POLS 170

Unit 1 Exam Study Guide

Study tips:
●​ Focus on key principles, concepts, and theories
o​ Know the areas of agreement and disagreement among theories and approaches
o​ Know the assumptions made by various approaches (realism, liberalism, constructivism)
o​ Be able to apply key theories to real world examples
●​ Focus on causes and consequences of key events

The exam will be:

●​ Closed book
●​ Based on assigned readings and material covered in lectures

Exam format:
●​ 20 multiple choice / true or false (worth ½ point each, 10 points total)
●​ 5 short answer questions (worth 1 point each, 5 points total)
●​ One essay question (worth 5 points)
●​ Note: exam is worth 20% of your final grade (or 20 points)

1)​ Key principles

●​ Collective goods problem: The problem of how to get members of a group to act in the interest of the
common good when doing so requires them to forgo their self-interest
○​ a tangible/intangible good, created by the members of a group, that is available to all group
members regardless of their individual contributions; participants can gain by lowering their own
contribution to the collective good, yet if too many participants do so, the good cannot be provided
■​ Collective goods are easier to provide in small groups than large ones
■​ The cheating (free riding) of one member is harder to conceal, has a greater impact on the
overall collective good, and is easier to punish
●​ Dominance: solves the collective goods problem by establishing a power hierarchy in which those at the
top control those below (like a government but without an actual government)
○​ Hegemon / Hegemony: The international system, the rules are dictated by the hegemon (sits at
the top)
■​ US is currently the hegemon bc of money and power and can use its influence to persuade
countries to do certain things
Advantages
●​ Forces members of a group to contribute to the common good
●​ Order, stability, predictability
Disadvantages
●​ Oppression of, and resentment by, the lower-ranking members in the hierarchy
●​ Conflicts over position in hierarchy harm stability
●​ Reciprocity:Solves the collective goods problem by rewarding behavior that contributes to the group and
punishing behavior that pursues self-interest at the cost of the group
○​ Forms basis of most of the norms and institutions in the international system

Advantages
●​ Can be enforced without a central authority
Disadvantages
●​ Complex accounting
 ○​ When many actors are involved it is hard to keep track of who’s doing what
●​ Can lead to tit for tat escalations of conflict
●​ Identity: Solves the collective goods problem by changing participants preferences based on their
shared sense of belonging to a community
●​ Does not rely on self-interest
○​ EX) Japan identifies as a Pacifist country due to past militarism, WWII
○​ Developed a new constitution that outlaws war
​
Advantage
●​ Encourages sacrifice for group
​ Disadvantage
●​ In group vs out of group conflict
●​ States: The most import actors are states; State is a territorial entity controlled by a government and
inhabited by a population (countries)
○​ Modern international system established by the Peace of Westphalia (1648)
■​ End of Thirty Years War (1618-1648) → shift away from systems of city-states, empires,
fiefdoms
●​ Levels of analysis
3 LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
●​ Individual
●​ Systemic
●​ Domestic
Systemic Level
●​ Influence of the international system upon outcomes
●​ Focuses on the interactions of states themselves, without regard to their internal
makeup/individuals who lead them

Domestic Level
Influence of state/societal factors
●​ Aggregations of individuals within states that influence state actions in the international arena

Individual Level
Perceptions, choices, and actions of individual human beings
2)​ Evolving International System
●​ Causes, consequences, and lessons of WWI and WWII
○​ Cult of the Offensive
■​ Cause of WWI:
●​ “Cult of the offensive”
●​ Believed that countries who attacked first would automatically win
○​ New technology → belief that whoever strikes first will win → offensive
mobilization plans
●​ WWI was long – 4 years (trench warfare)
●​ Takeaway:
○​ Hardline foreign policies → war
■​ (Treaty of Versailles) = Peace treaty that formally ended WWI
■​ Germany forced to:
●​ Give up territory
●​ Pay reparations
●​ Limit future armaments
●​ Admit guilt for war

