot be credibly communicated.
  3. Credibility is hard to achieve because it is costly and Sometimes states have an incentive to misrepresent information; therefore, a state must build its credibility
8
Q

Prisoner’s Dilemma

A
  1. The Prisoners dilemma is game that shows that While society would benefit from collective
    cooperation, each individual prefers to defect
  2. Analysts have used the Prisoner’s Dilemma to capture the essential strategic dilemma at the core of the collective action problem.
  3. Arms races can be modeled as a prisoners dilemma situation because each individual’s incentive to defect undermines their collective interest in cooperation in disarmament.
9
Q

Resolve

A
  1. The willingness of an actor to endure costs in order to acquire some good.
  2. Resolve has a direct impact on how much of the state’s potential capabilities are actually mobilized in the event of war.
  3. When states have incomplete information about the capabilities and/ or resolve of their opponents, bargaining over goods that they both desire may fail to achieve peaceful settlements.
10
Q

Capabilities

A
  1. Capabilities refers to the state’s physical ability to prevail in war: the number of troops it can mobilize, the number and quality of its armaments, the economic resources it has to sustain the war effort.
  2. States may have private information concerning its true capability which, if the other state knew it, would open bargains.
  3. When states have incomplete information about the capabilities and/ or resolve of their opponents, bargaining over goods that they both desire may fail to achieve peaceful settlements.
11
Q

Incomplete Information

A
  1. A situation in which parties in a strategic interaction lack information about other parties’ interests and/or capabilities.
  2. Incentive to misrepresent information can keep states from bargaining ex ante lead to war
  3. When states have incomplete information about the capabilities and/ or resolve of their opponents, bargaining over goods that they both desire may fail to achieve peaceful settlements.
  4. Media and opposition solves information problems by creating transparency
12
Q

Bargaining

A
  1. Bargaining describes an interaction in which actors must choose outcomes that make one better off at the expense of another because it involves the the distribution of a fixed value.
  2. Incentive to misrepresent information, commitment problems and issues of indivisibility keep states from bargaining ex ante.
  3. We typically represent war as a bargaining interaction. In the case of the Iraq War, the United States and Iraq were not cooperating but bargaining over the latter’s WMD programs and, ultimately, its regime.
13
Q

Preventive War:

A
  1. A war fought with the intention of preventing an adversary from becoming stronger in the future.
  2. It arise because states whose power is increasing cannot commit not to exploit that power in future bargaining interactions.
  3. Both preemption and prevention arise from the difficulty states can have in making credible commitments not to use their military power.
14
Q

Preemptive War

A
  1. A war fought with the anticipation that an
    attack by the other side is imminent.
  2. Preemption is the response from a state to an imminent threat when there is an already existing first-strike advantage.
  3. Both preemption and prevention arise from the difficulty states can have in making credible commitments not to use their military power.
15
Q

Diversionary Incentive

A
  1. The incentive that state leaders have to start international crises in order to “Rally ‘round the flag” (gain public support)
  2. The Rally Effect shows us that there is incentive for leaders to start diversionary wars if they are insecure about their approval ratings
  3. However, while diversionary incentives may increase chance of war, they account for only a small portion of the conflict behavior we observe.
16
Q

Democratic Peace

A
  1. the observation that mature democratic states have rarely, if ever, engaged in a war against one another.
  2. Using selectorate theory, we can see how democracies with large W have incentive to follow the will of the people, which is avoid war and the burden of HIGH cost associated with it.

Consequently, democracies enter fewer wars, but in the wars they
do enter, they expend more eort.

  1. Democratic peace has been used to argue that to ensure our security and build peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere.
  2. Audience Costs solve commitment Problems
  3. Media and opposition solve information problem by creating a transparency.
17
Q

Domestic Institutions

A
  1. Domestic institutions determine the rules of political decision making within the state.
  2. Domestic institutions play key role in accountability, or the ability to punish or reward leaders for the decisions they make.
  3. Democratic Domestic Institutions can overcome bargaining problems that may otherwise lead to war
  4. Domestic institutions determine who is included in N, S and W . This means domestic institutions determine the size of N, S and W
18
Q

Selectorate Theory

A
  1. Selectorate identifies institutions that determines
    • the size of the group that can put a leader in power S
    • the size of the group whose support the leader actually requires to stay in power W as the relevant ones
  2. One theory of how domestic political institutions influence the choices political leaders make, especially about war.
  3. Helps us compare countries by comparing the types of institutions they have.
19
Q

Rally Effect

A
  1. The tendency for people to become more supportive of their country’s government in response to dramatic international events, such as crises or wars.
  2. The Rally Effect shows us that International conflict can create a diversion from problems
    internal conflict
  3. As shown in Bush’s approval rating following 9/11, leaders gain support in form approval ratings, which jump up at the onset of a war/int crisis
20
Q

Balance of Power

A
  1. An Alliance that forms between states to counter a state that is becoming too powerful.
  2. International Peace is more secure when no
    state/alliance is strong enough to dominate
    others.
  3. States tend to join the weakest alliances in
    conflicts, balancing power and avoiding
    conflicts.
21
Q

Audience Costs

A
  1. Negative repercussions for failing to follow through on a threat or to honor a commitment.
  2. Audience Costs solve commitment Problems because there is a cost in reputation associated with failing to follow through
  3. Audience Cost can also help to convey credibility in communicating a threat, so it is more believable
22
Q

Collective Security Organization

A
  1. Broad- based institutions that promote peace and security among their (universal) members. Examples include the League of Nations and the United Nations.
  2. When one state takes actions that are “a threat to international peace and security,” all members of the organization are called on to act against the state.
  3. They are the closest thing to international peace police because Serve as neutral observers and mediators
23
Q

