POL SCI 41A Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Niccolò Machiavelli, Kenneth Waltz, Henry Kissinger
Document Summary
Based on the following three assumptions: states are the only actors in i. r. that matter, a policymaker"s primary responsibility is to create, maintain, and increase national power. Power is defined by the means available to a state to secure its national interests at all costs . The anarchic nature of the international system is an essential assumption for realist thinkers. State is the main actor, and sovereignty is its trait. Sovereignty: condition of a state having control and authority over its own territory and being free from any higher legal authority supreme authority. Refer to hobbes: we trade our liberty in return for a guarantee of security. And once it"s established, a civil society can begin where individuals and groups in a society are not acting as participants in any government institutions, or commercial companies. If there is no security, there is the absence of everything. Therefore, power must be organized domestically in order for community to begin.