→ led to WWII bc the treaty singled out Germany and were faced with the repercussions of
the war
-​ Faced economic hardship which contributed to the rise of Hitler
○​ Munich Agreement / Appeasement
■​ Appeasement:
●​ Foreign policy of pacifying an aggressor
●​ Munich agreement of 1938: Britain and France allows Germany to occupy part of
Czechoslovakia
●​ Appeasement of target → target becomes emboldened → war
■​ Takeaway:
●​ hardline foreign policies may be necessary to prevent war
●​ Causes and consequences Cold War
■​ Cold war (1945-90)
●​ Superpower rivalry between the US and Soviet Union
■​ An ideology and physically divided Europe
●​ “Iron curtain” between NATO and Warsaw Pact
○​ Containment
■​ US policy to halt the global expansion of Soviet influence
●​ Military, political, economic, ideological
●​ Peace corps was established out of this
■​ Entailed:
●​ Alliances, aid, diplomacy - all served purposes of containment
●​ US support for anti-communitst regimes
○​ Arms race
 ○​ Proxy war

3) Realism / Neorealism
●​ Realist critique of idealism
○​ Realism has traditionally been the dominant school of thought
■​ Reaction to idealism: starts with the assumption that human nature is ultimately good
■​ Realists blame idealists for being naive and argue that the world should be seen as it really
is, not what one wants to see
●​ Classical realism vs. neorealism (structural realism)

NEOREALISM’S CRITIQUE OF CLASSICAL REALISM

●​ Classical realism
○​ Human nature → law of the jungle → state of war
●​ Is human nature really the cause of international conflict?
○​ If yes, why do we sometimes have war, sometimes have peace
○​ The human condition is a constant (it never changes)
○​ It cannot explain variation between war and peace

NEOREALISM
●​ Emphasizes the importance of changes in the structure of the anarchic international system
○​ The structure changes
●​ Distribution of power: how power is distributed/allocated among the states
●​ Not concerned with human nature or what happens within states
○​ Main actors: great powers​
■​ States that have the most material capabilities (US + China)
●​ Assumptions about states
○​ Realists view states as the primary actors in IR
○​ Realists assume that states are:
■​ Rational
●​ Self interested; prioritize the national interest
●​ Realists view states as a dog eat dog place
■​ Unitary
●​ See states as the highest authority → anarchic intl. System
●​ States can only rely on themselves
●​ Anarchy, self-help behavior
○​ Anarchy: lack of a central government that can enforce rules
○​ The power of one state is countered only by the power of other states
■​ States must therefore rely on self-help: which they supplement with allies and the
sometimes constraining power of international norms
●​ Power
Power: the ability or potential to influence others’ behavior
○​ Capabilities
■​ An actors’ power is based on its capabilities
●​ Material capabilities
○​ Size of economy
○​ Military forces
○​ Population
○​ GDP is the BEST measure of power
○​ Absolute vs. relative power
■​ Realists emphasize the importance of relative power rather than absolute power
●​ Relative power: the power a state has in comparison to another state
 ○​ Soft power
■​ Soft Power: a country’s ability to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure
●​ The ability to get others to want the same outcomes that you want
●​ Relies on persuasion and attraction
○​ Ex: USAID
●​ Culture, values, ideals → goodwill and strengthened relationships
●​ Great powers
○​ The most powerful states in the international system; states that can be defeated militarily only by
another great power
■​ US, china, russia, japan, germany, france, britain
■​ Strongest militaries and economies
■​ Membership in “great power” club changes slowly
●​ It would take a long time for a military to be destroyed for example, or for an
economy to crash and destroy a great power
●​ Even if a great power is defeated in a war, it still remains a great power after the war
●​ Alliances
○​ Alliance: a coalition of states that coordinate their actions to accomplish some end
■​ Concerned with a common threat and related issues of international security
■​ Formalized in written treaties
●​ Polarity (unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity)
​ Polarity: number of independent power centers in the international system

