Bargaining Approach to International Relations

Realism:
 Morgenthau
 Kenneth Waltz: Man, States and War + Theory of International Politics
o Divided the level of analysis in international relations
 3 levels
 Personal, state, system level
 System/Structure 5= important
o Number of great powers
o “bipolar most stable system” – prediction based on his
theory
 Structural Realism/Neorealism = same thing
 Criticized by Mearsheimer: too defensive
o Became offensive realism
o Realism: Interest
 2 key assumptions:
 1. States are dominant actors
 2. International system characterized by anarchy
 Domestic vs. International system
 No centralized authority
 Survival or security dominates all other interests
 Need to maximize power (Morgenthau) or military capabilities
(Waltz) -> leads to security dilemma
 Hobbes: wars are inevitable / peace is really fragile
o Realism: Interaction
 Anarchy structure limits cooperation:
 1. Concerned about relative gains
 Caring more about dividing power (?)
 Its more rational to not cooperate in the first place
 2. Fear of Dependence
 Cooperation difficult to achieve: reflected in today’s world
o Realism: Institution
 International institutions are weak and only represents the interests of
dominant states
 War a permanent fixture of international relations
 War can be reduced by careful diplomacy or temporary alliances (but
not easy)
 Stable alliances
 Neither domestic nor international institutions can deliver a lasting
peace

In security matters, realism still dominates

Liberalism:

 Locke, Kant, Smith

 Russett and Oneal, Schultz: democratic peace
o Domestic political systems don’t matter – Waltz
 Systemic factors matter
o BUT liberalists: political systems DO matter
o Need good institutions to change the state
 Keohane and Nye: International Institutions; After Hegemony (1984)
o Hegemonic power can continue as long as you have good institution. Good
international institutions that have embodied the ideals of the institution (?)
o Emphasizes the role of international institutions
 Actors:
o Many different types of actors
 Why IU are included
 Interests:
o Flexible: not the case that security concern dominates all others
o Government interests coming from within: from the interplay of different
domestic actors operating within domestic political institutions
 Can’t predict what the other states’ want, have to look
 Need to maximize wealth: to accommodate many different desires
including security
 Interaction
o Optimistic about cooperation:
o Based on common interests in many areas
 Esp. international political economy areas
 Was is not inevitable
 War occurs only when actors fail to act on common interests
 Institutions
o Institutions do matter + very important
o Facilitate cooperation
 Domestic institutions: Democratic peace
 International Institutions
Liberals assume that preferences are fixed, interest of the state are fixed
 Even if interests is fixed, we can still have cooperation

Constructivism:

 Proponents
o Katzenstein, Ruggie, Wendt
o From critical theory or sociology
 Many different actors:
o Role of non-state actors
 Different from liberalism
o Not the martial source of interest (e.g. wealth)
o But the role of non-material factors (e.g. ideas, norms, and cultures)
 Interests
 o What actors want are NOT fixed
o Argue that peace can be preserved by changing what states/leaders want
o Providing information matters
 Institutions
o They matter
o Provide norms, standards of behavior (defined by rights and obligations; and
sometimes against material and security interest)

Conclusion:

All these approaches offer insights into important problems of world politic
But, they only emphasize particular aspects of it.
Need to integrate all of them into unified framework.

E,g, Coercive power as a fundamental role in international relations (Realism) but the use od
coercive power may result from the interplay of diverse actors (liberalism) and collective
ideas (Constructivism)

What Shaped Our World?

Cooperation through History: 1800s through 2000s

 1800s: relative peace and prosperity
 Early to mid-1900s: wars, depressions
 Late 1900s: economic globalization
 2000s: Integration and conflict

The Mercantilist Era, 1492-1815

 Mercantilism
o As economic doctrine
o MILITARY AND ECONOMIC POWER COMPLEMENTARY (GUNS
AND BUTTER)
o State monopolies states one mechanism
o Other is control on colonial trade
o Britain imposed mercantilist policies on their colonies in North America (got
tobaccos, rice etc. at half their price)
 Virginia and South Carolina can buy manufactured products from
Britain at a much higher price
 Unfavorable terms of trade for colonies – who are the biggest losers
 Cost and Benefits
o Burdens fall on colonies - mostly economic
o Benefit: military protection, but from who?

