Midterm 1

Introduction to International Relations: POSC/PCST 120 Fall 2021
You may use any books and notes and discuss the questions with others.  Your responses must be totally your own, however.  Answers should be posted on Canvas by 11:59 P.M. Tuesday, October 5. Your task on the exam is to show familiarity with the course materials (especially the texts and news sources) in your answers.
 
Part 1: Essay question. (50% of grade). Try to answer the questions in three pages.
 
Prompt: Explain how approaches to world politics (such as liberalism, realism, and feminism as described in Lamy and online sources) differ in their assumptions about individuals, groups (particularly women and actors above the state), and in their assumptions about change and continuity in world politics.
 
Here are quotations from the course readings to get you started:
 
A contemporary concert, like its nineteenth-century forebear, would enable sustained strategic dialogue. It would bring to the table the most influential states, regardless of their regime type, thereby separating ideological differences over domestic governance from matters requiring international cooperation. It would shun formal procedures and codified rules, instead relying on persuasion and compromise to build consensus.
(Haass and Kupchan, Project Syndicate online reading, also at https://www.cfr.org/article/concert-powers-global-era (Links to an external site.))
 
Nation-states (countries) are the most important actors in global politics because they are the actors that engage in diplomatic relations, sign the treaties that create the legal foundation for world politics, and go to war.
Increasingly, however, nonstate actors are playing important roles in global politics.   (Lamy, et. al., 12)
 
 COVID-19 demands a swift and concerted global response to contain the virus while also protecting the most vulnerable — placing women’s safety and women’s rights at the heart of the response. Life will undoubtedly be different in the aftermath of the pandemic. And for the majority of women, their challenges do not end when the crisis is resolved. For women and girls, the crisis is just beginning.  (Abirafeh, Devex)
 
Show familiarity with course materials through use of parenthetical citations, e.g. (Lamy, 28) or (Abirafeh, Devex). Your sources for your essay should be the course materials. Late essays are subject to a potential penalty of 5 points per day.
 
Your essay should:

show familiarity with the course materials relevant to at least four of the terms listed below, which should be underlined or highlighted in your answer.
show familiarity with the course materials relevant to at least four of the names or pairs of names listed below, which should be underlined or highlighted in your answer.

 
Terms and names
 

Wilsonian liberalism/ League of Nations
Public Diplomacy
Anarchy
Neorealism
Classical realism
Hegemony
Multilateralism
multipolarity
Détente
Complex Interdependence
Concert of Europe
Marxism
Socialist approaches to

international relations

Hard vs. soft power
Failed / failing/fragile states
Containment
Dependency
Balance of Power
Truman Doctrine
Varieties of Feminism
Ethnonational Movements
Nation
State
Nation-State
Crisis Group
Interpress Service
Levels of Analysis
Melian Dialogue
14 Points
Imperialism
Unilateralism / unipolarity
Westphalia
Collective Security
Self-Determination
Immanuel Kant
Hans Morgenthau
John Ikenberry
Francis Fukuyama
Kenneth Waltz
Cynthia Enloe/Ann Tickner
Joseph Nye

Short essay (about 1 ½ pages each). For each, how and why do people differ? Answer two of three:

Lamy and coauthors mention Westphalia a lot. Why do some people think that it is very relevant to politics in 2021 but others disagree?
What’s meant by “levels of analysis”? Why do some analysts focus on a particular level?
Lamy and coauthors mention power, soft power, and hyperpower, as do others we have read. Why do some people think that power is very relevant to politics in 2021 but others disagree?

 
Indicate how and where authors of our readings mentioned the items thus far in the course.  Note: The best answers will succinctly integrate a range of material from class and the readings, and will not be simple regurgitation of definitions.  Use little or no outside material, although you may wish to draw from your first paper.