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POS 304404: Great Power Politics 02082006

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Title: POS 304404: Great Power Politics 02082006


1
POS 304/404 Great Power Politics02/08/2006
  • Course Status
  • First weekly written assignment due.
  • Presentation date selection pushed back to
    02/15/05.
  • Paper topic description 02/22/05.
  • Presentation and paper can be on same topic.
  • Course Agenda
  • Website.
  • Critical current events.
  • 2006 QDR.
  • Discussion question.
  • Anarchy versus History.
  • Readings.
  • Mearsheimer Chapter 2.
  • Howe Chapters 1 and 2.
  • Videos SOTU and Anti-Imperial origins of US.

2
  • Critical current events
  • Fight(ing) the Future.
  • Great power communication of intent.
  • SOTU as statement of intent.
  • Roll out of other planning documents.
  • US DOD 2007 Budget.
  • US DOD Quadrennial Defense Review.
  • US DOD National Terrorism Strategy.
  • Other examples.
  • NIC Global Futures 2020.

3
  • Critical Current Event - Costs of Great
    Power/Empire - Elements of power.
  • Bush 2007 Budget released Monday, 02/06.
  • 2007 fiscal year begins October 2006.
  • Washington Post coverage.
  • White House/OMB 2007 Budget page.
  • Highlights.
  • 2.8 trillion dollar Budget.
  • 423 billion deficit.
  • Defense and Homeland Security boost.
  • Cuts in entitlements.
  • Tax cut extensions 1.7 trillion over 10 years.
  • Democrat Criticism.
  • House Budget Committee.
  • Senate Budget Committee.

4
  • 2007 Budget Spending by Category, Budget.

5
  • 2007 Budget Expenditures in Program Areas.

6
  • Discussion Question
  • Anarchy versus History.
  • Compare Mearsheimers and Howes approaches to
    understanding imperial/great power politics.
    Discuss similarities and differences in approach.

7
  • War, Power, and Expansion of the Federal/Central
    State.
  • Progressive growth of US federal state.
  • Similar pattern to other central states.
  • Growth of Authority, centralization of power.
  • Forms of Crisis
  • War,
  • Major Political Movement Mobilization,
  • Epidemics,
  • Economic (Depression, Recession).
  • Ratchet effect and great power status.
  • OSU Professor Sahrs website.

8
  • Mearsheimer.
  • UC Berkley interview 2002.
  • Op-ed piece Keeping Saddam in the Box.
  • American Amnesia interview.
  • the claim that security competition and war
    between great powers has been purged from
    international system is wrong.
  • International Politics... a dangerous and
    ruthless business.
  • Assumptions of Mearsheimer.
  • States engaged in an unrelenting pursuit of
    power.
  • Why?
  • International System.
  • Anarchic.
  • States have offensive military capability.
  • States face uncertainty.
  • Uncertainty Fear.
  • Examples - Intelligence Failures.

9
  • Offensive Realism.
  • Focus on Great Powers.
  • Relative Military Capability.
  • Nuclear Age - Must have nuclear deterrent.
  • What are the necessary elements that
    nation-states must have to meet the above two
    criteria for great power status.
  • Theory has claims of generalizability.
  • Time domain of Mearsheimers study 1792 to end of
    20th century.
  • Predictive - Forecasting.
  • Is prediction of nation-state behavior possible?
  • What are the purposes of prediction?
  • If prediction is possible - who benefits?

10
  • Why are theories of international politics and
    competition necessary?
  • Mearsheimer admitsoffensive realism has limits.
  • Questions about power.
  • Why do states want power?
  • How much power?
  • What is power?
  • What Strategies do states use to acquire and
    maintain power?
  • Blackmail, war, balancing, buck-passing.
  • Liberalism vs.. Realism.
  • Other non-realist theories.