MULTIPOLARITY
●​ Multipolarity: when there are typically five/six centers of power that are not grouped into
alliances
○​ Example: “Concert of Europe” (i.e. Hundred Years Peace after Napoleonic Wars before
WWI)
​ BIPOLARY
●​ Bipolarity: when there are two predominant states or two great rival alliance blocs
○​ Example: Cold War
●​ Stable? IR is not sure
○​ Power could be equally balanced
○​ Competition could be increased when there are just two superpowers
​ UNIPOLARITY
●​ Unipolarity: when there is a single center of power around which all others revolve
○​ Hegemony
○​ Example: post-Cold War
●​ Most stable
○​ “Peace is best preserved by hegemony (unipolarity).
●​ Key theories:
○​ Balance of power theory
■​ Bc power is constantly changing among states, counterbalancing coalitions (teaming up
with and forming alliances with others) regularly to prevent any one state from gaining
hegemony, thus maintaining the stability of the international system
■​ States can balance one another via:
●​ Internal methods: building up one’s capabilities
●​ External methods
■​ It is quicker to team up and form alliances
■​ QUAD (quadrilateral security dialogue) - India, US, Australia, Japan
●​ Believed to be aimed at China
​ ​ EXCEPTIONS TO THE BALANCE OF POWER THEORY
 ■​ Balance of power theory doesn’t always hold:
●​ States often balance against the most threatening (rather than most powerful) state
○​ In asia, states are cooperating with the US, counteracting China
■​ States sometimes bandwagon (or side with the dominant state)
■​ States may always hedge (not pick a side)
●​ Smart, bc they are playing both sides

○​ Security dilemma
■​ a situation in which states’ actions taken to ensure their own security (such as deploying
more military forces) threaten the security of other states
●​ The response of those other states (such as deploying more of their own military
forces) in turn threaten the states that first took action
●​ Negative consequence of anarchy in the international system
●​ Realists see the dilemma as unsolvable, whereas liberals think it can be solved
through the development of institutions
○​ Hegemonic stability theory
■​ Argues that the international system is the most stable and effective when there is a
hegemon
●​ That's when the world comes as close as it's ever going to get to getting a central
government ?
○​ Power transition theory
■​ War is likely when:
●​ A rising and established power approach parity
●​ The rising state is dissatisfied with the status quo (i.e. the rules/norms that define
the current international order)
■​ A rising state cannot convincingly commit not to revise the status quo once it becomes the
dominant state
■​ 2 pathways to war:
●​ A state is impatient and greedy
●​ Preventive war - to prevent a state from rising to power
■​ Thucydides’ Trap
●​ “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that inspired in Sparta, that made war
inevitable.”
○​ Neorealist approach

4) Liberalism
●​ Critique of realism
●​ Assumptions about states
●​ Kant’s conditions for peace and cooperation
Immanuel Kant: Conditions that produce international peace and cooperation:
1.​ international organizations and rules
2.​ Internal character of states
3.​ Commercial peace
●​ Theories:
○​ Democratic peace theory
■​ Democratic peace: the proposition that democracies almost never fight wars against each
other
●​ Democracies are not inherently more peaceful; they do fight against authoritarian
states
●​ Share institutional and cultural norms
 ○​ Citizens unlikely to support war against other democracies
●​ Tend to be capitalist/interdependent
○​ Economic interdependence / commercial peace
■​ Economic Interdependence
●​ Interdependence: a situation in which two states are simultaneously dependent on
each other for their well-being
●​ Interdependence → peace
○​ War would disrupt commerce
○​ Economic exchange → increased contact + communication b/w states
○​ Increasing trade → decreasing need for territorial expansion and
military conquest
■​ Realist critique
●​ Interdependence can also be a source of tension between states
○​ Gains from trade are not distributed evenly among states; disparities can lead
to friction between states
●​ Liberal institutionalism / neorealism
○​ Liberal institutionalism
■​ The ability of state’s to develop and follow mutually advantageous rules, with international
institutions to monitor and enforce them​
●​ Reciprocity lies at the heart of this approach bc international institutions operate by
reciprocal contributions and concessions among formally equal members (peers)
■​ argued that states, although autonomous, could join a worldwide federation like today’s UN
and respect its principles even at the cost of forgoing certain short-term individual gains
●​ international cooperation was a more rational option for states than resorting to
war
○​ International Regime (Institution)
●​ A set of rules, norms, and procedures around which expectations of actors converge in a
certain issue area
○​ Convergence of expectations means that intl actors have similar ideas and
expectations about the rules that govern participation in the intl system
○​ Liberal Institutionalism (Neoliberalism)
●​ Stresses the importance of international institutions (or international regimes) in
reducing international conflict
○​ States cooperate bc it is in their interest to do so, given that conflict is costly
○​ States capable of prioritizing long-term mutual interests above short term self
interests
○​ Prisoner’s dilemma
■​ Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD): A situation modeled by game theory in which rational actors
pursuing their individual interests all achieve worse outcomes than they could have by
working together
■​ Game theory draws insights from simplified models of bargaining situations. The Prisoner’s
Dilemma game embodies a difficult collective goods problem
○​ International regimes
■​ International regimes: a set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the
expectations of actors converge in a certain issue area
●​ Repeated interactions
●​ Can help solve collective goods problems by increasing transparency
○​ Monitoring
 ●​ Sets rules or standards of behavior
●​ Dispute resolution mechanisms

