INTRODUCTION: WHY WE DISAGREE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (1-20) Ideal Types: perspectives or simplified characterizations of theories that identify

the most important aspects, not at all of the intricacies and variations. Perspectives and Levels of Analysis are Ideal Types Perspective: hypotheses or explanations that emphasize various causes (power, institutions, ideas, historical forces) of world events over others. Level of Analysis: the direction, or level from which different causes of international change emerge. Four types are identified: systemic, foreign policy, domestic, individual.
Ideal types help boil down a complex reality so we can see which causes/levels should be emphasized when explaining/predicting world affairs. Remember someone filters the news we receive. They shape our view on international relations. Ideal types single out primary perspectives and levels of analysis

3 Main Perspectives to decide the primary cause of an event: REALIST: hypothesizes that a struggle for power is the primary cause of what happens

A perspective that sees the world largely in terms of a struggle for power in which strong actors seek to dominate and weak actors seek to resist

LIBERAL: argues that interdependence and institutions exert the primary influence
A perspective that emphasizes repetitive relationships and negotiations, establishing patterns or institutions for resolving international conflicts

IDENTITY: ideas are more important than power or institutions

A perspective that emphasizes the casual importance of the ideas and identities of the actors, which motivate their use of power and negotiations

CRITICAL THEORY: questions whether causes and effects can be abstracted from historical circumstances and emphasizes the embedded and holistic character of events as they unfold
A perspective that focuses on deeply embedded forces from all perspectives and levels of analysis

3 principal levels of analysis: INDIVIDUAL: (decision-making) emphasizes leaders and decision making institutions DOMESTIC: focuses on internal characteristics of countries as a whole (cultural , political, economic)

SYSTEMIC: highlights the way countries are positioned and interact with respect to each other FOREIGN POLICY: links domestic politics and international relations (falls between systemic/domestic) Methods: the formal rules of reason (rationalist) or appropriateness (constructivist) for testing perspectives against facts Rationalist: disaggregate and explain events as one event preceding and causing a second event. Constructivist: see events as a whole as mutually causing or constituting one another rather than causing one another sequentially Causation: one fact of event comes before and causes another event that comes after it. Correlation: one fact or event occurring in the same context as another fact or event but not necessarily linked to or caused by it

Variables: Exogeneous: Autonomous factors that come from outside a theoretical model or system and that cannot be explained by the system

Endogeneous: Casual variables that are included in a theoretical model or framework Multicolinearity: a statistical situation in which multiple variables are all highly correlated with one another Process tracing: a method of connecting events in sequence to identify cause and effect Counterfactual Reasoning: a method of testing claims for causality by inverting the casual claim. The counterfactual of the claim event A caused event B is to ask If event A had never happened, would event B have happened? Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons that can kill large numbers of human beings and destroy vast portions of physical structures and environment Judgement: the broader assessment of what makes sense after accumulating as many facts and testing as many perspectives as possible Ethics and Morality: standards of good conduct for human behavior Relativism: A position that holds that truth and morality are relative to each individual or culture and that one should live and let live Universalism: claim that truth and morality are universal and cannot be adjusted to specific circumstances

Pragmatism: The idea that morality is proportionate to what is possible and causes the least harm