UN Security Council

A
  1. The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security
  2. Security Council can authorize PEACEKEEPING and PEACE ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS
  3. Unfortunately, Substantive resolution is hard to achieve because Unanimity can be hard to achieve
24
Q

Alliance

A
  1. An alliance is Institutions that help their members cooperate militarily in the event of a war.
  2. Alliances form between international states
    States tend to join the weakest alliances in
    conflicts, balancing power and avoiding
    conflicts.
  3. A spontaneous alliance or drop of alliance can significantly change the bargaining interaction between two states,
25
Q

Collective Action Problem

A
  1. Obstacles to cooperation that occur when actors have incentives to collaborate but each acts in anticipation that others will pay the costs of cooperation.
  2. While society would benefit from collective
    cooperation, each individual prefers to defect.
  3. Even though everyone wants the public good to be provided, each individual has an incentive to free ride by not contributing while benefiting from the efforts of others.
  4. Small Economic interest Groups for example are More efficient in lobbying for war than those who pay
    for the war — collective action problem.
26
Q

Insurgency

A
  1. Insurgency is a military strategy
    characterized by small, lightly armed bands practicing
    guerrilla warfare from rural base areas
  2. This elusiveness helps to explain why civil wars often endure for years or decades and rely on international intervention, even when the rebel forces number only in the hundreds or low thousands.
  3. Civil Wars are fought using insurgencies therefore countries that are at risk of civil war have conditions that favor insurgency.
27
Q

Civil War

A
  1. A war in which the main participants are within the same state, such as the government and a rebel group.
  2. Over half of the peacekeeping interventions by the UN were deployed to conflicts within single states; therefore, it is a international political issue
  3. Furthermore Civil wars affect international politics because of the Spillover effect that tends to occur.
28
Q

Natural Selection

A
  1. Among a group of organisms with variation in heritable traits, those better suited to reproduce will reproduce more, resulting in a population with more of their heritable traits in the future.
  2. There is a evolutionary Account of Violence and war, which shows us that Natural selection favors strategic violence.. sometimes
  3. So the question is: would being more war-prone or peace-loving make it more likely that one reproduces?
    And remember, organisms are evolving among other organisms. Unconditional peace-loving can be exploited. Unconditional war-prone get in violent con
    icts and may die before reproducing
29
Q

Cognitive Biases

A
  1. Psychologically based biases that influence decision making for political leaders
  2. Cognitive biases matter more for foreign policy in cases where individuals play a large role
  3. If the decision making process is distorted by cognitive biases, decisions can be compromised
30
Q

Given that war is costly, why couldn’t states just agree to a
peaceful bargain over the object of interest ex ante and avoid the costs of war?
What keeps states from bargaining ex ante?

A
  • Incentive to misrepresent information
  • commitment problems
  • issues of indivisibility
31
Q

Explanations for war

National Interest v. Pluralistic interest

A

National interest:
– Private Information with incentives to misrepresent
– Commitment Problem
– Indivisibility Problem

• Particularistic interests:
– Diversionary wars
– Special Interests

32
Q

Examples of commitment problem

A
  • Nuclear proliferation.
  • First strike advantage.
  • Preventative wars.
33
Q

Indivisibility

A

Bargains require a bargain range.
• If good is indivisible, there is none
However, the idea of indivisibility is often used
as a bargaining tool.

34
Q

Diversionary wars:

A
  • resurrection bramble

- rall around the flag

35
Q

Domestic reasons for War

A
1. Diversionary Incentive
– Rally ‘round the flag 
– Resurrection Gamble
2. Particularistic Interests
Special Interest:
– Military 
– Economic Interests (Iraq War; Guatemala)
– Hawkish Interests
36
Q

Resurrection Gamble

A
  1. Leaders may try high risk policies (like war) when
    doing nothing is certainly bad (like being ousted).
  • After a loss, politicians become reckless.
37
Q

Nash Equilibrium:

A

no player has an incentive to change their strategy given the strategies chosen by others.

38
Q

Pareto Efficient:

A

no other outcome to the game would be better for one player without being worse for the other player(s).

39
Q

Three sets of actors in selectorate theory

A

N=Residents of a country
(the class)
S= Selectorates
- set of people who have at least a nominal say in choosing leaders
- can become members of winning coalition
(ppl in first row)
W= Winning coalition
Subset of S without whose support the leader cannot remain in power
(a majority of the front row)

40
Q

The selectorate (S) and the winning coalition (W ) describe

A

how political systems select and retain leaders.

Comparing countries in terms of S and W will be more
informative than comparing them merely in terms of broad
categories like democratic' versus autocratic.’

41
Q

Comparing countries in terms of S and W will be more
informative than comparing them merely in terms of broad
categories like democratic' versus autocratic.

A

Comparing countries in terms of S and W will be more
informative than comparing them merely in terms of broad
categories like democratic' versus autocratic.

42
Q

Public v. Private Goods

A
Public goods (x): nonexcludable and nonrival; everyone
benets from them. (National defense, free speech, public parks)
Private goods (g): excludable and rival; only members of the
W benet from them.
43
Q

Who is the most benecial (to the leader) recipient of private
goods?

A

Answer: members of W.(They determine whether the leader
stays in office.)

Leaders remain in power if enough of W supports the leader.

Other members of S and N receive only the public goods that the leader decides to provide.

44
Q

As W gets bigger, distributing public goods becomes a…

A

… more EFFICIENT way to for a leader to retain the support of W (the leader is not more civic-minded).

45
Q

What does Selectorate Theory mean for War?

A

Institutions shape how nations interact with the wider world.
Large-W leaders need successful foreign policies.
- The bigger the Winning Coalition (W ), the more a leader has tocare about war going badly

Small-W leaders need only to pay o supporters.