POL 1025 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Security Dilemma, Spiral Model
Document Summary
International politics is an arena of compulsion, not choice c. i. The international system: political order must come before justice, security is a basic need for a thriving community f. States inherently are always seeking to increase power, which creates a security dilemma: how the international systems matter, assumptions: a. i. The external environment is objective : conclusions: states behave similarly when faced with a similar environment, metaphors c. i. States as people in a house on fire c. ii. Cooperation is unnecessary: solving the prisoner"s dilemma: pd and politics a. Players can sometimes/often achieve greater gains by cheating than by cooperating a. ii. There is fundamental uncertainty: central problem: b. i. Challenge of credible commitment in anarchy: orgins of interstate conflict: c. i. Even when both parties are basically satisfied, motivated just by their own security d. Anarchy & the problem of power: what anarchy produces, anarchy makes the world a nasty place: a. i. The ever-present possibility of war: a suboptimal outcome a. v.