5) Constructivism & Ideational Approaches

●​ Social constructs
○​ Constructivism: emphasizes the role of social interactions between states in shaping how states
construct their interests
■​ The world is a social system; sees core aspects of IR as being socially constructed
●​ Constructivists would view anarchy as a social construct

●​ Relationship between: social interaction; ideas and identity; interests

●​ International norms: Norms: collective expectations for the proper behaviors of actors
○​ Logic of appropriateness
■​ Constrain state action via:
●​ Logic of appropriateness
○​ How should I behave in X situations?
○​ Social rewards and punishments
■​ Enforced through social rewards (ie praise) and punishments (ie criticism, naming, and
shaming)
●​ States care about their reputations and status
○​ Norm against territorial aggression
■​ Refers to the widely accepted belief that territorial conquest is unacceptable
●​ Strengthened after WWII
○​ Enshrined post war institutions (UN-Charter)
●​ International practice of non-recognition
○​ States do not recognize the territorial gains made by others through
aggression
○​ Nuclear taboo
■​ Nuclear taboo: normative inhibition against the first use of nuclear weapons
●​ Use of nuclear weapons has become “unthinkable”
■​ Emerged due to:
●​ Norm entrepreneurs: global grassroots anti-nuclear weapons movement
●​ Efforts by non-nuclear states to delegitimize nuclear weapons
●​ Marxism
○​ Class struggle
■​ Marxist approaches to IR hold that both IR and domestic politics arise from unequal
relationships between economic classes
●​ More powerful classes oppress and exploit the less powerful
○​ Emphasis on class struggle
○​ Lenin’s theory of imperialism
■​ Applied Marx’s ideas to international system
●​ Rich economies systematically exploit poor economies, use profits from exploitation
to buy off the working classes at home
●​ Imperialism is a necessary feature of capitalism
■​ Resonated in global south and inspired communist revolution in China and revolution for
national independence in India
●​ Postmodernism: an approach that denies the existence of a single fixed reality
■​ There is no such thing as an objective truth or reality (ie “history is written by the victors)
○​ Relationship between knowledge and power, discourse
■​ Emphasizes connection between knowledge and power
●​ Focuses on discourse
 ●​ Seek to deconstruct concepts life “state” or “sovereignty” to uncover the subtext
(implicit meanings)
○​ To deconstruct a text means to tease apart the words in order to reveal
hidden meanings, looking for what might have been omitted/included
implicitly
■​ Subtext: meanings that are implicit/hidden in a text rather than
explicitly addressed
○​ Omissions are an aspect of subtext

