POLI 243 Lecture Notes - Mercantilism, Kenneth Waltz, Hans Morgenthau

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 243
• Professor: Mark Brawley

Document Summary

Theoretical approaches to the study of international politics. Composed of independent and dependent variables change (the variations) from war to peace. To understand why wars occur you need to understand the. What"s changed to lead to a change in the outcome? variation. The cause is independent we don"t have to explain the. Provide normative goals: how the world should look in the. The real world is complex and potential causes. and this is much more useful. When building a theory you look at core features not everything better) Which of the theory is useful for you? (doesn"t mean the more the. The qualities of a theory: to compare which is more useful. If you want to make a prediction or prescription. Load more variables but then the other"s don"t work. We want theories useful from one event to another its not like. If to general then we take out some but then we may loose accuracy.