INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY

 

 

 

Political Science 137

Spring 2001

Professor Arthur Stein

Bunche 3383

310-825-1173

stein@polisci.ucla.edu

Office hours: T, Th 9-9:30a, 11a-12p, and by appt.

Teaching Assistants:      Molly Fox (mfox@ucla.edu) and Abdulkader Sinno (asinno@ucla.edu)

Lectures:   T, Th 9:30 - 10:45a, Kinsey 169

Class web site:  http//www.sscnet.ucla.edu/01S/polisci137a-1/

 

The focus of this course is approaches to the study of international politics, i.e., the different ways in which war and peace have been explained.  Although you will learn a great deal about current international issues and about the evolution of international politics, the focus of this course is analytic rather than substantive, on how to analyze rather than on specific events and details.  As such, the course will teach you how to think in general, in addition to dealing with international politics.

 

The course is multidisciplinary, and integrates psychology, economics, sociology, history, and geography in the study of international relations.  It also draws from all the other subfields of political science, including American and comparative politics, as well as political theory.  You will find that the course will help you to pull together quite disparate material from a variety of courses you may have taken.

 

Course requirements:  First and foremost, doing the reading and coming to class (lectures and section).  Taking this class means voluntary entering into a social compact with the instructor and fellow students.  Being prepared and coming to class are the core obligations.  The course will have a midterm, final exam, and course paper.  The final exam will be cumulative for the entire quarter.

 

A paper, 12-15 pages in length will be due during finals week.  You must clear your topic with your TA by the third week, and preferably sooner.  You will be required to submit a draft of the paper or an abstract by the end of the 7th week of the course.  The abstract/draft paper will be marked and returned.  The revised version will deal with the comments on the first draft as well as include perspectives discussed in the last three weeks.

 

The point of the paper is to apply the approaches discussed in the course to some current event.  There is plenty to choose from as the new Bush Administration is changing American policy all around, towards Iraq, North and South Korea, the Middle East, the Balkans, China, and Europe.  There is a problematic conflict flaring in Macedonia.  There is plenty to choose from.  You need not pick a case in which the U. S. is a player.

 

Begin by selecting some issue.  Follow the news about it.  Read the paper.  If you get the paper, keep a clippings file.  If not, you might want to create a file with copies of relevant articles.  One good reason to keep copies of what you read is to be able to go back and reread them.  Remember, you'll be coming across new perspectives each week of the course, so taking notes on what you find in the newspapers may not provide you with adequate information to deal with a perspective you've not yet covered.  Keeping full texts of what you find will allow you to reassess in the light of new material you've covered in the intervening weeks.

 

You might want to start by addressing the following questions: Do the analyses you've read typically focus on one level of analysis more than others?  Do debates about the matter reflect alternative levels of analysis or alternative arguments within the same level of analysis?

 

You may use the levels of analysis to write a critical examination of the sources and consequences of policy.  You may, if you prefer, make a theoretically-based policy recommendation, developing an alternative policy rather than explaining an extant one.

 

It is critically important that you get an early start.  It is impossible to make the readings for each week the exact same number of pages.  A light week of required readings means a week in which you should be reading for your paper.  There are some heavier reading weeks towards the end and they include perspectives you will have to discuss so you will have to do that reading.  It is imperative that you have done the reading for the paper by that point.

 

You should use resources available on the Web.  Various news services, including the Los Angeles Times are available on the Web.  Some will give you just newswire reporting and nothing more extensive or analytic.  But some will give you full‑length articles.  Some will let you search archives which go back (varying lengths of time).  Some news magazines, such as The New Republic, are available on the Web.  Check out the Electronic Newstand (where you can search archives of past issues as well). 

 

Some electronic materials, which are not publicly available on the web, are available through UCLA’s library

(http://www.library.ucla.edu/cird/index.htm#etext).  Through this link you can get to newspaper articles in Lexus.  Also the MAGS database in the California Digital Library (http://www.dbs.cdlib.org/) has full text of some articles.  Doing your paper will be made easier and richer using the net, but you will also have to use a library.

 

Besides the Los Angeles Times, you might want to look at the New York Times.  Good magazine choices include the Washington Post Weekly, The Economist, and The New Yorker.  There are current events series, including special issues of Current History and the Headline Series of the Foreign Policy Association.  Journals that focus on current issues include Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy.

 

 

Available for purchase at ASUCLA:

 

Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998).

 

Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999).

 

Arthur A. Stein, Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990).

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).

 

 

 

 

1. Introduction

Questions:  What are different approaches to explaining international politics?  What are the different questions the field asks?  What are the levels of analysis?  What is the debate between reductionism and structuralism all about?

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, pp. 1-15.

