INTERNATIONAL POLITICS-

• What is it?
• Lasswell’s Who gets what, how, why.
• Nation-state taken as unit of description, not always unit of
analysis.
• Concerned with the interaction of both states and other actors
based in separate states.
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AREAS OF CONCERN

• Everything that concerns how states and national leaders interact.

• conflict and cooperation, treaties, alliances, security dilemmas,
interdependency, war, and trade.
• Decisions and behaviors of state and international actors.

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 POLITICAL SCIENCE

• Politics are used to resolve collective action problems.

• The study of polities that create policies. Outputs,
motivations and behaviors.
• Field used to focus primarily on behaviors of organized polities.
• Now borrows from a number of different fields, sociology (social
groups, norm forming, etc), psychology (individual level,
perceptions, motivations, behavior under stress or
uncertainty),Economics (individual, macro, systemic levels, rat
choice, inductive models)

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GOALS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

• To understand observed phenomenon

• Predict behavior, based on minimum of observable inputs
(independent variables).
• Explain phenomenon, understand motivations, perceptions,
expectations of actors.
• Positive theory: Explains behavior through observation-
objective scientific theory possible.
• Normative theory: Explains what should be in terms of
norms and values that guide behavior.

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WHY USE THEORIES

• Theories are methods of organizing information in order to lead to

understanding of observed phenomenon.
• Must be testable and falsifiable.
• Must explain and prediction of behaviors.
• Work until they don’t!

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CONCEPTS TO KNOW

• Actors: Can be nation-state, IGO’s, NGO, MNC, domestic

pressure groups, political leaders, etc.
• Level of analysis: Global, interstate,domestic,individual
• State Sovereignty
• Power
• International System: interactions between states, structured by
patterns, rules and norms
• International Anarchy

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ACTORS
• Nation-states
• Sub-national organizations
• Bureaucracies
• International Organizations
• Intra-governmental organization (really only 1)
• Individuals
• Private organizations- corporations
• Religions
• Networks
• religious
• technical
• Ideological communities
• others
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS-

• Locate your phenomenon...

• Like finding the edge pieces of a puzzle.
• Recognizing the actors in a problem helps identify the most
appropriate level of analysis.
• Recognizing the environment that conditions actor behavior
refines selection of level or levels.
• Guides determination of appropriate theoretical tools.

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LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: NOT FIXED
• Goldstein 4-levels
• Mingst ID’s 3 levels
• International System
• Interstate level
• State
• Society Character, Economic Conditions, Bureaucratic etc..
• Individual
• Kinsella et al. 6 levels
• World Systems
• IR- interstate
• Society Character/Conditions
• National Government structure and type
• Bureaucracies, roles of decision makers
• Individual decision maker

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LEVELS OF ANALYSIS-GLOBAL
LEVEL: WORLD SYSTEMS
• Regional phenomenon
• Environmental issues
• Terrorism, organized crime
• Imperial systems and legacies, Polarity
• Cross border cultural phenomenon, world religions
• Epistemic communities
• Science, business, economics
• Knowledge change
• Science, organizations, education, communication
• International Institutions, norms-- International Laws, conventions.
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LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: INTER-
STATE LEVEL

• States as actors
• Power rivalries
• Treaties
• IGO
• Wars

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LOA: NATION-STATE

• Domestic level
• Domestic political systems
• Interest groups
• Civil society organization
• Ethnic/national motivations
• Political culture
• Domestic competition, corporations, organizations, political groups

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INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

• Decision making among leaders

• Leader psychology
• Groupthink
• Learning of leaders etc…

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ORGANIZATIONS LEVEL

• Can be between individual and domestic, or other organizations

• Analyze the culture, structure, networks, communication, knowledge
and power of organizations.
• Organizations structure the information, objectives and authority of
individual decision makers

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EXAMPLE: TURKISH ACCESSION TO EU.
LOCATE PHENOMENON
Global Accession
Uni
ted
S tate
s

National/ France
Turkey

Regional/Organization

y
al/ Greece
an
m
er
G
l/
na
io

Nation
at
N
ACTORS- LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

Courts
Business Associations

Political Culture
Turkey Media
Religious
Orders

Parties
EXAMPLE: CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

• Inter-state level analysis

• Rational policy
• Security threat posed by missiles, undermines US deterrent.
• Attack conventional forces
• Do nothing
• Blockade, act of war escalation?
• Blockade with side-deal

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 NARCHY IN THE IR

• Anarchy is the absence of authority above the state.

• Security dilemma is the notion that under anarchy, the pursuit of security
(Arms, treasure, power) by one state is automatically a threat to its
neighbors.
• Security dilemma is caused by Anarchy, there is no recourse to self-
help
• The structural level of analysis of realists/neo-realists is based in the idea
of the security dilemma.

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WHAT DOES ANARCHY MEAN?

• Does it mean disorder?

• For state actions?
• For recourse to justice?
• To define justice?
• Where do individuals fit in an Anarchic system?
• What about those without Nation/State representation?
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WHAT DOES SECURITY
DILEMMA MEAN TO STATES?

• All states can be analyzed in terms of the security dilemma and their
behavior can be seen as efforts to mitigate the problem faced with finite
power.
• Either by becoming the strongest state, or adopting strategies that will
provide a second best solution. Explains possible behaviors such as arms
races, band-wagoning and balancing.

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ANARCHY TO REALISM

• Assumes the “state of nature” is a state of war, kept at bay by balances

of power or dominance.
• Might makes right.
• Where do international institutions fit? Do they?

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