POLI/INTL 105: Review Sheet Exam 2: Fall 2008

Bill Newmann

The exam format will be the same as the previous exam: 60 multiple-choice questions

Terms that are preceded by an asterisk (*) are dealt with in the readings!

 

List of Terms:

War and Peace:

*Clausewitz major premise about war and politics

Security Dilemma

*levels of violence

*Major wars: becoming more rare, but more destructive

 

Causes of War and Peace:

1. Human Nature:

War as human nature

learning peace?

 

*2. Balance of Power: Realism:

*Number of poles of power

War caused by imbalance of power

*WW I caused by an imbalance of power

Peace achieved through stable balance of power

Concert of Europe

 

3. Power Transition/Long Cycle Theory: Realism:

peace imposed by a dominant power

war caused by challenges to that dominant power

The 100 year cycle of war and peace

Implications (US decline?)

US hegemonic power

*China as the rising challenger?

 

4. Nuclear Revolution

Peace caused by the fear of nuclear weapons

War caused by irrational, outlaw states

*Iran and nuclear weapons

*Why would Iran develop nuclear weapons?

1. Domestic mobilization

            *economic problems in Iran

2.Security Dilemma

            *Iran’s relations with its neighbors

3. Coercion and power

4. Whackos: Irrational leaders?

*Ahmedinejad

* Hezbollah

5. Domestic factionalism

            *Ayatollah Khomeini and Iranian Revolution

            *conservatives

            *pragmatists

            *reformers

            *The views of each toward their neighbors and about the economy

 

 

*5. Interdependence: Idealism:

Global Economic Marketplace as cause of peace

Free Trade

Interdependence

war caused by outsiders, non-free traders, closed economies

 

*6. Democratization: Idealism:

Democracies don’t fight each other

Reasons why?

Democracies fight non-democracies

Democratizing states as more likely to fight wars

Nationalism and the transition to democracy

Germany, Japan, Serbia (Yugoslavia in the 1990s)

*Iranian nationalism and its semi-democracy

*Iranian relationship with the US

 

 International Organizations

           

*NGOs

*as international lobby groups

providing information

taking action

examples        

 

*IGOs

*League of Nations

*failure of League and coming of WW II

 

*United Nations

UN Charter

            *Article 2

*UN General Assembly

            *voting procedures

*UN Security Council

            *voting procedures

            *Permanent 5 and veto

*ECOSOC

*UN Secretary General

            *Boutros Boutros-Ghali

            *Kofi Annan

Ban Ki-Moon

            *Secretariat

 

UN Functions concerning security (issues of conflict and cooperation):

*1. Collective Security

Chapter 7 of the UN Charter

Collective Security during the Cold War: No consensus at the UNSC

Collective security after the Cold War: the Persian Gulf War

*2. Peacekeeping

Chapter 6

Border/Decolonization problems

Consent rule

Peacekeeping after the cold war

*Peacebuilding:

*Cambodia: UNTAC

*Peace Making/Enforcement: 

            Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

*Somalia and Rwanda; Bosnia and Kosovo

Sudan case: UN (UNMIS) and African Union (AMIS)

Darfur

 

Terrorism

September 11, 2001

Method of attack

Who attacked?

Osama bin Laden

Al-Qaeda (AQ) terrorist organization

global organization

AQ’s ideology

Chart: Origins of Recent Terrorism

            *Iranian Revolution

            Saudi sponsored madrassas    Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

            The fight against the Soviets: mujahadin, foreign fighters, aid from many countries

            Soviet withdrawal and spread of terrorism throughout the Middle East and Asia

Why AQ is important

The political agenda behind al-Qaeda’s attacks

  1. Goal to create a large Militant Islamic state from Morocco to Pakistan (caliphate)
  2. US as the obstacle
    1. US support for authoritarian and monarchical states in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan)
  3. US support for Israel
  4. US troops in Saudi Arabia
  5. Resentment of US power
  6. Anti-Westernization/Americanization

Basics of Terrorism

Definitions

  1. political agenda
  2. Violence the method of achieving political goals
  3. Deliberate targeting of civilians
  4. Publicity: use of media and criticism of media coverage

Purposes: to cause pain that will lead to a change in governmental policy

The terrorist Logic and how it worked in Spain 2004

Characteristics of terrorism

  1. Terrorism is not new
  2. State-sponsored terrorism
  3. Non-state sponsored: Networks: cells and entrepreneurship: Retaliating against state-sponsored terrorists vs. retaliation against a networks
  4. *Late-20th Century Terrorism: Religion and terrorism
  5. Middle East and Militant Islam

o      Sunni vs. Shiite

o      Arab vs. non-Arab Muslims

o      Liberal vs. conservative vs. militant

 

Human Rights:

*Land-Mine Treaty

Debate on Definitions of Human Rights

*1. Universal Morality

*Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2. Cultural Relativism

Singapore-style “democracy”

Religious-based human rights

Disagreements on:

Political freedoms

Religious freedom

Women’s rights

Agreement on economic freedoms

Four types of nation-states

1.     Liberal-democracies – the US

2.     *Theocracies – Iran

3.     Hard Authoritarian – North Korea, Soviet Union, China (1949-1976)

4.     Soft Authoritarian – Singapore, Russia today