This document summarizes key concepts in international relations theory, comparing realist and liberal perspectives. It discusses concepts like anarchy, sovereignty, self-help, and the security dilemma from a realist viewpoint. Liberal concepts discussed include Kantian ideals of democracy, trade, and international institutions promoting cooperation. Realists are skeptical that institutions can significantly influence state behavior motivated by power and national interests in an anarchic system.
This presentation is made by Samin VossoughiRad. American University for Humanities- Tbilisi campus
The security Dilemma is the them of the presentation and it has been explained exactly why states goes to war
Balance of power is a system of International Relations in which states seek security through internal build-up of power or by alliances with other states to prevent one state from accumulating too much power realism that rationalized great power rivalry, arms race, secret alliances and balance of power politician.
This presentation is made by Samin VossoughiRad. American University for Humanities- Tbilisi campus
The security Dilemma is the them of the presentation and it has been explained exactly why states goes to war
Balance of power is a system of International Relations in which states seek security through internal build-up of power or by alliances with other states to prevent one state from accumulating too much power realism that rationalized great power rivalry, arms race, secret alliances and balance of power politician.
The issue of world order is central to an understanding of international politics. The shape of world order affects both the level of stability within the global system and the balance within it between conflict and cooperation. However, since the end of the Cold War, the nature of world order has been the subject of significant debate and disagreement. Early proclamations of the establishment of a 'new world order', characterized by peace and international cooperation, were soon replaced by talk of unipolar world order, with the USA taking centre stage as the world's sole superpower. This 'unipolar moment' may nevertheless have been brief. Not only did the USA's involvement in difficult and protracted counter-insurgency wars following September 11 strengthen the impression of US decline, but emerging powers, notably China, started to exert greater influence on the world stage. The notion that unipolarity is giving way to multipolarity has, moreover, been supported by evidence of the increasing importance of international organizations, a trend that is sometimes interpreted as emerging 'global governance'. Of particular importance in this respect have been the major institutions of global economic governance – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization – and the centrepiece of the global governance system, the United Nations. Although some argue that the trend in favour of global governance reflects the fact that, in an interdependent world, states must act together to address the challenges that confront them, others dismiss global governance as a myth and raise serious questions about the effectiveness of international organizations.
Relations among states take place in the absence of a world government. For realists, this means that the international system is anarchical. International relations are best understood by focusing on the distribution of power among states. Despite their formal legal equality, the uneven distribution of power means that the arena of international relations is a form of ‘power politics’. Power is hard to measure; its distribution among states changes over time and there is no consensus among states about how it should be distributed. International relations is therefore a realm of necessity (states must seek power to survive in a competitive environment) and continuity over time. When realists contemplate change in the international system, they focus on changes in the balance of power among states, and tend to discount the possibility of fundamental change in the dynamics of the system itself.
The following key thinkers all subscribe to these basic assumptions in their explorations of the following questions:
(1) What are the main sources of stability and instability in the international system?
(2) What is the actual and preferred balance of power among states?
(3) How should the great powers behave toward one another and toward weaker states?
(4) What are the sources and dynamics of contemporary changes in the balance of power?
Despite some shared assumptions about the nature of international relations, realists are not all of one voice in answering these questions, and it would be wrong to believe that shared assumptions lead to similar conclusions among them. In fact, there is sharp disagreement over the relative merits of particular balances of power (unipolarity, bipolarity and multipolarity). There is also much debate over the causal relationship between states and the international pressures upon them, and the relative importance of different kinds of power in contemporary international relations.
Soraya Ghebleh - Selected Theories in International RelationsSoraya Ghebleh
This presentation describes some of the major theories in international relations and their subsets including liberalism, realism, constructivism, and critical issues theories.
The issue of world order is central to an understanding of international politics. The shape of world order affects both the level of stability within the global system and the balance within it between conflict and cooperation. However, since the end of the Cold War, the nature of world order has been the subject of significant debate and disagreement. Early proclamations of the establishment of a 'new world order', characterized by peace and international cooperation, were soon replaced by talk of unipolar world order, with the USA taking centre stage as the world's sole superpower. This 'unipolar moment' may nevertheless have been brief. Not only did the USA's involvement in difficult and protracted counter-insurgency wars following September 11 strengthen the impression of US decline, but emerging powers, notably China, started to exert greater influence on the world stage. The notion that unipolarity is giving way to multipolarity has, moreover, been supported by evidence of the increasing importance of international organizations, a trend that is sometimes interpreted as emerging 'global governance'. Of particular importance in this respect have been the major institutions of global economic governance – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization – and the centrepiece of the global governance system, the United Nations. Although some argue that the trend in favour of global governance reflects the fact that, in an interdependent world, states must act together to address the challenges that confront them, others dismiss global governance as a myth and raise serious questions about the effectiveness of international organizations.
