Ir Comp Exam Study

Front 1

Thucydides

Back 1

* Wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War
* c. 460 - c. 395 bc
* Father of Political Realism
* Rise of Athens; fear in Sparta caused War

Front 2

Machiavelli

Back 2

* 1469 - 1527
* The Prince (1631).
* "A founder of the modern study of Politics"
* Early Realist

Front 3

Thomas Hobbes

Back 3

* 1588 - 1678
* Leviathan (1651)
* Champions absolute power of sovereign
* First English Speaking Social Contract argument
* Life in Anarchy (State of Nature) is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".
*Argues anarchic system would be essentially self-help, with a war of every man against every man.

Front 4

Hugo Grotius

Back 4

* 1583 - 1645
* Argued Natural Rights
* Power does not pass from God to sovereigns but from people to Sovereigns (Social Contract)
* Founded the concept of International Law
* On the Law of War and Peace (1625)
* Argued for Just Causes in war (jus ad bellum), and just action in the conduct of war (jus in bello)

Front 5

Immanuel Kant

Back 5

* 1724 - 1804
* Democratic Peace Theory
* "Most would not vote to go to war except in self defense; if all were constitutional republics, none would need go to war"

Front 6

Woodrow Wilson

Back 6

* Idealist Thinker
* Fourteen Points (1918)
* Point 14: "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
* Pushed for Collective Security and Democratic Peace
* Argued against secret alliances

Front 7

John Locke

Back 7

* 1632 - 1704
* Two treatises of government (1689)
* Argued based on social contract theory that each has right to Life, Liberty, and Property.
* Assumes man to be reasonable and tolerant, but that civil society evolves to resolve conflicts.
* Revolution is an obligation to fight tyranny, meaning the theft of Life, Liberty, or Property by government.
* Unlike Hobbes, too much government is just as much a state of individual war as too little government.

Front 8

E.H. Carr

Back 8

* Wrote The Twenty Years' Crisis: 1919-1939 (1939)
* Divided IR theory into Realist and Utopianist camps
* Criticizes utopianist theories, showing that the rational conceptions of cooperation are overwhelmed by chaos and insecurity at the international stage.
* Survival and competition are his primary motivators.

Front 9

Hans Morgenthau

Back 9

1904 - 1980
* Founding father of Political Realism
* Power is the currency of the state, interest is its primary motivator
* Six principles of Political Realism:
- Objective laws govern state behavior
- Interests are defined in terms of power. Good foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes benefits
- interest defined as power can have different meanings in different contexts
- moral principles cannot be applied in abstract terms, but must be filtered through concrete terms
- Moral aspirations of a nation are not universal moral laws
- Realist theory asks how policy effects power and interests, and not how it affects moral or legal viewpoints.

Front 10

John Herz

Back 10

* Created the term "Security Dilemma"
* Herz: "A structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend, regardless of intention, to lead to rising insecurity for others as each interprets its own measures as defensive and measures of others as potentially threatening.”