International Relations

Units

1. 1

   Studying international relations

   4 lessons

   1. Interests, interactions and institutionsUse interests, interactions and institutions to explain why states might fail to cooperate on a shared problem and how a treaty rule might change their choices.
   2. Levels of analysisSort explanations of a war into Waltz's three images, the individual, the state and the international system, and say what each level can and cannot explain about the outbreak of World War I.
   3. Models of foreign policy decision makingUse Allison’s three models to explain Kennedy’s October 1962 naval-quarantine decision and identify evidence each explanation would need.
   4. Strategic games in world politicsFind dominant strategies and Nash equilibria in two-by-two payoff tables, then explain how changed payoffs change a crisis model.
2. 2

   Realism

   4 lessons

   1. Classical realismTrace classical realism from Thucydides' Melian dialogue through Machiavelli and Hobbes to Carr's critique of utopianism and Morgenthau's six principles, with interest defined in terms of power.
   2. Structural realismExplain Waltz's structural realism in Theory of International Politics (1979): anarchy as the ordering principle, self-help, like units, the distribution of capabilities, balancing, and his argument that bipolarity is more stable than multipolarity.
   3. The security dilemmaExplain the security dilemma of Herz (1950) and Jervis (1978): how one state's defensive arming threatens others, how the offense-defense balance and distinguishability make it worse or milder, and the contrast between the spiral model and the deterrence model.
   4. Offensive and defensive realismContrast Mearsheimer's offensive realism and the pursuit of regional hegemony with defensive realism, explain balancing versus bandwagoning and Walt's balance of threat, and state the relative gains problem for cooperation.
3. 3

   Liberalism and institutions

   4 lessons

   1. Liberal traditionsExplain the roots of liberal international theory: Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795) with its three definitive articles, the commercial, republican and institutional strands of liberalism, and Wilson's Fourteen Points and the League of Nations.
   2. Neoliberal institutionalismExplain Keohane's After Hegemony (1984): how international institutions lower transaction costs, provide information and lengthen the shadow of the future, and Axelrod's finding that tit-for-tat sustains cooperation in an iterated prisoner's dilemma.
   3. The democratic peaceState the empirical finding that democracies rarely if ever fight each other but do fight non-democracies, distinguish the dyadic from the monadic claim, compare normative and institutional explanations, and weigh critiques about measurement and causation.
   4. Interdependence and domestic politicsExplain Keohane and Nye's complex interdependence, Putnam's two-level games and win-sets in international negotiation, and Moravcsik's liberal theory in which state preferences come from domestic groups.
4. 4

   Constructivism and critical approaches

   3 lessons

   1. Anarchy is what states make of itState Wendt's constructivist claim that identities and interests are socially constructed through interaction, and distinguish his Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian cultures of anarchy with the roles of enemy, rival and friend.
   2. Norms in world politicsState Finnemore and Sikkink's norm life cycle of emergence, cascade and internalisation, explain the role of norm entrepreneurs, distinguish the logic of appropriateness from the logic of consequences, and explain Tannenwald's account of the nuclear taboo.
   3. The English School and critical theoriesExplain Bull's idea of international society and the English School's three traditions, state the world-systems account of core and periphery, and describe feminist and postcolonial critiques of mainstream international relations.
5. 5

   The international system to 1945

   4 lessons

   1. Westphalia and sovereigntyExplain the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the principle of sovereign territorial states, assess the claim that Westphalia founded the modern state system, and trace the spread of that system through empire and decolonisation.
   2. The Concert of Europe and balance of powerExplain the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and the Concert of Europe, distinguish balance of power from Schroeder's account of restraint, and follow Bismarck's alliance system and its hardening into two blocs by 1907.
   3. Origins of World War ICompare the main explanations for 1914, alliance chains, the cult of the offensive and mobilisation schedules, nationalism and the rise of German power, and follow the July crisis as a sequence of decisions.
   4. The interwar years and World War IIExplain the Versailles settlement and the League of Nations, trace the failure of collective security in Manchuria and Ethiopia, assess the Depression and appeasement at Munich, and describe how the Second World War produced the United Nations and Bretton Woods.
6. 6

   The Cold War and after

   4 lessons

   1. Origins of the Cold WarExplain bipolarity after 1945, follow containment from Kennan's Long Telegram through the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin blockade and NATO, and compare the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist explanations.
   2. Cold War crises and detentePlace the crises of Korea, Berlin, Cuba and Vietnam on a timeline, explain proxy wars and the Non-Aligned Movement, and describe detente, arms control and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.
   3. The end of the Cold WarNarrate Gorbachev's reforms, the revolutions of 1989 and the Soviet collapse of 1991, compare realist, liberal and constructivist explanations of the peaceful end, and contrast Fukuyama's end of history with Huntington's clash of civilizations.
   4. Power transition and today's orderExplain Organski's power transition theory, read the rise of China's economy and military relative to the United States, evaluate the Thucydides trap, and describe the debate over a multipolar order after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
7. 7