11
  • Liberalism.
  • Enlightenment Roots.
  • Core beliefs.
  • States main actors.
  • Internal differences shape state behavior.
  • Good and bad states - vary by regime type.
  • States do not just seek power, especially good
    states.
  • Types.
  • Economic Interdependence.
  • Democratic Peace.
  • International Institutions.
  • Realism.

12
  • Realism.

13
  • Realism (continued).
  • Americans dislike? Why?
  • American rhetoric liberal, but is foreign and
    national security policy based on realism?
  • Does contradiction between rhetoric and actions
    have adverse impact internally and/or externally
    for the United States?

14
  • Polarity of the International System.
  • Multipolar.
  • Bipolar.
  • Unipolar.
  • Mearsheimers Assumptions re polarity.
  • Multipolar more war prone than bipolar.
  • Especially if competition between powerful
    potential hegemons.

15
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power.
  • Bedrock Assumptions.
  • 1) International System Anarchic.
  • Sovereignty.
  • 2) Great powers Possession of some offensive
    capability.
  • 3) Uncertainty.
  • 4) Survival primary goal.
  • Survival means
  • Territorial integrity.
  • Autonomy of domestic political order.
  • 5) States are rational actors.
  • Preferences, strategic and tactical calculations
    covering short and long term consequences.
  • General patterns of behavior
  • Fear, self help, power maximization.

16
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(2).
  • States fear.
  • Fear waxes and wanes but never trivial.
  • Anarchy intensifies fear.
  • Stakes are high, existential.
  • Fear promotes
  • self help.
  • Alliances always temporary, never trumps anarchy.
  • Power maximization.
  • Drive for hegemony.
  • Constant drive for advantage.
  • Enough power?
  • Hard to calculate.
  • Difficult to anticipate new dimensions of power.
  • Achieve and maintain hegemony only protection.

17
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(3).
  • Security Dilemma.
  • Drive for security, undermines security.
  • Ceaseless competition.
  • Maximization of Relative vs. Absolute power.
  • States concerned with relative power
  • Seek incremental gains in power.
  • Power is a means to the end of ensuring
    survival.
  • States concerned with absolute power.
  • Seek gains in power w/o reference to other
    states.
  • Power is a end in itself.
  • Calculating Aggression.
  • Great powers with marked advantage are
    aggressive.
  • Great powers with powerful opponents more
    defensive.
  • Calculus of aggression - risk versus benefit.

18
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(4).
  • Calculation is disrupted by
  • Uncertainty.
  • Information asymmetries.
  • Ideology (for Haas yes).
  • Offense gains over defense.
  • Hegemonys Limits.
  • Global.
  • Regional.
  • Global unlikely.
  • Ideal position is regional.
  • Successful maximization of power generates fear.
  • Power.
  • Potential and actual.
  • Components population, wealth, military
    apparatus (esp. land).

19
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(5).
  • Fear and power.
  • Mutual survivable nuclear arsenals diminish fear
    between rival great powers.
  • Oceanic separation diminishes fear between rival
    great powers.
  • Absence or presence of power asymmetries
    amplifies or diminished fear.
  • Hegemony, polarity and power.
  • Distance between hegemon and nearest rival
    determines stability.
  • Greater the distance, more stability.
  • States primarily assess offensive capabilities.
  • Critical great powers tend to fear states with
    large populations and rapidly expanding
    economies, even if these states have not yet
    translated wealth into might (p. 46).

20
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(6).
  • Hierarchy of state goals.
  • Survival number one goal in theory.
  • Non-security goals
  • Prosperity and internal welfare.
  • Ideology.
  • Nationalism.
  • Human Rights.
  • Non-security goals pursued so long as they do not
    conflict with balance of power logic.
  • FDR quote I cant take communismbut I would
    hold hands with the Devil.

21
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(7).
  • International order is by-product of
  • Self-interested behavior of great powers.
  • Unintended consequence.
  • Periods of international order only momentary
    equilibriums.
  • Anarchy will always puncture the equilibriums.
  • Peaceful Globe unlikely
  • Agreement on formula for peace difficult.
  • Uncertainty of success.
  • Cooperation difficult.
  • Prisoners dilemma.
  • special peril of defection.
  • Relative gains.
  • Cheating/uncertainty.

