Two ways to gain power
What are hegemony and trade?
Three factors that determine state preferences
Identity, market forces, and domestic political institutions/bureaucracy
What are externalities?
Externalities occur when “actors do not bear the full costs, or receive the full benefits, of their own actions”
Who are the key actors in liberalism vs. realism?
Institutions vs. states
Two ways war can happen, even when states have a lot of power.
What are ideology and rally-around-the-flag effects?
Three levels of liberalism (and how they interact)
Unit level (private entities) actors have a set of preferences, which are represented at the state level (via political institutions), and the filtered set of preferences determines actions at the systemic level (state behavior).
What solve externalities?
Regimes
What do states want in liberalism vs. realism?
Material goods vs. Power (offensive R) or survival (defensive R)
Why trade helps prevent war
Trade creates interdependence.
Why liberal theory is necessary
It's more comprehensive than realism
What are the benefits of regimes?
Solve externalities through: Mutual expectations, working relationships, reduced transaction costs, enforcement mechanisms, clustering of related issues, resolve information asymmetry by establishing reputations and sometimes providing transparency mechanisms.
What causes conflict in liberalism vs. realism?
Regime failures vs. self-help
This helped prevent war after WWII.
MAD, uncertainty
The difference between liberalism according to Moravcsik and constructivism
They are quite similar! The difference (primarily) is that Moravcsik is focused on institutions and still views state behavior as coming from a unitary actor -- it's just that the behavior is influenced by lower-level agents. Constructivism sees this agents as having their own ability to take action in the international system.
Why do states comply with regimes?
Existing regimes are valuable. Even if all states would prefer an alternative regime, creating a new one is very costly. Regimes also impose reputational costs—states need to be able to continue to negotiate with other states in the future.
What is the role of human nature in liberalism vs. realism?
In realism: Human nature is inherently violent (classical realism), or human nature doesn’t matter, only state power matters (neorealism)
In liberalism: Humans want to maximize their own goods, but to do so, they can cooperate and create structures to govern competition
This is the system of gains that makes trade beneficial (and an explanation of why.)
Trade means that every state increases its power; this is a problem if we’re in a relative gains world, since power is only measured vis-à-vis other states, but in an absolute gains world, the reciprocity associated with trade is good, because power is measured by material factors.
Where do state interests come from, and how does this differ from other theories we've discussed?
Domestic preferences; Moravcsik says little about how anarchy shapes those preferences (like realism does) or how interactions between states shape them (like constructivism does)
Name a regime and explain how it solves an externality.
Many answers.
What are the core concepts and beliefs in liberalism vs. realism:
Realism: Power, conflict, state aggression, weakness of institutions
Liberalism: Cooperation, interdependence, democracy-promotion, globalization