Western Political Thought Dr. John Paul Tabakian

Political Science 5 Fall 2012 – Power Point #10

COURSE LECTURE: WEEK 10 (1)

Today’s Lecture Covers The Following: • Taxes • Cosmopolitanism • Manifest Destiny • American Foreign Policy • Realism • Idealism

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

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

LIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

PEACE STUDIES (1)

• Criticism: normative bias • Conflict resolution

– Mediation – Citizen diplomacy – Arbitration – Confidence-building – Linkage

PEACE STUDIES (2)

• Criticism: normative bias • Conflict resolution

– Mediation – Citizen diplomacy – Arbitration – Confidence-building – Linkage

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.

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.

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

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

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.