Relations among states take place in the absence of a world government. For realists, this means that the international system is anarchical. International relations are best understood by focusing on the distribution of power among states. Despite their formal legal equality, the uneven distribution of power means that the arena of international relations is a form of ‘power politics’. Power is hard to measure; its distribution among states changes over time and there is no consensus among states about how it should be distributed. International relations is therefore a realm of necessity (states must seek power to survive in a competitive environment) and continuity over time. When realists contemplate change in the international system, they focus on changes in the balance of power among states, and tend to discount the possibility of fundamental change in the dynamics of the system itself.
The following key thinkers all subscribe to these basic assumptions in their explorations of the following questions:
(1) What are the main sources of stability and instability in the international system?
(2) What is the actual and preferred balance of power among states?
(3) How should the great powers behave toward one another and toward weaker states?
(4) What are the sources and dynamics of contemporary changes in the balance of power?
Despite some shared assumptions about the nature of international relations, realists are not all of one voice in answering these questions, and it would be wrong to believe that shared assumptions lead to similar conclusions among them. In fact, there is sharp disagreement over the relative merits of particular balances of power (unipolarity, bipolarity and multipolarity). There is also much debate over the causal relationship between states and the international pressures upon them, and the relative importance of different kinds of power in contemporary international relations.
Soraya Ghebleh - Selected Theories in International RelationsSoraya Ghebleh
This presentation describes some of the major theories in international relations and their subsets including liberalism, realism, constructivism, and critical issues theories.
The Art Pastor's Guide to Sabbath | Steve ThomasonSteve Thomason
What is the purpose of the Sabbath Law in the Torah. It is interesting to compare how the context of the law shifts from Exodus to Deuteronomy. Who gets to rest, and why?
This is a presentation by Dada Robert in a Your Skill Boost masterclass organised by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan (EFSS) on Saturday, the 25th and Sunday, the 26th of May 2024.
He discussed the concept of quality improvement, emphasizing its applicability to various aspects of life, including personal, project, and program improvements. He defined quality as doing the right thing at the right time in the right way to achieve the best possible results and discussed the concept of the "gap" between what we know and what we do, and how this gap represents the areas we need to improve. He explained the scientific approach to quality improvement, which involves systematic performance analysis, testing and learning, and implementing change ideas. He also highlighted the importance of client focus and a team approach to quality improvement.
The Roman Empire A Historical Colossus.pdfkaushalkr1407
The Roman Empire, a vast and enduring power, stands as one of history's most remarkable civilizations, leaving an indelible imprint on the world. It emerged from the Roman Republic, transitioning into an imperial powerhouse under the leadership of Augustus Caesar in 27 BCE. This transformation marked the beginning of an era defined by unprecedented territorial expansion, architectural marvels, and profound cultural influence.
The empire's roots lie in the city of Rome, founded, according to legend, by Romulus in 753 BCE. Over centuries, Rome evolved from a small settlement to a formidable republic, characterized by a complex political system with elected officials and checks on power. However, internal strife, class conflicts, and military ambitions paved the way for the end of the Republic. Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and subsequent assassination in 44 BCE created a power vacuum, leading to a civil war. Octavian, later Augustus, emerged victorious, heralding the Roman Empire’s birth.
Under Augustus, the empire experienced the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of relative peace and stability. Augustus reformed the military, established efficient administrative systems, and initiated grand construction projects. The empire's borders expanded, encompassing territories from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to the Euphrates. Roman legions, renowned for their discipline and engineering prowess, secured and maintained these vast territories, building roads, fortifications, and cities that facilitated control and integration.
The Roman Empire’s society was hierarchical, with a rigid class system. At the top were the patricians, wealthy elites who held significant political power. Below them were the plebeians, free citizens with limited political influence, and the vast numbers of slaves who formed the backbone of the economy. The family unit was central, governed by the paterfamilias, the male head who held absolute authority.
Culturally, the Romans were eclectic, absorbing and adapting elements from the civilizations they encountered, particularly the Greeks. Roman art, literature, and philosophy reflected this synthesis, creating a rich cultural tapestry. Latin, the Roman language, became the lingua franca of the Western world, influencing numerous modern languages.
