POL 101W Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Humanitarian Intervention, Liberal Democracy
13 May 2016
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Document Summary
States are the key actors: conflict prone by nature because they are self-interested and rational, have to constantly be suspicious of the potential threat that other states in the international community pose towards them. Realists have to accept a system of self help. The implication that moral judgements, which states usually engage in, is actually not important. It is not as neutral and accurate as it describes itself to be. Actually reflects the interests of major powers: by placing so much importance on the stability, what realist theory is actually doing is providing and implicit defence of the distribution of power and wealth. Focuses too exclusively on states as the key actors in international relations: overlooks other actors. Ignores social movements: critics argue that social movements played a crucial role in the. Transnational/ multinational corporations: arguably have a lot of power to constrain state behaviour, make countries inter-dependent on each other.
