POLS 1600 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Serbian Nationalism, Wage War, Tripartite Pact
21 Jun 2018
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CHAPTER 4 (Week 5)
“All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for,
actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the for of war” (Hans. J.
Morgenthau)
The Quest for Great-Power Hegemony
Long-cycle theory – focuses on the rise and fall of leading global power as the central political
process of the modern world system
- World politics has usually been transformed by an outbreak of a major, general war
Hegemon – a single, overwhelmingly powerful state that exercises predominate influence over
the global system
Hegemonic stability theory – maintains that the establishment of hegemony for global
dominance by a single great owner is a necessary condition for global order in commercial
transactions and international military security
- Stable world order requires a dominant global leader to punish aggressors who
challenge the status quo
Enduring rivalries – prolonged competition between great powers or other pairs of countries
whose perpetual conflicting interests often lead to war
The First World War
- Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne of the Austrian-Hungarian
Empire, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on June 1914
- Before assassination - two hostile alliances: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
vs. France, Britain, Russia (Triple Entente)t
- Germany was a strong power, but its main ally, Austria-Hungary was getting weaker and
Russia was gaining power. When Serbia was threatening Austria-Hungary’s power, and
therefore Germany’s stability, Germany felt the need for a short, localized and victorious
war.
- However, France and Russia joined forces in reaction to Germany’s move, and then Britain
joined as well. US later reacted to Germany’s submarine warfare ! became a global war
- Was war inevitable or could it have been prevented? How could the leaders have
miscalculated so badly?
Counterfactual reasoning – speculations about historical events and developments that ask how
the world might have changed had certain momentous foreign policy choices not been taken or
had other conditions prevailed, by inquiring “what would have happened if…?”
Theories of why WW1 erupted:
a. based on global level of analysis:
Structuralism – the neorealist proposition that states’ behaviour is shaped primarily by changes
in the properties of the global system, such as shifts in the balance of power, instead of by
individual heads of states or by changes in states’ internal characteristics
b. based on individual level of analysis
Rational choice – the theory that decision makers choose on the basis of what they perceive to
be the best interests for themselves and their states, based on their expectations about the relative
usefulness of alternative options for realizing goals
Document Summary
All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the for of war (hans. Long-cycle theory focuses on the rise and fall of leading global power as the central political process of the modern world system. World politics has usually been transformed by an outbreak of a major, general war. Hegemon a single, overwhelmingly powerful state that exercises predominate influence over the global system. Hegemonic stability theory maintains that the establishment of hegemony for global dominance by a single great owner is a necessary condition for global order in commercial transactions and international military security. Stable world order requires a dominant global leader to punish aggressors who challenge the status quo. Enduring rivalries prolonged competition between great powers or other pairs of countries whose perpetual conflicting interests often lead to war. Assassination of archduke ferdinand, heir to the hapsburg throne of the austrian-hungarian.