22
  • Anarchy and Struggle for Power(8).
  • Conclusion.
  • Structure of international system.
  • Promotes offensive stance.
  • Promotes seeking of hegemony.
  • Aggression is not hardwired but
  • Survival under Anarchy.
  • Offensive realism treats all states alike.
  • Regardless of regime type and other domestic
    characteristics.

23
  • Ikenberry, John. 2002. Introduction in America
    Unrivaled The Future of the Balance of Power,
    John Ikenberry ed.. Ithaca, NY Cornell
    University Press.
  • American power unprecedented.
  • Hyperpower?
  • Multidimensionality of power.
  • Military.
  • Economic.
  • Cultural.
  • American Unipolarity Poses Questions for IR
    theory.
  • Realist Theory of Balance of Power.
  • Balancing to Concentration or Asymmetry of Power.
  • No significant balancing of American power.
  • Opposition to intervention in Iraq - evidence of
    balancing?
  • Why no balancing to American unipolarity?
  • Economic interdependence.

24
  • Ikenberry.
  • Balancing dog that has not yet barked.
  • Possible reasons for lack of balancing.
  • American power less threatening?
  • American power and actions more benefits than
    costs to other states?
  • American power, and global system, fundamentally
    different and stable?
  • Policy Implications.
  • Anticipation of near and long term future global
    distribution of power.
  • Institutional Response.
  • Military, diplomatic, economic, cultural -
    internal and external.

25
  • Ikenberry.
  • Debate about American unipolarity - debate about
    sources of international order.
  • Debate w/deep historical roots.
  • Control of conflict and maintenance of order.
  • Realist/neorealist theories.
  • Balance of Power.
  • Hegemony.
  • Balance of power.
  • Capabilities for balancing internal and external.
  • Alliances of expedience - not durable.
  • Weak states seek protection from dominant state.
  • Balancing strategy vs. bandwagoning.

26
  • Ikenberry.
  • Hegemony.
  • International system characterized by a series of
    hegemonies.
  • War establishes new hegemony.
  • Different types of hegemony.
  • Intensity of use of coercion.
  • Hegemonic order preserved by
  • Coercion w/no challenging state or alliance of
    states.
  • Informal imperial order.
  • Minimal convergence of interests.
  • Solving regional security dilemmas.
  • Liberal hegemony.
  • Institutions and mutual benefit dampen balancing
    impulse.

27
  • Hegemony and Empire.
  • Great power defining international relations of
    era.
  • Lieven Empire The Russian Empire and its Rivals
    (2000).
  • Polity ruling over large territory w/ ethnically
    diverse population.
  • Democracy and Empire.
  • Empires necessarily always authoritarian.
  • Does internal form of government matter for
    definition of empire?
  • Is empire distinct from nation-state or
    multi-ethnic/national federations?
  • Core governing apparatus.
  • Nation-State.
  • Networks of elites (aristocratic/warrior/ethnic/re
    ligious).

28
  • Imperialism and Empire.
  • Empire.
  • Political control imposed by some political
    societies over effective sovereignty of other
    political societies.
  • Imperialism.
  • Process of establishing and maintaining an
    empire.
  • Imperial Metropole.
  • Peripheries.
  • Vulnerable.
  • What types of vulnerabilities?

29
  • Howe.
  • All history is imperial - or colonial .
  • Opens with a series of examples.
  • US pending war with/intervention in Iraq.
  • Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
  • Turkish/Kurd Conflict.
  • Trial of Milosevic/international law as product
    of succession of empires.
  • Scottish Parliament.
  • Echoes of Empire.
  • Lord of the Rings, Empire Strikes Back, Evil
    Empire from Reagan to Rage Against the Machine.

