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Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations that emphasizes the role of power politics in international relations, sees competition and conflict as enduring features and sees limited potential for cooperation. The anarchic state of the international system means that states cannot be certain of other states' intentions and their security, thus prompting them to engage in power politics.
Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may occur through domestic processes, such as revolution, coup, or reconstruction of government following state failure or civil war. It can also be imposed on a country by foreign actors through invasion, overt or covert interventions, or coercive diplomacy. Regime change may entail the construction of new institutions, the restoration of old institutions, and the promotion of new ideologies.
A military alliance is a formal agreement between nations that specifies mutual obligations regarding national security. In the event a nation is attacked, members of the alliance are often obligated to come to their defense regardless if attacked directly. Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes. Alliances may be covert or public.
Bandwagoning in international relations occurs when a state aligns with a stronger, adversarial power and concedes that the stronger adversary-turned-partner disproportionately gains in the spoils they conquer together. Bandwagoning, therefore, is a strategy employed by states that find themselves in a weak position. The logic stipulates that an outgunned, weaker state should align itself with a stronger adversary because the latter can take what it wants by force anyway. Thucydides' famous dictum that "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" captures the essence of bandwagoning.
Kenneth Neal Waltz was an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations. He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.
Economic interdependence is the mutual dependence of the participants in an economic system who trade in order to obtain the products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves. Such trading relationships require that the behavior of a participant affects its trading partners and it would be costly to rupture their relationship. The subject was addressed by A. A. Cournot who wrote: "...but in reality the economic system is a whole in which all of the parts are connected and react on one another. An increase in the income of the producers of commodity A will affect the demands for commodities B, C, etc. and the incomes of their producers, and by its reaction will affect the demand for commodity A." Economic Interdependence is evidently a consequence of the division of labour.
Interventionism, in politics, typically refers to the practice of governments that interfere in the political affairs of other countries, staging military or trade interventions. A different term, economic interventionism, refers to intervention in economic policy at home.
Realism, a school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states vying for power and positioning within an anarchic global system devoid of a centralized authority. It centers on states as rational primary actors navigating a system shaped by power politics, national interest, and a pursuit of security and self-preservation.
Polarity in international relations is any of the various ways in which power is distributed within the international system. It describes the nature of the international system at any given period of time. One generally distinguishes three types of systems: unipolarity, bipolarity, and multipolarity for three or more centers of power. The type of system is completely dependent on the distribution of power and influence of states in a region or globally.
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Defensive neorealism is a structural theory in international relations that is derived from the school of neorealism. The theory finds its foundation in the political scientist Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics in which Waltz argues that the anarchical structure of the international system encourages states to maintain moderate and reserved policies to attain national security. In contrast, offensive realism assumes that states seek to maximize their power and influence to achieve security through domination and hegemony. Defensive neorealism asserts that aggressive expansion as promoted by offensive neorealists upsets the tendency of states to conform to the balance of power theory, thereby decreasing the primary objective of the state, which they argue to be the ensuring of its security. Defensive realism denies neither the reality of interstate conflict or that incentives for state expansion exist, but it contends that those incentives are sporadic, rather than endemic. Defensive neorealism points towards "structural modifiers," such as the security dilemma and geography, and elite beliefs and perceptions to explain the outbreak of conflict.
Process tracing is a qualitative research method used to develop and test theories. Process-tracing can be defined as the following: it is the systematic examination of diagnostic evidence selected and analyzed in light of research questions and hypotheses posed by the investigator. Process-tracing thus focuses on (complex) causal relationships between the independent variable(s) and the outcome of the dependent variable(s), evaluates pre-existing hypotheses and discovers new ones. It is generally understood as a "within-case" method to draw inferences on the basis of causal mechanisms, but it can also be used for ideographic research or small-N case-studies. It has been used in social sciences, as well as in natural sciences.
Liberal institutionalism is a theory of international relations that holds that international cooperation between states is feasible and sustainable, and that such cooperation can reduce conflict and competition. Neoliberalism is a revised version of liberalism. Alongside neorealism, liberal institutionalism is one of the two most influential contemporary approaches to international relations.
