International Politics
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS- • What is it? • Lasswell’s Who gets what, how, why. • Nation-state taken as unit of description, not always unit of analysis. • Concerned with the interaction of both states and other actors based in separate states. 1 AREAS OF CONCERN • Everything that concerns how states and national leaders interact. • conflict and cooperation, treaties, alliances, security dilemmas, interdependency, war, and trade. • Decisions and behaviors of state and international actors. 2 POLITICAL SCIENCE • Politics are used to resolve collective action problems. • The study of polities that create policies. Outputs, motivations and behaviors. • Field used to focus primarily on behaviors of organized polities. • Now borrows from a number of different fields, sociology (social groups, norm forming, etc), psychology (individual level, perceptions, motivations, behavior under stress or uncertainty),Economics (individual, macro, systemic levels, rat choice, inductive models) 3 GOALS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE • To understand observed phenomenon • Predict behavior, based on minimum of observable inputs (independent variables). • Explain phenomenon, understand motivations, perceptions, expectations of actors. • Positive theory: Explains behavior through observation- objective scientific theory possible. • Normative theory: Explains what should be in terms of norms and values that guide behavior. 4 WHY USE THEORIES • Theories are methods of organizing information in order to lead to understanding of observed phenomenon. • Must be testable and falsifiable.
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