Roman architecture and engineering achievements were monumental. They perfected the arch, vault, and dome, constructing enduring structures like the Colosseum, Pantheon, and aqueducts. These engineering marvels not only showcased Roman ingenuity but also served practical purposes, from public entertainment to water supply.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Students, digital devices and success - Andreas Schleicher - 27 May 2024..pptxEduSkills OECD
Andreas Schleicher presents at the OECD webinar ‘Digital devices in schools: detrimental distraction or secret to success?’ on 27 May 2024. The presentation was based on findings from PISA 2022 results and the webinar helped launch the PISA in Focus ‘Managing screen time: How to protect and equip students against distraction’ https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/managing-screen-time_7c225af4-en and the OECD Education Policy Perspective ‘Students, digital devices and success’ can be found here - https://oe.cd/il/5yV
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
We all have good and bad thoughts from time to time and situation to situation. We are bombarded daily with spiraling thoughts(both negative and positive) creating all-consuming feel , making us difficult to manage with associated suffering. Good thoughts are like our Mob Signal (Positive thought) amidst noise(negative thought) in the atmosphere. Negative thoughts like noise outweigh positive thoughts. These thoughts often create unwanted confusion, trouble, stress and frustration in our mind as well as chaos in our physical world. Negative thoughts are also known as “distorted thinking”.
How to Create Map Views in the Odoo 17 ERPCeline George
The map views are useful for providing a geographical representation of data. They allow users to visualize and analyze the data in a more intuitive manner.
2. Anarchy and Sovereignty
Anarchy: the lack of a central government that can enforce rules.
Self-help: because in international anarchy all global actors are independent, they
must rely on themselves to provide for their security and well-being (prepare for the
worst).
National interests: the goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to
be selfishly best for their country.
Norms: shared expectations about what behavior is considered proper.
Sovereignty (traditionally the most important norm): means that a
government has the right, in principle, to do whatever it wants in its own
territory.
States are separate and autonomous (lack of world police to punish states).
Not supposed to interfere in the internal affairs of other states.
Security Dilemma: a situation in which actions taken by states to
ensure their own security threaten the security of other states.
Unsolvable for realists; liberals think it can be solved through the
development of norms and institutions.
3. Power
The factors that enable one actor to
manipulate another actor’s behavior
against its preferences.
Relative power: the ratio of the power
that two states can bear against each
other.
Power explains influence, and influence
measures power.
Capability (GDP)
Power of ideas (soft power)
4. Elements of Power
Long term:
GDP, population, territory, geography, and
natural resources, power of ideas, credibility.
Political culture, patriotism, education of the
population, and strength of scientific and
technological base. (less tangible)
Short term:
Military power, morality,
Geopolitics: the use of geography as an
element of power (location, location,
location).
5. Balance of Power
A theory that peace and stability are
most likely to be maintained when
military power is distributed to prevent a
single superpower, hegemon, or bloc
from controlling the world.
One or more states’ power being used to
balance that of another state or group if
states.
Counterbalancing occurs regularly and
maintains the stability of the international
system.
6. Power Distribution
Neorealism (structural realism): explains patterns of
international events in terms of the system structure
rather then the internal makeup of individual states.
States’ behavior is determined by differences in their
relative power within the global hierarchy, defined
primarily by the distribution of military power, instead of by
other factors such as their values, type of government, or
domestic circumstances.
The structure of the global system determines the
behavior of transnational actors within it (structural
realism).
Power transition theory: the largest wars result from
challenges to the top position in the status hierarchy,
when a rising power is surpassing (or threatening to
surpass) the most powerful state.
7. Hegemony
One state’s holding a preponderance of power in the
international system, allowing it to single handedly dominate the
rules and arrangements by which international political and
economic relations are conducted (19th century Britain and Post WWII
America).
Hegemony of ideas such as democracy and capitalism, and the global
dominance of U.S. culture.
Hegemonic stability theory: hegemony provides some order
similar to a central government in the international system :
reducing anarchy, deterring aggression, promoting free trade,
and providing a hard currency that can be used as a world
standard (isolationists vs. internationalists).
Hegemons can help resolve or keep in check conflicts
Can enforce rules and norms unilaterally, avoiding the collective goods
problem.
Hegemony may seem an infringement of state sovereignty; unjust or
illegitimate (unilateralism vs. multilateralism).
8. Alliances
A coalition of states that coordinate their actions to
accomplish some end.
Formalized in written treaties, concern a common threat and
related issues of international security, and endure across a
range of issues and a period of time (vs. coalitions).
Purpose: augmenting power by pooling capabilities.
Based on national interests and can shift as nation interests
change.
Client states: when great powers form alliances with smaller
states.
Alliance cohesion: the ease with which members hold
together an alliance.
Burden sharing: who bears the costs of the alliance.
Realists emphasize the fluidity of alliances; based on
convenience
9. Liberalism
Predicated on the hope that the
application of reason and universal
ethics to international relations can lead
to a more orderly, just, and cooperative
world.
Assumes that anarchy and war can be
policed by institutional reforms that empower
international organization and law.
10. Liberal Worldview
1) Belief in reason and the possibility of
progress.
2) View individual as the seat of moral value
and assert that human beings should be
treated as ends rather than means.
3) Emphasize ethical principle over the
pursuit of power; institutions over military
capabilities.
4) Politics at the global level is more of a
struggle for consensus and mutual gain
than a struggle for power and prestige.
