POLS 264 ID & Sig terms & concepts
alliance (good to know but probably not term)
"written agreements, signed by official representatives of at least two independent states, that include promises to aid a partner in the event of military conflict, to remain neutral in the event of conflict, to refrain from military conflict with one another, or to consult/cooperate in the event of international crises that create a potential for military conflict" (Leeds, Ritter, Mitchell, & Long, 2002: 238). Reactive Alliances - alliances designed to deal with specific crises Standing Alliances - broader and more enduring Cold War alliances: what made the alliance patterns different? - alliances were less flexible, more asymmetric, should concentrate around the two superpowers in a "hub and spoke" system (Waltz 1964).
kin-country thesis (past exam)
- "realist" theories of international relations -- Political communities as atoms -- Selfishness of political communities -- E.g. Trump's inaugural speech Materialist assumptions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Thinking about international relations realistically -- Not everything can be reduced in an atomistic way, there are political communities that enjoy a different kind of relationship with one another -- Ties across borders -- Links that are not necessarily materialistic -- Useful to understand that there are some international relations that are not driven by selfishness, and materialism --- E.g. Canada and America - cannot understand this relationship, purely in realist terms, can see the kind of kin country relationship ---New Zealand, and Australia - do not simply reflect the so called realistic model ---This bit of Huntington's thesis as it challenges the realistic model of IR theory
systemic war (past exam)
- 1st - peloponnesian war - periodicity - We are due for a systemic conflict rn - cyclical - There's nothing automatic about coming to the end of a particular part of the cycle where we have disequilibrium which causes the system to fall into war - the time they occurred there was no one left alive from the earlier conflict - argued that element of memory becomes an important part of deterring a slide to war - the causes of systemic war --> Balance of power narrative: disequilibrium - Involves system as a whole - Involves the nature of the system itself - Involves major powers ---------------------------- EXAMPLES - Thirty years war War of the spanish succession Napoleonic wars Fifty years wars Russo-japanese war Great war Second world war Korean War --------------------- At-Home #2 I notice that the wars each take place in a different century, so it would be natural to assume it is a different generation in power for each war that has not personally faced the consequences of systemic wars that came before themt. It is important to note that systemic wars do not take place nearly as often as non-systemic wars, as the former's consequences are typically far more grave (politically, economically, as well as for the people caught in the cross hairs of the enflamed political tensions). An analytical conclusion one could draw from the periodicity observed is that each war has a different political power which has a monopoly on power/capacity. The wars are all battles for power and dominance in relation to international relations, and each war thusly calls each nation's system of governance and operation in to question. It is a battle for hegemonic power, as the pre-war balance came into question. Overall, I believe that the key observation about the periodicity is that each systemic war occurs in large intervals (of 80-100 years) and involves a fight for power and dominance. Systemic wars are some of the most brutal and infamous of documented human history.
nation-centric conception of sovereignty
- A sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent. BARKIN AND CRONIN - which emphasizes a link between sovereign authority and a defined population. - a sovereignty based on national claims can be seen as potentially destabilizing for all state - since there is no international authority capable of enforcing treaties and agreements, long-standing states based on stable institutions and historic control of territory can better ensure compliance than those based on principles of nationality. - National sovereignty is in fact a subset of popular sovereignty; it is a particular definition of who the people in "popular" are. There are two predominant ways of understanding popular sovereignty. One is that it means that the state should ultimately be responsible to the people as individual political beings.The other way of understanding the concept is that it refers to the rights of a self-identifying group to govern itself as a separate political entity
Sovereignty
- Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states. BARKIN AND CRONIN - The international relations literature regularly embraces sovereignty as the primary constitutive rule of international organization - Theoretical traditions that agree on little else all seem to concur that the defining feature of the modern international system is the division of the world into sovereign states. Despite differences over the role of the state in international affairs, most scholars would accept John Ruggie's definition of sovereignty as "the institution- alization of public authority within mutually exclusive jurisdictional domains." - the concept tends to be viewed as a static, fixed concept: a set of ideas that underlies international relations but is not changed along with them. - the essence of sovereignty is rarely defined; while legitimate authority and territoriality are the key concepts in understanding sovereignty, international relations scholars rarely examine how definitions of populations and territories change throughout history and how this change alters the notion of legitimate authority
Counterfactual history (past exam)
- Attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. - Bunzl: counterfactual history "along for the ride" - Identifying critical junctures, breakpoints, conjectures by thinking of alternative narratives - "Thought experiment" (Gedankenexperiment) Max weber - For him it was to create a different kind of narrative (the mental construction of a course of events which is altered by one or more conditions) - To think counterfactually is to imagine different alternatives - Different way of rerunning history - i.e. It's a wonderful life (1946) - BASED entirely on a counterfactual thought - BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD POEM - Suggests the importance of thinking counterfactually about what has gone on before bc if you think about sequence counterfactually aka pose a different starting condition (not needing a nail) ~~~~~~~~ Attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. The method seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur. Called alternative history, speculative history, or hypothetical history. One goal is to estimate the relative importance of a specific event, incident or person. For instance, to the counterfactual claim "What would have happened had Hitler drunk coffee instead of tea on the afternoon he committed suicide?", the timeline would have remained unchanged—Hitler in all likelihood still would have committed suicide on April 30, 1945, regardless of what he had to drink that afternoon. However, to the counterfactual "What would have happened had Hitler died in the July 1944 assassination attempt?", all sorts of possibilities become readily apparent.
