POLI 205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: American Israel Public Affairs Committee, International Political Economy, Exxonmobil
15 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI205
September 11th Class
Understanding International Relations
-IR is the study of relations between countries.
-IR is a subfield of Political Science, and has subfields of its own, including:
-Security Studies
-International Political Economy
-Foreign Policy Analysis
-International Organizations
-Scholars differ in terms of their methodology for studying IR phenomena
-Some prefer quantitative methods, such as statistical analysis
-Others prefer qualitative methods, such as single or comparative case study analysis
-Scholars vary in terms of their paradigm
-A paradigm is a world view or theoretical orientation
-IR paradigms include realism, liberalism, Marxism, Constructivism, and feminism.
The Actors in IR
1) States
a. A state is a territorial entity controlled by a government and inhabited by a population
b. The government of a state exercises sovereignty over its territory.
c. A sovereign government does not answer to any higher authority.
d. A nation is a group of people who share a sense of national identity, usually including a
language and culture (e.g., Germans, Kurds, Mohawks).
e. A nation-state exists when the territorial boundaries of a state correspond with the
territorial boundaries of a single nation (e.g., Somalia).
f. A Multinational state consists of multiple nations (e.g., Belgium, Canada, Switzerland).
g. There are nearly 200 states in the world today
h. States are ranked on the basis of their military and economic power:
i. Superpowers (e.g. USA)
ii. Great powers (e.g. France, UK)
iii. Middle Powers (e.g. Brazil, Canada)
iv. Small States (e.g., Fiji, Jamaica)
i. States coexist in an international system.
j. The international system is the set of relationships between states, structured
according to certain rules and patterns of interaction.
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