GVPT 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Great Power
4 May 2016
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Great powers inherently possess offensive military capability, which means they can hurt each other. States can never be certain about other states" intentions. Survival is the primary goal of great powers. Same old, same old: world politics likely to be competitive *** Focus on human consciousness and the way it creates shared meaning. Ideational, not material, view of world politics. Armies and such do not mean anything. Until ideas lead us to believe they are threatening. Emphasis on variables like culture, identity, and social interaction -- not on material distribution of power. Emphasizes perception -- how people perceive and think of things. 500 british nuclear weapons are less threatening to the united states than 5 north korean nuclear weapons because the british are friends and the north koreans are not. - alexander. Where both ideas affecting state behavior is coming from> Social interaction b/w states is what"s going to determine their behavior.
