Tabakian Pols 5 - Fall 2014. Western Political Thought

1. Western Political Thought
John Paul Tabakian, Ed.D.
Political Science 5
Fall 2014 – Power Point #10

2. COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (1)
Today’s Lecture Covers The Following:
• Taxes
• Cosmopolitanism
• Manifest Destiny
• American Foreign Policy
• Realism
• Idealism

3. COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (2)
• Social Theories
• Collective Security
• The Waning Of War
• Peace Studies
• Democratic Peace Theory
• Kant & Peace
• Liberal Institutionalism
• Liberal Challenge to Realism
– International Regimes

4. COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (3)
• Why Gender Matters
• Gender In War & Peace
• Women In IR
• Constructivism / Rationalism
• Constructivism / Feminism
• Postmodernism
• Marxism & Gender Theories Like Feminism

5. TAXES
• From tariffs to income tax
• 16th Amendment passed in 1913
• Progressive Tax System
• Guiding societal norms of behavior
• Deductions, penalties
• Social Welfare Programs
• We are all on the welfare dime….everyone!

6. REALISM
• Human nature is the predominant
factor in a nation-state’s foreign policy.
• Abrupt philosophy focused on the
inherent evils of mankind.
• World is wrought with anarchy.
• Hard power: economic & military.
• Survival is the key!

7. REALISM

8. RATIONAL CHOICE
• People base their decisions according
to self-interest…as they define that
self-interest to be.
• Making a rational choice requires
perfect information.
• Emotions interfere with rational choice.

9. LIBERAL THEORIES
• Realism offers mostly dominance solutions
to the collective goods problems of IR.
• Alternative theoretical approaches that draw
mostly on the reciprocity or identity principles
are called liberal theories.
• These approaches are generally more
optimistic than realism about the prospects
for peace.

10. LIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM
• Liberal institutionalism cannot adequately
explain how to maintain a stable international
system in a post-Cold War world.

11. COLLECTIVE SECURITY (1)
• John J. Mearsheimer lists nine reasons why states
may be unwilling to base their fate on collective
security systems:
1. Can only work when states are able to
differentiate between aggressor and victim and
utilize force against the later.
2. Collective security assumes that all aggression
is wrong.
3. States may be for historical or ideological
reasons, overly friendly.

12. COLLECTIVE SECURITY (2)
• Concept grows out of liberal institutionalism.
• Refers to the formation of a broad alliance of most
major actors in an international system for the purpose
of jointly opposing aggression by any actor.
– Kant
– League of Nations
– Organization of America States, Arab League, and
the African Union

13. COLLECTIVE SECURITY (3)
4. States that have shared hostile relations in the
past may not be willing to cooperate.
5. States that agree to combat aggression may
not be able to distribute the burden associated
with doing so.
6. States have difficulty reacting quickly in a
collective security system.
7. States may not be willing to join a collective
security system, as a local conflict can become
international.

14. COLLECTIVE SECURITY (3)
8. Forcing states to instantaneously react to
aggression impinges on state sovereignty.
9. Responsible states that normally see war as
repellent may not be willing to rescue
threatened states.

15. THE WANING OF WAR
• In recent years, a strong trend toward fewer wars
has become evident.
• The current period is one of the least warlike
ever.
• World wars killed left whole continents in ruin.
• Cold War – proxy wars killed millions and the
world feared a nuclear war that could have
wiped out our species.

16. INTERNATIONAL REGIMES
• Set of rules, norms, and procedures around which
the expectations of actors converge in a certain
issue area.
• Participants have similar ideas about what rules
will govern their mutual participation.
• Regimes can help solve collective goods problems
by increasing transparency.
• Conception of regime.
• Enforcement and survival of regimes.
• Role of permanent institutions such as the UN,
NATO, and the IMF.

17. PEACE STUDIES (1)
• Criticism: normative bias
• Conflict resolution
– Mediation
– Citizen diplomacy
– Arbitration
– Confidence-building
– Linkage

18. PEACE STUDIES (2)
• Criticism: normative bias
• Conflict resolution
– Mediation
– Citizen diplomacy
– Arbitration
– Confidence-building
– Linkage

19. KANT & PEACE (1)
• What explains this positive trend toward peace?
• Kant gave 3 answers over 200 years ago:
1.States could develop the organizations and rules
to facilitate cooperation (UN).
2.Peace depends on the internal character of
governments - specifically republics, with a
legislative branch.
3.Trade promotes peace, relies on the
presumption that trade increases wealth,
cooperation, and global well-being.

20. KANT & PEACE (2)
• Kant argued that states could join a worldwide
federation and respect its principles.
• Remain autonomous
• But forego certain short-term individual gains
• Kant: International cooperation more rational option
than going to war.
• To realists, war is a rational option; to liberal
theorists, war is an irrational deviation that
results from defective reasoning and that harms
the interests of warring states.

21. KANT & PEACE (3)
• Neoliberal approach differs from earlier liberal
approaches in that it concedes to realism several
important assumptions:
• States are unitary actors rationally pursuing their
self-interests, but they say states cooperate
because it is in their self-interest.
• Mutual gains better than cheating or taking
advantage of each other.
• State that neorealist’ pessimism is unjustified.
States cooperate MOST of the time.
• Positive reciprocity

22. WHY GENDER MATTERS
• Feminist scholarship seeks to uncover hidden
assumptions about gender.
• Core assumptions of realism reflect the ways in
which males tend see the world.
• No such thing as a “feminist approach” to IR.
• Difference feminism: gender differences
important and fixed
• Liberal feminism: gender differences are trivial
• Postmodern feminism: gender differences
important but arbitrary and flexible

23. GENDER IN WAR AND PEACE
• Difference feminists find plenty of evidence to
support the idea of war as a masculine pursuit.
• Males usually the primary, and often only,
combatants in warfare.
• Testosterone.
• Both biologically and anthropologically, no firm
evidence connects women’s care giving functions
with any particular kinds of behavior such as
reconciliation or nonviolence.
• Idea of women as peacemakers has a long history.
• Gender gap.