POLI 243 Lecture Notes - Complex Interdependence, Nationstates, Cuban Missile Crisis
30 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Nation-states are the main actors in ir. Main concern is the study of pwr. Contributed the idea of the just war . Struggled w/ moral issues of war and pwr. Challenged the core assumptions of idealism man is, in fact, inherently evil. One of the founders of neorealism (structural realism) response to weaknesses of classical realism; a general theory (not intended to explain specific actions of states) Divided causes of war into 3 levels of analysis: war is caused by the nature of state leaders (more generally, by human nature, war is caused by the domestic makeup of states, the anarchic. The root cause of war (no body is sovereign at the internat"l level to govern relations btwn autonomous states) Mearsheimer (not technically covered in this course, but good background knowledge) Behaviour of states shaped by systemic pressures the particularities of a situation matter.