30
  • Howes Three Goals
  • Interpretation of the idea of empire.
  • Disentangle the various meanings of empire.
  • Empire, imperialism, colonialism, colonization,
    neocolonialism.
  • Afterlives of empire.
  • Howe, like Doyle and others points out empire
    ideologically loaded term.
  • Etymology of empire.
  • Latin imperium - sovereignty or rule.
  • Dual aspect wage war, make rules.

31
  • Imperium.
  • Extensive size.
  • Universality.
  • Christian, Islamic, Communist, Capitalist,
    Democratic.
  • Do claims or aspirations to universality motivate
    state behavior more than power motivations
    outlined by Mearsheimer and Waltz?
  • Boundary between barbarian and civilization.
  • Hypocrisy and reality.
  • Romes civilizing mission to weapons of mass
    destruction proliferation control.
  • Dimensions of civilization, feelings of
    superiority.
  • Colonizer/Colonized.
  • Ideology and race/ethnicity.

32
  • Empires.
  • Large.
  • Diverse.
  • Direct and Indirect rule.
  • Violence and the acquisition and maintenance of
    empire.
  • Empire and Imperialism.
  • Imperialism referred to Napoleon III attempt to
    re-establish Napoleons empire.
  • British use.
  • Attitude vs. Fact of empire.
  • Critics of Empire.
  • Hobson.
  • Lenin.
  • Schumpeter.
  • Hardt and Negri.

33
  • Critics of Empire Hobson and Lenin - Empire and
    Capitalism.
  • Hobson - British Empire. Imperialism (1902)
  • Dispositional Theory.
  • Imperialism result of three forces.
  • Economic, Political, Socio-psychological.
  • Economic.
  • Special Interests (financiers, munitions
    manufacturers).
  • Underconsumption and oversaving in the metropole.
  • Combine to force metropole to seek external
    markets and investment opportunities.
  • Political - Reactionary Alliance manipulating
    democracy.
  • Socio-psychological. Introduction of reforms
    (esp. redistribution of income and labor unions
    in metropole) would change consciousness and
    produce peaceful, commercial, internationalism.

34
  • Critics of Empire Hobson and Lenin - Empire and
    Capitalism.
  • Lenin. Imperialism Highest Stage of Capitalism.
    (1917)
  • Imperialisms Essential Features.
  • Concentration of production and capital produces
    monopolies.
  • Bank and industrial capital merges, creates
    financial oligarchy.
  • Export of capital of equal importance to export
    of commodities.
  • International combines/corporations divide the
    world according to economic interests.
  • Entire planet divided between capitalist powers.
  • 3 Forces driving acquisition of external
    territories.
  • Superabundance of capital. Underconsumption.
    Search for markets and raw materials.
  • Imperialism would create global war.
  • Solution Global proletarian revolution.

35
  • Critics of Empire.
  • Schumpeter - Imperialism and Social Classes
    (1919).
  • atavistic war machine.
  • Atavism - 1. resemblance to remote ancestor in
    some characteristic which nearer ancestors do not
    have. 2. reversion to a primitive type.
  • Based ideas of war machine on ancient empires,
    especially militarized Egypt.
  • Created by wars that required it, the machine
    now created the wars it required.
  • War machine is separate and distinct from
    capitalism for Schumpeter.
  • Global capitalism can develop without
    imperialism.

36
  • Critics of Empire.
  • Hobson and Lenin - Empire and Capitalism.
  • Schumpeter - atavistic war machine.
  • Hardt and Negri. Empire. 2000.
  • Empire - global economic system and incipient
    development of a supranational center.
  • Juridical supranational order ala United Nations,
    international law.
  • Hobbesian vs. Lockean conceptions of development
    of empire/global order.
  • Empire as juridical concept.
  • Right of empire based notions construction of
    new order establishing the spatial boundaries of
    civilization has pretensions of transcending
    temporal barriers as well.