The capitalist peace, or capitalist peace theory, or commercial peace, posits that market openness contributes to more peaceful behavior among states, and that developed market-oriented economies are less likely to engage in conflict with one another. Along with the democratic peace theory and institutionalist arguments for peace, the commercial peace forms part of the Kantian tripod for peace. Prominent mechanisms for the commercial peace revolve around how capitalism, trade interdependence, and capital interdependence raise the costs of warfare, incentivize groups to lobby against war, make it harder for leaders to go to war, and reduce the economic benefits of conquest.
Charles Louis Glaser is a scholar of international relations theory, known for his work on defensive realism, as well as nuclear strategy. He is the founding director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, as well as a professor of political science and international affairs. His best-known book, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation received an Honorable Mention for 2011 Best Book from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
In international relations theory, the bargaining model of war is a method of representing the potential gains and losses and ultimate outcome of war between two actors as a bargaining interaction. A central puzzle that motivates research in this vein is the "inefficiency puzzle of war": why do wars occur when it would be better for all parties involved to reach an agreement that goes short of war? In the bargaining model, war between rational actors is possible due to uncertainty and commitment problems. As a result, provision of reliable information and steps to alleviate commitment problems make war less likely. It is an influential strand of rational choice scholarship in the field of international relations.
Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy is a book that was written by Dr. Barry Posen and published in 2014 by Cornell University Press. Posen is the Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Wedge strategies in diplomacy are used to prevent, divide, and weaken an adversary coalition. Wedge strategies can take the shape of reward-based or coercive-based. Alignment abnormalities can arise because of wedge strategies.
Carla Norrlöf is a Swedish-Ethiopian political scientist. She is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on hegemony, as well as the international political economy of trade, investment and security. Her 2010 book America's Global Advantage: US Hegemony and International Cooperation argues that US hegemony is durable because of its dominance in currency, trade and security. She also argues that the US does not buttress the international system out of altruism, but rather because it derives considerable concrete benefits in being the world's reserve currency, dominant military power, and primary supporter of international markets.
Rational choice is a prominent framework in international relations scholarship. Rational choice is not a substantive theory of international politics, but rather a methodological approach that focuses on certain types of social explanation for phenomena. In that sense, it is similar to constructivism, and differs from liberalism and realism, which are substantive theories of world politics. Rationalist analyses have been used to substantiate realist theories, as well as liberal theories of international relations.
References
- ↑ "Council on Foreign Relations".
- ↑ Stephen Walt, "International Relations: One World, Many Theories," Foreign Policy 110 (Spring 1998), 29-45.
- ↑ Van Evera, Stephen (1984). "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War". International Security. 9 (1): 58–107. doi:10.2307/2538636. ISSN 0162-2889. JSTOR 2538636.
- ↑ Lieber, Keir A. (2007-10-01). "The New History of World War I and What It Means for International Relations Theory". International Security. 32 (2): 165 et seq. doi:10.1162/isec.2007.32.2.155. ISSN 0162-2889. S2CID 53553642.
- ↑ Snyder, Jack; Lieber, Keir A. (2008). "Defensive Realism and the "New" History of World War I". International Security. 33 (1): 187. doi:10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.174. ISSN 0162-2889. S2CID 57558984.
- ↑ Bennett, Andrew (2008-08-21). Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M; Brady, Henry E; Collier, David (eds.). "Process Tracing: a Bayesian Perspective". The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199286546.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-928654-6 . Retrieved 2021-03-10.
- ↑ Van Evera, Stephen (1997). Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-5444-8. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctvrf8bm7.
- ↑ Collier, David (2011). "Understanding Process Tracing". PS: Political Science & Politics. 44 (4): 823–830. doi: 10.1017/S1049096511001429 . ISSN 1049-0965.
- ↑ Gerring, John (2017). "Qualitative Methods". Annual Review of Political Science. 20 (1): 15–36. doi: 10.1146/annurev-polisci-092415-024158 . ISSN 1094-2939.