 

 

 

 

2.  International Politics as the Expression of Individuals: Personality and Generational Experience

Questions:  What is assumed about international politics by choosing to focus on the characteristics of individuals? How does a focus on the characteristics of individuals explain the decision to use force?  What are the roots of personality?  Does personality always explain foreign policy?  Is international conflict a clash of personalities?  What are the generational experiences that can shape attitudes and thus foreign policy?

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, pp. 16-79.

 

Saul Friedlander and Raymond Cohen, "The Personality Correlates of Belligerence in International Conflict," Comparative Politics 7 (January1975): 155-186.

 

Lloyd Etheridge, "Personality Effects on American Foreign Policy, 1898-1968: A Test of Interpersonal Generalization Theory," American Political Science Review 72 (June1978): 434-451.

 

Michael Roskin, "From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: Shifting Generational Paradigms," Political Science Quarterly 89 (Fall1974): 563-588.

 

 

 

 

3.  International Politics as the Expression of Culture

Questions:  What is culture?  What constitutes a cultural explanation for foreign policy?  Are there cultural bases of international conflict?

 

Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?," Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer1993): 22-49.

 

Bernard Lewis, "Memorandum for the President: What You Should Know about Islam." In America and the Muslim Middle East: Memos to a President. Eds. Philip D. Zelikow and Robert B. Zoellick, 5-18 (Washington, D. C.: The Aspen Institute, 1998).

 

Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, pp. ix - 294.  You will be doing this reading over two weeks but start now.

 

 

 

 

4.  International Politics and Industrialization, Commerce, Interdependence

Questions:  How do economic forces, such as industrialization and modernization, affect foreign policy?  Are commerce, economic interdependence, and globalization the bases of peace?

 

Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, pp. ix - 294.  Continue reading Friedman.

 

Carl Kaysen, "Is War Obsolete?," International Security 14 (Spring1990): 42-64.   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

5.  International Politics and Industrialization, Resource Scarcity, and Communication

Questions:  Are the consequences of industrialization always benign?  Can economics also be the basis for conflict?  What are other implications of modernization?  Do they strengthen nationalism or internationalism?  Does the growth of communications (the information superhighway) assure peace?

 

Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, pp. ix - 294.  Continue reading Friedman.

 

Robert C. North, "Toward a Framework for the Analysis of Scarcity and Conflict," International Studies Quarterly 21 (December1977): 569-591.

 

Thomas F. Homer-Dixon,"Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence From Cases," International Security 19, no. 1 (1994): 5 (36 pages).   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

6.  International Politics and Economic Systems: Capitalism and Conflict

Questions:  Can war and peace be explained by the nature of the economic system?  Does capitalism imply peaceful competition or conflict eventually resulting in war?

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, pp. 124-158.

 

Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, pp. ix - 294.  Finish reading Friedman.

 

 

 

 

7.  International Politics and Domestic Political Systems I

Questions:  Are there differences in the foreign policies of democracies and dictatorships?  Are democracies more peaceful?  Toward whom?  Why?  Is there such a thing as a democratic peace?

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, pp. 80-123.

 

Ivo K. Feierabend, "Expansionist and Isolationist Tendencies of Totalitarian Political Systems: A Theoretical Note," Journal of Politics 24 (November1962): 733-742.

 

Stanislav Andreski, "On the Peaceful Disposition of Military Dictatorships," Journal of Strategic Studies 3 (December1980): 3-10.

 

Christopher Layne, "Kant or Cant: the Myth of the Democratic Peace," International Security 19, no. 2 (Fall1994): 5-49.   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger of War," International Security 20, no. 1 (Summer1995): 5(34).   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

8.  International Politics and Domestic Political Systems II

Questions:  Can a cooperative or conflictual foreign policy be explained by the stability or instability of the regime?  Do state/society relationships (weak versus strong state) explain foreign policy?

 

Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 55-90.

 

Arno Mayer, "Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870-1956," Journal of Modern History 41 (September1969): 291-303.

 

Michael Gordon, "Domestic Conflict and the Origins of the First World War," Journal of Modern History 46 (June1974): 191-226.

 

Stephen Van Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring1994): 5-39.   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

9.  Structural Realism

Questions:  What is a structural or systemic argument?  What are the assumptions of such arguments in international politics?

 

Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, pp. 159-238.

 

John Orme, "The Utility of Force in a World of Scarcity," International Security 22, no. 3 (Winter1997): 138 (30 pages).   In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

10.  Balance of Power, Polarity, and Polarization

Questions:  What is the balance of power?  How do we know when a balance of power exists?  What does a balance of power explain?  How would we evaluate balance-of-power theory against historical data?  Are bipolar or multipolar worlds more stable?

 

Ernst Haas, "The Balance of Power: Prescriptions, Concepts or Propaganda?," World Politics 5 (July1953): 442-477.