11. Liberal Worldview cont’d
5) The need to substitute attitudes that stress unity of
humankind for those that stress parochial national
loyalties to independent sovereign states.
6) The importance of individuals – their essential dignity and
fundamental equality and the need to place the protection
and promotion of human rights and freedom ahead of
national interests and state autonomy.
- instead of blaming international conflict on the lust for
power, liberals blame the conditions under which people
live. (reforming those conditions increases peace)
7) The use of the power of ideas through education to arouse
world public opinion against warfare.
- politics is not a zero-sum game; the use of persuasion
rather than coercion and a reliance on judicial methods to
settle rival claims are the primary means of dealing with
conflict.
12. Kant and Peace
Peace and cooperation are possible because:
1) States could develop organizations and rules to facilitate
cooperation, specifically by forming a world federation (UN).
2) Peace depends on the internal character of governments.
- Republics with legislative branch will be more peaceful.
- Democracies do not fight each other (democratic peace theory)
3) Trade promotes peace; it increases wealth, cooperation, and
global well-being; makes it difficult that governments will want
to disrupt any process that increases wealth.
- as trade increases, states will become mutually dependent
(interdependence).
- realists argue that one state’s reliance on another creates
more tensions in the short term because states are nervous
that another actor has an important source of leverage over
them.
13. Liberals and Free Trade
Unfettered trade helps prevent disputes from
escalating to wars:
1) Commercial intercourse creates a material incentive
to resolve disputes peacefully
- War reduces profits by interrupting vital economic
exchanges.
2) Cosmopolitan business elites who benefit most from
these exchanges comprise an interest group with a
stake in promoting amicable solutions to
disagreements.
3) The web of trade between countries increases
communication, erodes national selfishness, and
encourages both sides to avoid ruinous clashes.
14. International regimes
A set of rules, norms, and procedures around
which the expectations of actors converge in a
certain issue area.
Participants in the international system have similar
ideas about what rules will govern their mutual
participation: each expected to play by the rules.
Regimes help solve collective goods problem
by increasing transparency.
Come together to coordinate the behaviors of
individual states.
Intervening variables.
Regimes, hegemons, establishment of
regimes, maintenance of regimes.
15. Liberal Institutionalism
Collective security: 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)
The majority of states could unite to punish any
one state that committed aggression.
Success depends on two points:
1) Members must keep their alliance
commitments to the group.
2) Enough members must agree on what
constitutes “aggression.” (UN)
16. The Limitations of Liberalism
Institutions today exert minimal influence on state behavior.
International organizations cannot stop states from behaving according to balance-of-
power logic and relentless competition.
Most studies of international institutions appear in the low politics arena
of commercial, financial, and environmental affairs, not in high politics
arena of national defense.
Collective security organizations naively assume that all members perceive threats
the same way, and are willing to run the risks and pay the costs of countering those
threats.
Global institutions cannot provide timely, muscular response to
aggression.
On security issues, states will trust in their own power, not in the promises of
supranational institutions.
Liberals tend to turn foreign policy into a moral crusade.
The international community has no obligation to use armed force to stop flagrant
violations of human rights.
Skepticism about liberal claims of moral necessity.
If there are no universal moral standards then policy decisions can be judged only
in terms of their consequences in particular circumstances.
17. Realism
(Machiavelli & Thomas Hobbes)
Realism: the premise that world politics is
essentially and unchangeably a struggle
among self-interested states for power and
position under anarchy with each competing
state pursuing its own national interests.
Idealism: emphasizes international law, morality, and
international organization, rather than power alone,
as key influences on international events.
○ Human nature is essentially good; principles flow from
morality.
○ International system where states have potential to
work together to overcome mutual problems.
18. Realism cont’d
Role of state as the most important actor
Answers to no higher political authority;
states are sovereign
IR best explained by the choices of
individual states operating autonomously
and rationally to pursue their own interest.
• Ideologies, religions, cultural factors do not
matter much.
• Foundation for solving the common good
based on the principle of dominance.
19. Rationality and Realism
Realists assume that those who wield power
while engaging in statecraft behave as rational
actors in their efforts to influence others.
1) The assumption of rationality implies that states
and other international actors can identify their
interests and put priorities on various interests: a
state’s actions seek to advance its interests.
- The actor exercising power is a single entity that can
“think” (unitary actor assumption)
2) Assumes that actors are able to perform a cost-benefit
analysis (calculating the costs incurred by a
possible action and the benefits it is likely to bring).
- States don’t enter wars they intend to lose.
20. Limitations of Realism
Vague; offered no criteria for determining
what historical data were significant in
evaluating its claims and what
epistemological rules to follow when
interpreting relevant information.
Does it account for significant new
developments in world politics?
Realisms disregard of ethical principles
and about the material and social costs
that some of its policy prescriptions
seemed to impose