Term
| International Institutions |
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Definition
Formal organizations and informal regimes that govern the behavior of its members |
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Term
| Individual Level of Analysis: Causes of War |
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Definition
The Individual
Both the characteristics of individual leaders and the general attributes of people have been blamed for war.
- Realist interpretation: Characteristics of the masses lead to the outbreak of war. Aggressive behavior is adopted by virtually all species to ensure survival. War is the product of biologically innate human characteristics or flawed human nature.
- Liberal interpretation: Misperceptions by leaders, such as seeing aggressiveness where it may not be intended, or attributing the actions of one person to an entire group, can lead to the outbreak of war.
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Term
| The State/Society Level: Causes of War |
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Definition
State and Society
War occurs because of the internal structures of states.
- Liberal explanations: Some types of economic systems are more war-prone than others, such as aristocratic states. Democratic regimes are least likely to wage war because democratic norms and culture inhibit the leadership from taking actions leading to war.
- Radical explanations: Conflict and war are attributed to the internal dynamics of capitalist economic systems: the competition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat over economic dominance and political leadership. This struggle leads to war. One manifestation of this is diversionary war: war designed to hold off a domestic political crisis by temporarily unifying the populace.
- Conflict over what institutions should govern a state can also lead to civil wars as groups attempt to impose their preferred system.
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Term
| International Level: Causes of War |
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Definition
The International System
- Realist interpretation: The international system is equivalent to a state of war; it is anarchic and governed only by a weak and overarching rule of law. War breaks out because there is nothing to stop it. States themselves are the final authorities and the ultimate arbiters of disputes; herein resides sovereignty.
- A state’s security is ensured only by its accumulating military and economic power.
- Groups seeking self-determination cannot appeal to higher authority.
- Realist variant: Power transition theory: Represented by the work of Organski, this theory argues that changes in state capabilities lead to war. War occurs when a dissatisfied challenger state begins to attain the same capabilities as the hegemon. Modelski and Thompson find that there are regular cycles of power as old powers decline and new powers rise.
- Radical interpretation: Dominant capitalist states within the international system need to expand economically, leading to wars with developing regions over control of natural resources and labor markets.
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Term
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Definition
The idea that wars must be judged according to two categories of justice: (1) jus ad bellum, or the justness of war itself; and (2) jus in bello, or the justness of each actor’s conduct in war
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Term
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Definition
- available to all members of the group regardless of individual contributions.
- The use of collective goods involves activities and choices that are interdependent. Decisions by one states have effects for other states; that is, states can suffer unanticipated negative consequences as a result of actions by others.
- Garrett Hardin, in The Tragedy of the Commons, proposed several possible pollutions to the tragedy of the commons:
- Use coercion: force nations and peoples to control the collective goods.
- Restructure the preferences of states through rewards and punishments.
- Alter the size of the group.
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Term
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Definition
| External conflict in order to divert domestic economic crises |
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Term
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Definition
The situation in which one state improves its military capabilities, especially its defenses, and those improvements are seen by other states as threats; each state in an anarchic international system tries to increase its own level of protection leading to insecurity in others, often leading to an arms race
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Term
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Definition
| war can be prevented by the threat of force. States must build up their arsenals in order to present a credible threat. |
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Term
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Definition
War between political actors of unequal strength, in which the weaker party tries to neutralize its opponent’s strength by exploiting the opponent’s weaknesses
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Term
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Definition
Theory supported by empirical evidence that democratic states do not fight wars against each other, but do fight wars against authoritarian states |
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Term
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Definition
The policy of eliminating a state’s offensive weaponry; may occur for all classes of weapons or for specified weapons only; the logic of the policy is that fewer weapons leads to greater security |
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Term
| Humanitarian Intervention |
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Definition
Actions by states, international organizations, or the international community in general, to intervene, usually with coercive force, to alleviate human suffering without necessarily obtaining consent of the state |
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Term
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Definition
The use of organized political violence by non-state actors against noncombatants in order to cause fear as a means to achieve a political or religious objective; a form of asymmetric warfare
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Term
| Weapons of Mass Destruction |
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Definition
Chemical, biological, and radiological weapons distinguished by an inability to restrict their destructive effects to a single time and place; they therefore share a quality of irrationality in their contemplated use because attackers can never be entirely protected from the harm of any attacks they initiate with such weapons
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Term
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Definition
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; 1948; |
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Term
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Definition
WTO: World Trade Organization |
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