 The Thirty Years’ War: battled against Spain, Spanish hegemonic period declined – at
then of the war there was a peace treaty aka
 Peace of Westphalia: state borders, state over the religion
  Beginning of the modern system of states
 Important concept of sovereignty
 Fight for hegemony and Anglo-French Rivalry
o Anglo-French rivalry
o Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)
o French revolution (1789)
o Napoleonic Wars (1804-1815, Waterloo)
 Interests
o Security through power
o Control of markets and resources
o “Civilizing” missions
 Interactions:
o Zero-sum bargaining among states
o Subjugations of colonies
o Empires

Pax Britannica: 1815-1914

 The Hundred Years’ of Peace
 Sources of cooperation: How?
o Links of economies between governments (?)
o No great powers war (Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria)
o Britain was willing to pay for these public goods
o Convergence of interests among the great power
o French revolution changed the minds of these kings
 Feared mass movements
 Supported absolutism and aristocracy
 Never liked liberalists ideas etc
 Wanted to put pre-Napoleonic order back to Europe
 Balance of power consideration in there
 “Holy alliance”
o British Hegemony: Naval power
 Hegemonic stability theory
 Concert of Europe: first example of collective security system

Pax Britannica- The Industrial Revolution

 Industrial revolution altered interests
 Exchange replaces mercantilism
 Economic integration increases
 Mechanisms
o Migrations
o Free trade
o Gold standard

The Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945

 Europe divided into two camps
o Central powers
o Allied Powers
 Sources of Conflict
 CINC scores – measurement of power
o Consists of 6 components: military personnel of a country, military
expenditure, total population, iron and steel production and energy
consumptions (update them annually)
 Rise of Germany resulted in the shift from power from Britain to Germany
o Germany felt unfair about distribution of global wealth
 Three main great empires
o Diverse ethnic groups and not too happy to be governed by these great
empires
 The Great Depression - 1929
o Led to the rise of extremism in Europe
o US not playing a major role in orchestrating all this = no international
organization = no solution
 Need rearmament
 WW1 – defense dominated
o Trench warfare
 WW2 – offense dominated
o Axis power vs Allied powers
o The West
 Hitler wanted to gain all the territories first and that meant Germany
had to increase its military
 1938: Got Austria without fighting
 Britain and France willing to give Hitler anything as long as he
doesn’t expand
o Chamberlain gave Hitler Czechoslovakia
o Churchill came to power and never gave in to Hitler
 Hitler wanted Poland – made a pact with Russia
 Germany and Russia: non-aggression pact
 Germany invaded Poland and the rest declared war on
Germany (1939)
 1940: Germany defeated France in 6 weeks
 Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon (when trying to mess with
Russia)
 Russia was in political turmoil, so it made sense as to why
Hitler would invade right there
 One of the coldest winters in Russia at that time
 Japan’s big mistake: bombing pearl harbor
 Managed to get control of East Asia – SEA and even New
Zealand
 Japan won the Russo-Japanese war in 1905
 They began to lose the war
o Consequence:
 25 million in armed forces, 30 million civilians
 Interests
o Security through alliances, expansion, and economic self-sufficiency
o Interactions
 World War 1 and 2
 Beggar-thy neighbor polices
 o Institutions
 The League of Nations
The Cold War and Its Alliances
 When you have multiple players, uncertainty will go up
 The were no great power wars
 Eastern blocs
 Western blocs
o Regional organization: NATO
o military alliance
 Updated
o Had to sacrifice capital mobility (?)

Post–Cold War – Collapse of the USSR and Cooperation

 Collapse of the USSR
 Cooperation
 Three scenarios:
o Bottom up: Arab Spring
o Top down: Soviet Union - Gorbachev
 Competition between hard liners and reformers
 Reformers get the upper hand, they include
liberal/democratic/opposition forces on board and try to implement
these reforms
 As time goes one, things get out of control -> Then they realize but it’s
too late
o External imposition: Iraq invasion, occupation
 1930s: US became number intervened the Gulf War
o New World Order: International system not a jungle anymore
 These norms to govern our behaviour

Interests: Actors and Preferences – States as Actors

 States as actors: today about 200; slow in Europe, fast by colonization

 Institutions: Sovereignty
 Interactions: “State make wars, and wars make the state.” -Charles Tilly

25.04.19 - Why Are There Wars?

 War is puzzling
o Wars are costly in terms of human lives or economic damage

War from Incomplete information: Tying Hands

Audience cost:
Public announcements – domestic and international audience
 Not following through, will get punished
 Threat is real – eliminate any incomplete information
Father Bush on Iraq: Public Announcement

Effective threats should not be carried out

 - If challenger is successful in raising audience cost – eliminating incomplete
information - targets will make concessions
o So it’ll be what is predicted by the audience cost
- War inevitable if both sides are unwilling to compromise

War from Commitment problem pt.1

 Have to create an enforcement mechanism,
 Not a threat to use of force but you want to make it credible – show clear intentions
(Credibility issue)
 Commitment: not a threat to use force but to promise not to change – revise terms in
the deal or from the original or intended (in the future)
 Prisoner’s dilemma’s enforcement mechanism: