Midterm and Final exam summary documents for Core Module International Relations Year 2 Semester 2
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Course
Core module International relations (73220031LY)
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
Midterm and Final exam summary documents for Core Module International Relations Year 2 Semester 2 Political Science at the University of Amsterdam - All readings, reading summaries, Lecture notes, etc.
part I: core theoretical-empirical debates in international relations
week 1:
Readings:
Dutkiewicz, J., & Smolenski, J. (2023). Epistemic superimposition: The war in Ukraine and the poverty of expertise
in International Relations theory
Introduction:
- For many Ukrain specialists, realist commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian war appears to be completely
divorced from reality
- Little efforts by realists to bridge this gap by engaging with studies of these areas
- They claim expertise on the conflict based on theoretical rather than empirical expertise →
“epistemic superimposition” → has caused problems for both academic and public knowledge
production
Theory without the facts:
- Mearsheimer blames the West for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Flows from the analytical framework of
offensive realism. International politics is a zero-sum game.
- 2014 attack did not deter the West from continuing to pull Ukraine toward its sphere of influence, so
attacked again in 2022.
- He relies on thin or selective deployment of sources. Unsubstantiated, incomplete, decontextualized, or
even misleading. Mearsheimer relies on statements by Putin about his rationale and uncritically accepts it.
No engagement with scholars familiar with or from Ukraine.
- This is not the case
- Russia was always willing to interfere politically and militarily to advance its regional interests
- Ukraine has been subject to Russian coercion virtually from the moment of the USSR’s
dissolution.
- Russia’s assertiveness is a crucial backdrop for NATO enlargement in 1999 and 2004.
- Mearsheimer had it backwards: Ukraine was already a buffer state and Ukrainian popular support
for NATo accession was a direct result of Russia’s invasion
Epistemic superimposition:
- Mearsheimer states that states should always act as offensive realists. This commentary provides a ground
for understanding political phenomena but theory should be tested by engaging with the empirics.
- In Ukraine, this assumption should be tested rather than assumed to be correct.
- It's not just that Mearsheimer would be a bad researcher. He resists any available empirical evidence.
Rather, he is engaged in epistemic superimposition
- Approaches real-world politics with the idea that theoretical assumptions apply without
interrogating whether these theories are applicable
- Caused by methodological error, but can also point to a deeper flaw with the epistemological
assumptions of a scholar
- This becomes a serious problem for knowledge production when scholars are recognized as experts in a
topic.
Expertise without a subject:
- Mearsheimer was not the only realist to opine about the war. Many other realists blames NATO.
- The difficulties of the most important IR theory in understanding the resistance of the Ukrainians to the
Russians tells us a lot about the colonial predicament of IR as a discipline.
Seminar notes on Mearsheimer:
- According to the article, Mearsheimer's realist analysis attributes Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the West's
policies, including NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion. He argues that these
, policies were perceived by Russia as a threat to its interests as a great power, leading to a preemptive
military strike to protect its sphere of influence. This analysis is based on the realist framework of offensive
realism, which views state behavior as a result of the anarchic nature of the international system, making
international politics a zero-sum game
Specific examples of how realist theory fails the empirical test in the context of the war in Ukraine include:
- John Mearsheimer's claim that the West's policies, such as NATO enlargement and EU expansion, forced
Russia to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. This claim is based on the realist framework of offensive
realism, which views state behavior as a result of the anarchic nature of the international system, making
international politics a zero-sum game. According to the article, “the bulk of Mearsheimer’s claims about
Russia’s interference in Ukrainian domestic politics before 2013, the role of Russia and the United States
during the Revolution of Dignity, and, crucially, the logics of US, NATO, and European policies toward
Ukraine is unsubstantiated, incomplete, decontextualised, or even “misleading” (page 622). In other words,
Mearsheimer tends to disregard contextualized explanations in an attempt to make empirical reality
conform to his theoretical assumptions about how the world works. This, according to the authors, has to do
with a broader failure of realist scholars to engage with area studies and the empirics of Ukrainian, Russian,
or Eastern European politics between the invasions in 2014 and 2022, leading to a lack of familiarity with
the region and the repetition of the same explanations for Russia's actions without updating their
understanding based on new empirical evidence.
- The assertion by realists that the military balance between Russia and Ukraine was so lopsided in Moscow's
favor that any assistance from the United States would be largely irrelevant in determining the outcome of a
conflict, which was proven wrong when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The main point that the authors make in their critique of realism is that the theoretical framework of realism, and
specifically offensive realism, is often applied to unique historical and political contexts without adequate
engagement with empirical realities. They argue that this leads to a methodological error of overlaying abstract
theories onto specific contexts, which they term "epistemic superimposition." This approach can result in a
theoretical explanation that is divorced from the empirical realities on the ground, and can lead to a failure to
adequately account for the specific dynamics at play in a given conflict. The authors argue that a more rigorous
engagement with area studies and empirical evidence is necessary to ensure that theoretical frameworks are
grounded in the specific historical and political contexts they seek to explain.
Acharya, A. (2014). Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds
Defining global IR:
- Why is there no non-Western IR theory?