 

Alan Ned Sabrosky, "From Bosnia to Sarajevo: A Comparative Discussion of Interstate Crises," Journal of Conflict Resolution 19 (March1975): 3-24.

 

Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer, "Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability," World Politics 16 (April1964): 390-406.

 

John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security 15 (Summer1990): 5-56.  In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

11.  Hegemonic Stability

Questions:  What is hegemonic stability theory?  Is hegemonic stability theory applicable only to economic issues or also security ones?  What is the relationship between balance‑of‑power theory and hegemonic stability theory?

 

A. F. K. Organski, "The Power Transition." In World Politics, 2nd ed., 338-376, skim (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968).

 

Stephen D. Krasner, "State Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade," World Politics 28 (April1976): 317-347.

 

 

 

 

 

12.  Structural Balance

Questions:  What is structural balance theory?  How are the conceptions of balance and stability in structural balance theory different than that in balance of power theory?

 

Frank Harary, "A Structural Analysis of the Situation in the Middle East," Journal of Conflict Resolution 5 (June1961): 167-178.

 

Arthur A. Stein, Securing an Alliance: The Origins of NATO, 1945-1949. Case Studies in Atlantic Cooperation, #1. (Washington, D. C.: Atlantic Council of the United States, 1999).

 

 

 

 

13.  Structure: Geopolitics and Technology

Questions:  What geopolitical factors explain foreign policy choices and involvement in war?  What technological  factors explain foreign policy choices and involvement in war?  Can international stability be explained by the nature of weapons systems?

 

James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., "Environmental Theories." In Contending Theories of International Relations: a Comprehensive Survey, 2nd ed., 54-83 (New York: Harper & Row, 198x).

 

Stephen Van Evera, "Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War," International Security 22, no. 4 (Spring1998): 5 (39 pages).  In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

14‑15.  The Problem of International Cooperation in Realism and Liberalism

Questions:  Is strategic interaction another level of analysis?  Are conflict and cooperation products of the strategic setting (and what explains that)?  Why are the strategic settings (or games) of  prisoners' dilemma and chicken the focus of so much attention and what do they teach us about international politics and the nature of international conflict and cooperation?  What are the requisites of cooperation in international politics?  Is misperception the source of conflict in intrnational politics?

 

Arthur A. Stein, Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations, pp. 3-111, 113-145, 151-169, 172-210.

 

 

 

 

16.  The Future

Questions:  Is the post‑Cold War world a more or less stable place?  Why?  What are the prospects for international politics?  What do the different theories discussed in the course imply about the future?  What are the implications of Huntington's article for the nature and future of international politics?

 

Samuel P. Huntington, "Transnational Organizations in World Politics," World Politics 25 (April1973): 333-368.

 

John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19 (Winter1994): 5(45).  In Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Coté, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Theories of War and Peace.

 

 

 

 

17.  Conclusion

Questions:  What have you learned?  What do you still not know but know that you don't know?  Can we combine competing perspectives on how the world works (and specifically, about international politics)?  How should we handle theories at different levels of analysis?  Are our models too general or ethnocentric?  Can they deal with culturally distinctive conditions?  What are the intellectual frontiers for the field?  How do we react to the ambiguities and uncertainties associated with the current state of knowledge?

ON WRITING:

 

1.   Write well-organized paragraphs that tackle single thoughts.  Each should have a topic sentence that presents the point you want to make or introduces a body of material.  The topic sentence should cover all the material in the paragraph.  There should be no material in the paragraph not covered by the topic sentence.  If there is: throw it out, or rewrite the topic sentence, or split the paragraph into two or more paragraphs.  You can then read the topic sentences to see if their order makes sense or if you need to rearrange the paragraphs.  Make your case clear is by writing discrete paragraphs, each introduced by an explicit point or statement of topic that is followed by explication, elaboration, or explicit evidence linked explicitly to your point. 

 

2.   Read your paper before turning it in.  Your spell checker (which you should use) is not enough.  Moreover, even though you are turning in a "first draft," it should, in fact, be at least a second draft. 

 

Rules of Citation:  You must cite all quotes, paraphrases, and IDEAS from other works.  If you present an argument that has previously been offered elsewhere, you must cite it unless it is conventional, or at least common, wisdom.

 

Procedures:  Make sure your printer ribbon or cartridge is dark enough to be read.  For style sheet, see: A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, by Kate L. Turabian (The book is popularly referred to as Turabian.  Or, you may substitute the longer and more expensive Chicago Manual of Style.  Both are available at ASUCLA, and you should own a copy of one or the other.  You might also want to read a little book before you begin writing, The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White.  It is short, cheap, and delightful.  It is the best introduction to issues of basic grammar and style.  Turn in the commented‑upon first draft with your final draft.

 

KEEP A COPY OF YOUR PAPER