POLI 354 Lecture Notes - Hegemonic Stability Theory, Robert Keohane, Foreign And Commonwealth Office
3 Dec 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
First answer: its natural from first historians and idealists thought war was result of bad behavior; debate in. Thucydides: greek historian involved in politics; sparta vs athens; distribution of power caused conflict. Worry about the real world and not an ideal one. Reinhold niebuhr: he is watching what is happening in the rest of the world; critical of the idealists because he thinks to expect ideal behavior is wrong; believes that man is not perfect due to his religious beliefs. Model is not the same thing as reality; based on assumptions that we assume to be true; simplification of reality. Carr stresses need of theory to perform certain tasks and these must adhere to certain order. Carr: you have to describe world around you; in order to make predictions; then policy prescriptions. Carr said idealist started at the wrong end; important of order of tasks; better you are describing reality the more likely you anchor yourself in that reality.
