poli sci diary

We talked more about neoliberalism, which has faith in the system, but accepts the state as a starting point- the state is the most important actor (this is taken from liberalism). The more institutions there are the more directive state governance, and the states are defined by their function. Neorealism was probed deeper today, the sentence on the projector, "structural constricts the scope of alternatives available to the units", was given and explained. Meaning that the units are not actors or states anymore. Like the primary colors (3 colors), once we know these we know all the possible alternatives. The scope of alternatives available to the units is once we know the basics we know the possible alternatives. The idea is similar to the distribution of capabilities expressed in polarity (measured by the NUMBER of major powers, alliances, etc...), when you come up with these you basically know everything. A short speech by Kenneth Waltz (the foremost neorealist) was listened to about nuclear peace and I think just about everything he mentioned made sense.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First of all, we covered how technology has an effect on IR, and it is interesting to note that the very thing I wrote my paper on was covered in class today--score! Namely movies and IR, and using technical means to improve surroundings, and knowledge of using tools to do tasks efficiently.

We covered the third debate, "the interparadigm debate"(note--cannot find what interparadigm means, try to find): neorealism and neoliberalism, radicalism. They they stem from different roots their ideologies don't seem that much different. Neorealism is a bird's eye structure as it tries to define our community and point of view, it is state-centrist meaning actors are only puppets of states; an internal structure that has been with us for over 1000 years. It is interested in relative gains and materials (resources). Neoliberalism focuses on institutions and new actors, not structures, and change is slow and incremental. Not much more about neoliberalism was said today. Radicalism focuses on the historical processes of emancipation, concentrating on historical dialectics. Hegel, Kant and Marx are influential thinkers in this theory. Radicalists believe that we created the present and it can be changed. Critiquing that belief I think that it is difficult to break the momentum or trend from generations to invoke change in one single generation, though it could be done.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We continued with the behavioralist theories. These are starting to look like cold laboratory type analyses, not concerned so much with people but with data. Behavioralists want an ideological world, not necessarily a better world, as they thought culture was artificial. These are the main criticisms of behavioralism in the late 60s. As IR theorizing developed, different titles were associated with different schools of thought. Traditionalists were linked to international politics, behavioralists with international relations, and post-behavioralists with world politics.

Morganthau contributed some insight into this debate, he said at the end IR is all about psychology, when you know how things happen at the interpersonal level you can interject that knowledge to the international stage. He was concerned about the first level of analysis, what happens within the state. From actor-state-interstate.

Posted by Carrie Swiggum at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)