6) Gender and Race in IR

●​ Difference feminism
○​ Valorizes the feminine role as nurturers/peacemakers
○​ View on differences between genders:
■​ biologically/culturally determined
■​ Some believe there is a core biological essence to being male or female (sometimes called
essentialism), but most think women’s difference is more culturally than biologically
determined
○​ Critique of realism:
■​ Realism’s focus on power rests on assumption of masculinity
■​ Realism reflects the way that men see the world
○​ Masculinity of war
■​ Difference feminist views about war and military force
●​ War as a “quintessentially male occupation”
○​ Gender gap
●​ Liberal feminism
○​ View on differences between genders
■​ There is no “natural” difference between genders; claims about differences are based on
stereotyped gender roles
■​ No gender-specific differences in how actors behave in IR
○​ Argue that women aren’t inherently more pacifist than men; women have been traditionally kept
at home that they haven’t been given the opportunity to show their role
○​ Emphasizes the political and social environment
■​ Advocate for political reforms to promote gender equality
■​ View patriarchal systems as oppressive
○​ If women were given the same role as men then they would behave the same way
●​ Postmodern feminism
○​ View on differences between genders:
■​ Gender differences are socially constructed in arbitrary ways
●​ No universal truth that can be applied to all women
○​ Focus on role of discourse and texts in privileging the interests of certain women
○​ Rejects that women experience gender in the same way (intersectionality)
●​ Gender-based violence
○​ Gender based violence as a weapon and consequence of war
■​ Rape, sexual slavery, human trafficking, forced marriage
○​ BV can undermine long-term state stability, perpetuates gender inequality
●​ Reasons for contemporary IR’s failure to take race seriously
○​ US as the “center of gravity” of IR
 ■​ Scholarly buy in for the myth that the US is a fundamentally different kind of world power
that is free of colonial beliefs and practices
■​ Why is this a myth?
●​ Slavery contributed to US power
●​ US expansionism
●​ Other notable historical examples of racism in US foreign policy
○​ Veto of treaty of versailles “racial equality” clause
■​ US vetoed bc Jim Crow South was happening
○​ Anti-japanese propaganda during WWII
■​ Internment camps
●​ Eurocentrism
○​ Contemporary IR tends to ignore race
■​ Eurocentric
●​ Some perspectives and experiences privileged over others
●​ Produces theories that may not adequately describe non-western experiences
○​ I.e. Thucydides’ Trap
●​ Race and colonialism
○​ Race was used to justify colonialism
○​ Theories on imperialism:
■​ Rudyard Kipling’s “white man’s burden”
■​ Hobson, “The Scientific basis of Imperialism”
○​ Other scholars invoked arguments about the inability of “native races” to develop without
colonialism

7) Foreign Policy Decision-Making

●​ Foreign policy: the study of how leaders and states make decisions about how they will behave toward
other international actors
●​ Foreign policy theories seek to explain decision-making
○​ Focus on the individual and domestic levels of analysis

●​ Rational model
○​ Rational model: involves choosing courses of action based on an assessment of costs and benefits
■​ Cost benefit analysis
■​ Assumes that policy is made by rational, unitary, and informed decision maker

○​ Factors that might cause this decision making model to fail:

■​ Uncertainty and incomplete information
■​ Disposition of leaders (risk averse vs risk acceptant)
■​ Actors with differing goals
●​ Organization process model
○​ foreign policy is the product of organizational output
○​ Standard operating procedures
■​ Determined by large bureaucracies that follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) (ie
instructional manuals)
●​ Top leaders delegate tasks to lower level officials
●​ Drawbacks of relying on SOPs:
○​ Not flexible or responsive, may not be adaptable to each and every situation
○​ decisions/actions of low level officials may not reflect intentions and
priorities of leader
●​ Bureaucratic politics model

Bureaucratic Politics Model (I)

●​ Bureaucratic Politics Model (Government Bargaining Model): foreign policy decisions are the
product of bargaining among various government agencies
○​ “Where you stand depends on where you sit”
-​ Rufus Miles (Miles’ Law)
●​ Gov agencies have divergent interests in the outcome; compete for influence
○​ Decisions not made through rational or collective decision making, but through conflict,
negotiation, and persuasion

Bureaucratic Politics Model (II)

●​ Bureaucracies bargain for:
○​ Influence, prestige
○​ Resources
○​ Autonomy

Bureaucratic Politics Model (III)

●​ Outcomes are often a compromise
○​ Might not be what any individual actor thinks is best
○​ Inconsistent; can send mixed signals to foreign observers
●​ Systematic sources of irrationality
○​ Misperception
■​ Misperceptions and selective perceptions: The mistaken processing of the available
information about a decision; one of several ways—along with affective and cognitive
bias—in which individual decision making diverges from the rational model
●​ Information screens
○​ Information screens: the subconscious or unconscious filters through which
people put the information coming in about the world around them
■​ Tendency to pay more attention to information that confirms
preexisting beliefs (confirmation bias)
■​ Tendency to view others as more hostile than they are; difficulty
believing that others see us as threatening
○​ Affective bias
■​ When the rational, cost-benefit calculation is undermined by emotions that decision
makers feel while thinking about the consequences of their actions
○​ Cognitive bias
■​ Systematic distortions of rational calculations based on the limitations of the human
brain in making choices
 ■​ Reducing cognitive dissonance
●​ Cognitive Dissonance: discomfort we feel our mind entertains two contradictory
concepts at the same time
●​ To reduce this discomfort, we may:
○​ Justify our behavior
○​ Engage in wishful thinking
○​ Engage in mirror imaging
○​ Psychic numbing, prominence effect, virtuous violence “Putin and the psychology of Nuclear
Brinkmanship”
■​ Psychic Numbing: people become desensitized to casualties if they happen in mass
amounts.
■​ Prominence Effect: focuses our attention on what we perceive as the most inherently
important attributes of a decision, causing those attributes to gain extreme priority, difficult
choices seem easier.
■​ Virtuous Violence: when violence towards the enemy seems not only justified but virtuous.

9) Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy

●​ Foreign policy actors
●​ General vs. narrow interests
○​ General interests: an interest that most, if not all,, actors within a state share
■​ National security, economic prosperity
○​ Narrow interests: an interest held by only a small number of actors within a state
○​ In practice, this distinction is sometimes difficult to observe
■​ Actors have incentives to articulate their narrow interests in terms of the general interest
●​ Bureaucratic politics
○​ Tensions between:
■​ Political appointees and career bureaucrats
●​ Presence of career bureaucrats helps to ensure continuity within presidential
■​ Units within an organization or agency
■​ Different agencies
●​ Cybersecurity
■​ Top advisers
■​ Top leader and the bureaucracy
●​ Interest groups: coalitions of people who:
○​ Share a common interest
○​ And who organize themselves to influence policy
_____________________________________
○​ Lobbying: The process of talking with legislators/officials to influence their decisions on some set
of issues
○​ Military industrial complex, political engineering
■​ Military-industrial complex: network of governmental agencies, industrial corporations,
and research institutes, working together to supply a state’s military forces
●​ Response to the growing importance of technology in Cold War military planning
●​ Public opinion: Leaders generally have more autonomy from public opinion on foreign policy than on
domestic issues
○​ Public opinion is generally more concerned with domestic issues than foreign policy
_____________________________________
 ○​ Diversionary foreign policy: foreign policies adopted to distract the public from domestic political
problem
○​ Rally effect: tendency for people to become more supportive of their government during wartime
and international crises
●​ Groupthink

10) International Conflict

●​ Causes of war
○​ Individual level of analysis
■​ Bargaining failure
■​ Why rational leaders may choose to start a war
■​ Irrationality as a cause of war
○​ Domestic level of analysis
■​ Cultural, civilizational, economic perspectives
■​ Differences between regime types
■​ Public opinion
○​ Systemic level of analysis
■​ Power transition theory
●​ Types of wars
○​ Hegemonic war: war for control of the entire world order – the rules of the international system as
a whole
■​ Aka: world war, global war, general war, systemic war
○​ Total war: warfare by one state waged to conquer and occupy another (goal: total victory)
■​ Involves mobilizing society and targeting society of adversary
●​ Total wars are wars of, by, and against total population
○​ Ex: war of gaza and ukraine
○​ Limited war: military actions that seek objectives short of the surrender and occupation of the
enemy
■​ Example: first gulf war (1991)
○​ Guerilla war: a form of unconventional warfare where small, irregular forces use hit-and-run
tactics, ambushes, and sabotage against a larger, more conventional military
○​ Civil war: a violent conflict between organized groups within the same state, often involving the
government and various groups seeking to gain control or change political power.

●​ Conflicts of Ideas
○​ Difficult to resolve through bargaining and negotiation
■​ In conflicts over core values, actors are usually uncompromising