- The main theories of IR are too rooted in the history and traditions of the West.
- Reasons for the underdevelopment of IR theories outside of the West?
- Possible sources of non-Western IR theory e.g. indigenous history and culture, local and regional
patterns, writings of scholars etc.
- Global IR → not a complete renaming, but an aspiration for greater inclusiveness
- Pluralistic universal, grounded in world history, integrates the study of regions, eschews
exceptionalism, recognizes multiple forms of agency beyond material power
A global IR Research Agenda
- Discover new patterns, theories, and methods from world histories
- Discarding the Westphalian mindset when it comes to analuzing the past, present and future
- Analyze changes in the distribution of power and ideas after years of Western Dominance
- Explore regional worlds in their full diversity and interconnectedness
- Engage with subjects and methods that require deep integration of disciplinary and area studies knowledge
- Examine how ideas and norms circulate between global and local levels
- Investigate the mutual learning among civilizations
,Seminar =
Six main dimensions of Acharya's 'Global IR' (as an alternative to 'Western' IR)
1. It is founded upon a pluralistic universalism: not “applying to all,” but recognizing and respecting the
diversity in us.
2. It is grounded in world history, not just Greco-Roman, European, or US history.
3. It subsumes, rather than supplants, existing IR theories and methods.
4. It integrates the study of regions, regionalisms, and area studies.
5. It eschews exceptionalism.
6. It recognizes multiple forms of agency beyond material power, including resistance, normative action, and
local constructions of global order.
Lecture:
Big changes have transformed international relations:
- Shifting power relations
- E.g. the West vs the Rest? USA decline, rise in China, India, etc.
- Shifting political cleavages
- E.g. poor vs rich, globalization, tech-change, religion, etc.
- More and stronger international institutions
- E.g. European Union, UN, G20, etc.
- New actors
- E.g. NGOs, MNCs, transnational terror networks, etc.
- More porous national borders
- E.g. economic globalization, contagious politics, policies and practices, etc.
In UVA = multi-level global politics = cross-border interconnections between levels of politics
Seminar =
Multi-level politics:
- Cross-border interconnections between levels of politics
- So this goes (way) beyond a more traditional conceptualisation of IR as ‘relations between states’
Three questions:
- Where is the action (in which levels)?
- How do levels influence each other?
- How do political actors seek goals at one level by taking action at another level? (=‘strategizing’)
IR-specific academic goals: Analyze IR as multi-level politics
1. Explore theoretical and empirical controversies/debates in IR
a. Categories
i. Descriptive
1. Is there more or less globalization today than 10 years ago?
ii. Explanatory
1. Does economic globalization increase or decrease the probability of violent
conflict?
iii. Normative
1. What should foreign economic policies do to discourage or at least not
encourage violent conflict?
b. Depth/breadth
, i. Topical/mid-level
1. Context and problem-specific, partly resolvable through empirical research (e.g.
all of the above or how does global climate change affect violent conflicts?)
ii. Perennial
1. All-encompassing, ‘paradigmatic’, difficult-to-resolve through empirics (e.g.
what is the relationship between politics and economics?)
2. Articulate a framework for understanding Multi-level Global Politics
a. Which levels are where the action is?
b. How do levels influence one another?
c. How do political actors seek goals at one level by taking action at another level?
E.g. the framework moves beyond ‘methodological nationalism’...
E.g. the framework avoids Western-centrism theoretically, methodologically, normatively…
E.g. the framework recognizes equal normative value and agency for all humans in all corners of
the globe…
3. Build arguments and carry-out empirical research to clarify multi-level politics and address IR
controversies
General academic goals: four skills and a mission
1. Argument mapping: conceptually untangle and specify the reasoning, the logical chain, of arguments
2. Connection seeing: identify seemingly-unrelated connections, even conspiracies, but ‘use’ ‘Occam’s razor’
(=when multiple competing hypotheses are available to explain a phenomenon, the simplest one is usually
the correct one)
3. Empirical testing: carry-out empirical research to test, induce, or revise theoretical arguments
a. What is the reasoning, the logical chain, of the claim(s) being research (of the ‘mapped’
argument)?
b. What is the empirical evidence for (every link in) that logical chain of the claim being researched?
i. Anecdotes (illustration)
ii. Qualitative cases (historical comparison or cross-unit/time comparison)
iii. Descriptive quantitative information (trends and patterns)
iv. Inferential quantitative information (large-N correlation/causation)
4. Courageous curiosity: be open to being wrong, so as to learn
week 2:
Readings:
Waltz, K. N. (1959). Man, the State and War
- Man, the State, and War: has longevity → has stood the test of time, still offers useful insights. Also has
depth and subtlety.
- The chief contribution is its organization and clarification of a contradictory body of Western thought that
attempts to explain the causes of war.
- These theories can be grouped into three distinct categories = ‘images’
- First emphasizes the nature of human beings
- The second stresses the internal structure of the states that compromise the international
system
- The third focuses on the structure or architecture of that system.
- He emphasizes that wars are caused by factors found within each image, while anarchy both makes war
possible and impels states to compete with one another.
Introduction:
- Pointless to ask who won a given war → only varying degrees of defeat
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