POL 2103 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Kenneth Waltz, Hans Morgenthau, George Soros

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 2103
• Professor: Ivaylo Grouev

Document Summary

5 main tenets: state are primary actors, states are rational, unitary actors, relations are power-based, relations are zero-sum games, states are driven my national interests. Dominant concepts: absence of a world government, the international system is anarchic, the paradigm of ir must concentrate on the distribution of power among states. Politics as an autonomous sphere: assumes that interest defined as power is an objective category which is universally valid. But not with a meaning that is fixed once and for all. Power is the control of man over man: aware of the moral significance of political action. Also aware of tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action: refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular notion within the moral laws that govern the universe. En bref: states are unitary actors, interest groups: trans-national corporations, ingo"s had to be taken into consideration, complex interdependence. No distinction between low and high politics in international issues.