○​ Difficulty of compromise
○​ Nationalism
■​ Nationalism: identification with and devotion to one’s nation
●​ A sense of common identity and fate shared by members of the nation
■​ Nation vs state
●​ Nation: a group of people united by common elements
●​ State: population + territory + government + sovereignty
■​ Nationalism is useful to states because it promotes:
 ●​ Unity and solidarity
●​ Civic duty (and willingness to sacrifice)
■​ “Us” vs “them” (ingroup vs outgroup thinking)
●​ Can lead to a sense of superiority to another group
○​ Ethnic conflict
■​ “Ancient hatreds”
●​ deep-rooted , long standing hatred between ethnic groups
●​ Example: breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s
■​ Elite manipulation of ethnic tensions
■​ Ethnocentrism
●​ Ethnocentrism: in-group bias
○​ Tendency to see one’s own group (in-group) in favorable terms and an out
group in unfavorable terms
○​ Threat from an out group promotes cohesion of in group
■​ Dehumanization
●​ Dehumanization: stigmatization of enemies as subhuman or nonhuman, leading
frequently to widespread violence
○​ Tool used when carrying out genocide
●​ Conflicts of Interest
○​ In theory, conflicts over material interests should be easier to resolve
■​ Reciprocity principle: if agreements are respected by both sides, war is unlikely to happen
○​ However, conflicts of ideas and interests often intersect

○​ Territorial conflict
■​ Most interstate wars are fought over territory

■​ Most struggles to control territory are conflicts over which governments will control entire
states
■​ States have interests in the governments of other states and they may therefore:
●​ Seek to influence another’s elections
●​ Support rebels’ effort to overthrow government
●​ Invade another state in order to change government
○​ Secession
■​ Efforts by province or region to leave existing state
●​ Goal: independence
●​ Compromise: autonomy
■​ Are secessionist movements a strictly domestic problem?
●​ Yes: norms of sovereignty
●​ No: norms of self determination
○​ Ethnic cleansing
■​ Euphemism for forced displacement of an eth-nic group or groups from a territory,
accompanied by massacres and other human rights violations; it has occurred after the
breakup of multinational states
○​ Irredentism
■​ Forms of nationalism
●​ Goal: to regain territory lost to another state
○​ It can lead directly to violent interstate conflicts
○​ Territories are valued far beyond any inherent economic/strategic value they
hold
 ■​ Example: Russia’s claims to “historically russian” territory in Ukraine

11) Military Forces

●​ Purposes of military forces
●​ Counterinsurgency
●​ Armies
●​ Naval forces
○​ Power projection
○​ Marines
●​ Air forces
○​ Space Force

12) Terrorism
●​ Defining terrorism
●​ State-sponsored terrorism
●​ Objective of terrorism
●​ Psychological effects of terrorism
○​ Role of media coverage
○​ “Security theater”
●​ Counterterrorism

13) Weapons of Mass Destruction

●​ Nuclear weapons: Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
○​ distinguished from conventional weapons by their potential lethality and relative lack of
discrimination in who they kill

○​ Fission vs. fusion weapons

■​ Fission weapons: atomic bombs or A-bombs
■​ Fusion weapons: thermonuclear/hydrogen bombs, H-bombs​
○​ Reasons states want nuclear weapons
■​ Security
●​ Insurance policy; protection against conventional and nuclear attacks
■​ Domestic Politics
●​ Leaders may test weapons for rally effects
■​ Symbolism
●​ Prestige
●​ Image of state strength
■​ Blackmail
●​ Use as leverage to extract concessions from other states
○​ Ways to stop proliferation
■​ Proliferation is the spread of weapons of mass destruction—nuclear weapons,
ballistic missiles, and chemical or biological weapons—into the hands of more
actors
●​ Nonproliferation Treaty (1968)
○​ created a framework for controlling the spread of nuclear materials
and expertise.
 ○​ Mutually assured destruction
■​ Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD):
●​ The notion that the full scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing states
would cause the annihilation of both
○​ Secure second strike
■​ Secure Second Strike: the ability, after being struck by a nuclear attack, to retaliate
with nuclear weapons
●​ Arsenal must be large and secure enough to survive a first strike
○​ Extended deterrence
■​ How to make credible a threat to use nuclear weapons against an adversary in
defense of an ally, given that doing so could expose one’s homeland to nuclear
retaliation
●​ ie - Would the US be willing to sacrifice New York for Paris? San Francisco for
Seoul?
●​ Biological weapons
●​ Chemical weapons
○​ Usually involves putting well-known commercial chemicals into standard munitions (ie
grenades and artillery shells)
○​ Examples: nerve gas; mustard gas
○​ Modern use began in WWI
○​ Int’l law:
■​ 1925 Geneva Protocol
■​ Chemical weapons convention (1992)
○​ Third world countries are more likely to develop chemical weapons bc they have more
access to the resources needed to create them