37
  • Critics of Empire - Hardt and Negri continued.
  • 21st century empire one of global policing.
  • Policing is an contradictory concept global
    capitalism, global human rights, norms of
    international behavior in tension.
  • Policing - an historically bounded possibility
    that will fade and be replaced with anarchic
    norms?
  • Limits of Empire and Great Powers.
  • International environment dynamic.
  • Hegemony has always receded.
  • Related to structural economic and technological
    dynamics.

38
  • State power and empire.
  • Definitions.
  • Empire.
  • Imperialism.
  • Globalization.
  • Colonialism/internal colonialism.
  • Colonization/settler colonization.
  • Post-colonial/neo-colonial.

39
  • Types of Empire.
  • Land.
  • Sea.
  • Land Empire.
  • Older form of empire.
  • Diffuse.
  • Duration.
  • Soviet, Chinese (PRC).
  • Empires.
  • Assyrian.
  • Greek.

40
  • Egyptian.
  • Unclear if empire ala Assyrians and Greeks.
  • Americas.
  • Incan, Mayan, Aztec empires.
  • China.
  • Rome.
  • Invented modern idea of empire.
  • Foundation exploitation.
  • Tribute, taxation, slavery.
  • Civilizing mission.

41
  • Islamic Caliphate.
  • Al Qaeda inspired by past empire.
  • Continental Europe and England.
  • Intra-European empire/nation building.
  • Modern land empires.
  • Ottoman.
  • Russian.
  • Austro-Hungarian.
  • Chinese.
  • American.

42
  • Aspiring/defeated empires.
  • Nazi.
  • Lebensraum.
  • Japanese.
  • Co-prosperity sphere.
  • Land empires and land power.

43
  • Critical Current Events
  • State of the Union and 21st Century Great
    Power/Imperial Politics.
  • White House website.
  • CNN Coverage.
  • Protest.
  • CNN - Sheehan Arrested in House Gallery before
    SOTU.
  • World Cant Wait series of protests throughout
    US.
  • Chicago Chicago IndyMedia.
  • SOTU Clip
  • Internal Consequences Justification for NSA
    wiretapping?
  • Global engagement/global empire?
  • Economic achievements/global economic
    competition?

44
  • Consequences of Empire/Great Power Status US
    Apparatus domestic activity.
  • National Security Agency.
  • Chief US foreign signals intelligence agency.
  • Larger than CIA - existence denied until mid
    1970s.
  • No Such Agency.
  • Controversy
  • Violation of law based on surveillance of US
    persons w/n United States.
  • EPIC Spotlight on Surveillance NSA - likely
    discussed in State of the Union address.

45
  • Anti-Imperialism and origins of the American
    Republic.
  • British Empire.
  • Colonial resistance to empire.
  • Decomposition of empire and the rise of new
    great powers or empires.
  • Political strife and the radicalizing of the
    colonists
  • Video Clip 1 Rebels and Redcoats. BBC/PBS -
    2000.
  • Boston Massacre to Boston Tea Party.
  • Questions
  • What does clip say about revolutionary origins
    of American republic?
  • What does clip demonstrate about generalizable
    dynamics leading to the fragmentation of empires,
    and the rise of new powers?
  • Any concepts introduced by readings relevant for
    understanding dynamics case.

46
  • From Empire to Anarchy.
  • Transition back to state centric theories of
    power.
  • Whats missing from Mearsheimer and other
    realists?
  • Does anarchic structure of international system
    elicit the formation of empire?
  • Empire and hegemony.
  • Drive for Empire and Great Power conflict.
  • Is empire an attempt at solving conflict embedded
    in anarchic structure of international system?

47
  • Next week.
  • Presentation selection assignment due.
  • Discussion Question 02/15/06
  • Empires, Great Powers and Revolutionary States.
  • How do sea empires (Howe) amass wealth and
    power (Mearsheimer)? Does Haas discussion of
    France allow one to understand either, the
    acquisition, or the persistence of an
    empire/great power status, under a revolutionary
    regime?
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