   War and bargaining

   4 lessons

   1. Patterns of warState the Correlates of War definition of war, distinguish interstate, extra-state, intra-state and non-state conflicts, read the trend in armed conflicts since 1946, and weigh the argument that war is declining.
   2. The bargaining model of warState Fearon's argument that war is costly and so a bargaining range exists that both sides prefer to fighting, compute the range from probabilities of victory and costs, and say what the model implies about why wars occur.
   3. Information and commitment problemsExplain how private information with incentives to misrepresent, commitment problems from shifting power, and indivisible issues can make bargaining fail, and describe costly signals as a way to reveal information.
   4. Domestic politics and warExplain diversionary war, audience costs and credible signalling, the effects of regime type and leaders, and Jervis's misperception, and apply them to the 2003 Iraq war.
8. 8

   Deterrence and nuclear weapons

   4 lessons

   1. Deterrence and compellenceDistinguish deterrence from compellence as Schelling does, explain what makes a threat credible, describe brinkmanship as the threat that leaves something to chance, and separate general from immediate deterrence.
   2. Nuclear strategyExplain mutual assured destruction and the role of second-strike capability and the nuclear triad, distinguish counterforce from countervalue targeting, read the distribution of nuclear arsenals, and state the stability-instability paradox with the India and Pakistan case.
   3. Nuclear proliferationExplain Sagan's three models of why states build nuclear weapons, date the spread of the bomb, describe the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, summarise the Sagan and Waltz debate, and outline the cases of Iran and North Korea.
   4. Arms controlExplain the logic of arms control and verification, date the main treaties from the 1963 test ban to New START on a timeline, read the limits on warheads, and describe the erosion of arms control and new challenges from cyber weapons and missile defense.
9. 9

   Terrorism and counterterrorism

   3 lessons

   1. Defining terrorismDefine terrorism as political violence against civilians by non-state actors intended to influence an audience, distinguish it from insurgency, state terror and crime, and place Rapoport's four waves of modern terrorism on a timeline.
   2. The strategic logic of terrorismState Kydd and Walter's five strategies of terrorism, explain Pape's strategic account of suicide terrorism, and weigh Abrahms's finding that terrorism rarely achieves its goals.
   3. CounterterrorismNarrate the response to September 11 and the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, distinguish counterterrorism from counterinsurgency, state how terrorist groups end according to Jones and Libicki, and trace the rise and fall of ISIS.
10. 10

    International organizations, law and human rights

    4 lessons

    1. Why states build international organizationsExplain Abbott and Snidal's account of why states act through formal organizations, centralization and independence, analyse delegation as a principal-agent problem, and read how weighted voting at the IMF keeps control with the major powers.
    2. The United NationsDescribe the structure of the UN, the General Assembly, the Security Council with the P5 veto, the Secretariat and the International Court of Justice, distinguish collective security from collective defense, and assess the record of peacekeeping and the debates over Security Council reform.
    3. International lawState the sources of international law under Article 38 of the ICJ Statute, apply the Charter's ban on force in Article 2(4) and its exceptions, including self-defense under Article 51, and explain why states comply without a world government.
    4. Human rights regimesDate the main human rights instruments from the Universal Declaration of 1948, explain the spiral model of human rights change, describe the International Criminal Court and its membership, and state the Responsibility to Protect.
11. 11

    Trade and finance

    4 lessons

    1. Comparative advantageWork through Ricardo's comparative advantage with a two-country, two-good example, show that both countries gain from specialisation and trade even when one is better at everything, and use the Heckscher-Ohlin and Stolper-Samuelson theorems to identify who wins and loses from trade.
    2. The politics of tradeContrast factor-based and sector-based explanations of trade coalitions, trace the move from the GATT to the WTO with most-favored-nation treatment, reciprocity and dispute settlement, and explain how tariff wars and trade blocs arise.
    3. The international monetary systemTrace the gold standard, the Bretton Woods dollar-gold system and its collapse in 1971, and floating exchange rates, and use the Mundell-Fleming trilemma to explain why a state cannot have fixed exchange rates, free capital flows and independent monetary policy at once.
    4. Financial crises and hegemonyState Kindleberger's hegemonic stability theory, describe the IMF as lender of last resort with conditionality, and compare the Asian crisis of 1997, the global financial crisis of 2008 and the euro sovereign debt crisis, including Draghi's pledge of 2012.
12. 12

    Development, globalization and the global commons

    4 lessons

    1. Development and aidDescribe the Washington Consensus and its critics, state the debate between Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly on foreign aid, read the trend in aid and extreme poverty, and trace the move from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals.
    2. Globalization and its discontentsMeasure globalisation through trade, capital flows and migration, state Rodrik's trilemma of hyperglobalisation, national sovereignty and democracy, and explain the backlash, including the China shock.
    3. The tragedy of the commonsState Hardin's tragedy of the commons and its link to free riding and global public goods, explain Ostrom's design principles for governing commons, and apply both to fisheries and the ozone layer.
    4. Climate cooperationExplain climate change as a global public goods problem, trace the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol's binding targets and the Paris Agreement's nationally determined contributions, read the distribution of emissions, and evaluate Nordhaus's climate clubs.