Western Political Thought
Dr. John Paul Tabakian
COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (1)
Today’s Lecture Covers The Following:
• Taxes
• Cosmopolitanism
• Manifest Destiny
• American Foreign Policy
• Realism
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
COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (3)
• Why Gender Matters
• Gender In War & Peace
• Women In IR
• Constructivism / Rationalism
• Constructivism / Feminism
• Postmodernism
TAXES
• From tariffs to income tax
• 16th Amendment passed in 1913
• Progressive Tax System
• Guiding societal norms of behavior
• Deductions, penalties
•
Social Welfare Programs
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.
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.
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
LIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM
•
Liberal institutionalism cannot adequately
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.
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
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.
COLLECTIVE SECURITY (3)
8. Forcing states to instantaneously react to aggression impinges on state sovereignty.
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.
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.
PEACE STUDIES (1)
•
Criticism: normative bias
•
Conflict resolution
– Mediation
– Citizen diplomacy
– Arbitration
– Confidence-building
PEACE STUDIES (2)
•
Criticism: normative bias
•
Conflict resolution
– Mediation
– Citizen diplomacy
– Arbitration
– Confidence-building
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.
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.
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.
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
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.