balance-of-power theory (WOHLFORTH)
- Balance of Power theory predicts a tendency of international systems towards balance; however, these authors attempt to test the theory across eight cases over 2000 years and challenge the validity of the theory. Why is it an important theory for explaining world politics - 'that hegemonies do not form in multistate systems because perceived threats of hegemony over the system generate balancing behavior by other leading states in the system' (Levy, 2004: 37). - 'both friends and foes will react as countries always have to threatened or real predominance of one among them: they will work to right the balance' (Waltz, 2000: 55-56). - Balance-of-power theory predicts that processes within a given multi-state system — internal balancing, external balancing, and emulation — will generally prevent hegemony. - Central question: whether and under what conditions the competitive behavior of states leads to some sort of equilibrium. - Legitimacy was the centerpiece of the balance of power. NAU
External balancing in GP (past exam)
- Balancing of power - External balancing - ally with others to aggregate power - In the way of various states organizing themselves to combat the states for the explicit purpose of dampening the capacity of the states to exert its hegemonic power
Critical juncture
- Choice of an option that turns out to be self-reinforcing and interior - You don't usually know that - Only understand critical juncture in retrospect - Once chosen, difficult to turn back
Cuban Missile Crisis
- Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Highest threat level of nuclear war in history. - With American missiles based in Turkey, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, wanted a matching missile capacity within range of the USA without having to use ICBMS (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), so he used Cuba, a communist country led by Fidel Castro, as its base. - President Kennedy decided to impose a naval blockade in international waters near Cuba to stop the Soviet Union's barrage of nuclear weapons and equipment being shipped to Cuba to be installed. And of course, to issue the Soviets an ultimatum. - In the end, both sides agreed to withdraw their missile sites in Cuba and Turkey - Kennedy accepted this deal, provided that the deal could be kept secret, as he wanted it to appear as if only the Soviets backed down -
Post-American world (past exam)
- Discourse of american decline - American "declinism", early 2000s version - Zakaria "the post american world" --> The rest of the world was putting american dominance behind them - The "yellow fortune era" --> The idea of the china dream, Position china is a post american world - The US economy is ok but the political system is dysfunctional. - ZAKARIA Analogy: the United States is Britain in the early 20th century and the Iraq war is the Boer war. - Everything except the Military power, industrial, financial, social and cultural, are moving away from US dominance and the only way is functional political power. !!!!!!!!!!11!!!! - KREPS Iraqi war is important to understand the contemporary position of the US in the international system.
international relations
- Discusses what goes on between various groups. focus on trade, binds the group together. - Other than state actors, focuses on interconnections around the globe. - Must constantly think about IR as a discipline concerned with condition of peace (reflected in governance and trade and movement of people) and the conditions of war (causes)
wagging the dog (past exam)
- Diversionary tactics - indicates a backwards situation in which a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more important one (the dog). - https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/wag-the-dog/ - Purposeful creation of an external crises to divert attention from domestic problems - The falkland islands / islas Malvinas war, 1982 - Europe as tinderbox - The film became a "reality" the year after it was released, due to The Lewinsky Scandal. Days after the scandal broke, Bill Clinton ordered missile strikes against two countries, Afghanistan and Sudan.
Dvorak Keyboard & its relevance (past exam)
- Dvorak - Easier than ours rn - Mahoney - "One might be inclined to argue that QWERTY should be considered a path-dependent outcome because its persis- tence reveals how historical conditions can lead to sub-optimal outcomes, even if its initial adoption and subsequent persistence are fully consistent with neoclassical theory. In this formulation, path dependence entails a self-reinforcing outcome that seems regrettable or illogical in light of currently available options, even though this outcome was fully predictable given the choices that were actually available when the initial selection process occurred " - About how the hammer needed time to go up and down, so they cannot be close by bc it will jam it - Interesting about the qwerty keyboard is that it was copy and embraced once discovered and continued to be embrace long after there was no need for it - Mahoney reading - not even Paul David argues it would be e¤cient for contemporary economic actors to re- place QWERTY with the Dvorak format, even though David believes the more e¤cient choice would have been to adopt Dvorak from the start.
contingent event (past exam)
- Events not expected to take place - When an event or situation is contingent, it means that it depends on some other event or fact. - "Historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or even chains that have deterministic properties" (Mahoney 2000) - Events that cannot be predicted or explained by "initial conditions" or "starting points" - Cannot take a logical starting point - Generally speaking there is a lack of predictability ----------- - i.e. Assassinations (WW1), Market Collapses, Inventions, Defenestrations, Downing of an aircraft (Korean Air Lines Flight 007 & Made reagan allow the rest of the world access to America's Global Positioning System (GPS)), Impetuous decisions, Illness, Storms, Natural disasters, Unexpected electoral outcome (Brits may 2016 - leave side in- brexit - david cameron, Trump - 2016 - an election that was unexpected)
Clash of Civilizations thesis (past exam)
- Huntington - First alternative narrative that challenges the way people thought about IR - - Worlds most important division is no longer the nation-state. Rather, the world must be seen as divided into a number of civilizations (groups that transcended nation-states and were bound by ties of culture, religion and ethnicity.) - Kin Country thesis - Westphalia: conflict among princes - Vienna: conflict among nations - Post WWI: conflict among ideologies - The contradiction in the Post Cold war period: Western and non-western civilizations
Universalism
- Insistence that our understands of and explanations for world politics (IR) are universal in time and space - Global politics are not all universalistic - The idea that everyone behaves the same way over periods of time and across geographic boundaries are dangerous bc the tendency of universalists is that everyone is thinking just like you, dangers is that people don't do that - Universalism is that things never changes and explanations stay the same over time and space - We must ask can we identify universals in global politics, kimmy wants to argue yes (Autonomy, Indepence, Security, Wealth, Prestige and honour (and status), Community, Order and predictability, Peace and conflict management, Justice)
Presentism
- Instance on looking at the past through present day ideas and perspectives - No getting away from it - We are bound by the perspective of our presentist presentation - We can understand the past always from the perspective of the present
Internal balancing in GP (past exam)
- Internal balancing - increase one's own capabilities - Devote more wealth to ensure maximization of power - GET(CREATE) MORE POWER
Deterministic properties
- Once institutional patterns/event chains are set in motion by contingent events, there is a certain determinism at work: --Inertia tends to take over -- Interia: ince in motion, patterns stay in motion - Interia produced in two ways: --Self-reinforcing sequences --Reactive sequences\
Hyperpower (past exam)
- POST COLD WAR - The remaining/lone/sole superpower - this occurred in the 1990s (not a superpower, because this notion was very much linked to the cold war) - Hubert Védrine: hyperpuissance - "Hyper" in two separate but related senses --> Greek prefix: over, above (e.g., hypersonic, hyperbole) --> Slang (short for hyperactive): normative meaning
Critical Junctures (Theory) (Thelen)
- Points at which particular things happen which prompt a different type of connection ------------------- website - In the analysis of path-dependent institutions, the concept of critical juncture refers to situations of uncertainty in which decisions of important actors are causally decisive for the selection of one path of institutional development over other possible paths. ------------------- - Choice of an option that turns out to be self-reinforcing and interior - You don't usually know that - Only understand critical juncture in retrospect - Once chosen, difficult to turn back - I.e. underwood typewriter vs adler
NAFTA super highway (past exam)
- Richard Hofstadter's "paranoid style" in American Politics (1964) - Unusualness of american paranoia as a part of american political culture - No where else in the world can you find the degree of paranoia in the USA (in the 60s) - The case of North American integration (NAU [NORTH AMERICAN UNION], the amero, the NAFTA superhighway) - the highways that were going to be expanded to mammoth size 300m wide, ten lines, pipelines and railway tracks down the middle - most importantly the law on the highways wouldn't be national law but law of the three countries → concerns about implications of accident of driver from different country - Many states urged the feds to abandon the project (22 different states) -- Huge costs of the project -- Think about the amount of expropriation of land!
Reactive sequences
- Set in motion by contingent events - Definitely temporally ordered There is a causal connection from the events that flow from the contingent events I.e. assassination of archduke FF to the WW1 - Reaction to antecedent events - Cause of subsequent events - Can't understand the reaction unless you link it backwards transforms or reverse earlier events -- Breakpoints where two sets of independent event chains intersect (conjectures) -- Independent event chains have two possibilities --- Conjectures with no enduring consequences --- Conjecture with enduring consequences
grand narrative in IR (past exam)
- Stories we tell ourselves about the past, how we arrived at the present, and where we are likely to go (implication of grand narrative -The grandest narratives --> the europeans and north americans have about their history - Different narratives: Accounts of progress, Narratives of emancipation: MArx, critical theory, Narratives of sameness: balance of power - Dominance of the balance of power narrative
In what ways are GP/IR like a Hobbesian SoN (past exam)
- The classical perspective of world poltiics - fundamental equality of humans - Hobbes on intersate relations - "Yet in all times, Kings, and Persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their Independency, are in continuall jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours, which is a posture of War. But because they uphold thereby the Industry of their Subjects; there does not follow from it, that misery, which accompanies the Liberty of particular men" - Life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish and short." (thx hobbes baby)
Consequences of anarchy
- The consequences are then similar to life in hobbes state of nature - No law, and therefore no rightness or wrongness - Law defines what is just and unjust, therefore there is no justice - No justice bc no law and no law bc there is no singular sovereign Self help the defining rule
SCHROEDER reading - The major argument
- The major argument: 19th century was not a restoration of the 18th century international order. A new European equilibrium was the result of a systemic change. - The structural change: rise of liberalism, nationalism and revolution. Modernization and economic development tended to promote rivalry between states in the economic arena. - The events of 1848 undermined the old monarchical-conservative spirit of 1815 and liberated new forces of nationalism and liberalism.
self-reinforcing sequences (past exam)
- Those apricular sequences of events that triggered by a con event that work to reinforce particular patterns - I.e. Pólya's urn -- Final contents of urn stochastically/randomly related to initial conditions -- However, initial choices have powerful self-reinforcing effects -- Path dependence - set off down particular path - i.e. keyboards - Lock-in
hypernormalization
- Tries to link things together historically - About how developments 40 yrs ago influence and affect today's situations - Adam curtis and history as narratives told to us by the "managers of perception": politicians, elites, media, scholars -------------------------- - "Fake" worlds -- "Fake news" and real news encourages to ignore what their eyes see, and believe something very different -- Lies, "big" and small --- The "big lie": Hitler and Die große Lüge - A lie so colossal and arrogant that no one would believe that anyone would have the impotence to distort the truth in that way and get away with it, Nazi technique of it --- "Little lies": trump and putin compared, Toronto star guy - daniel dale --------------------------- BREXIT - The idea that boris johnson and the others could openly lie to the electorate and get away with it and not be ridiculed for it is very part of the dynamic curtis wants to capture ---------------------------- Alexei Yurchak and the last days of the society union - Notion about how everything in the SU was forever until it wasn't - System creates propaganda about itself - Restricts the consideration of possible alternatives so no one could conceive of anything but the status quo until it was too late to avoid the collapse of the old order - The soviet system was fundamentally unattainable - Idea was the the end of the SU was both unsurprising and unforeseen at the same time
Thucydides Trap (past exam)
- When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result -- but it doesn't have to be. - The growth of the power of athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable" - Thucydides, THe history of the pelo war "Thucydides trap" - Thucydides's Trap teaches us that on the historical record, war is more likely than not
path dependence
- a social process grounded in a dynamic of "increasing returns.". increasing returns processes are likely to be prevalent, and that good analytical foundations exist for exploring their causes and consequences. - Path dependence explains how the set of decisions one faces for any given circumstance is limited by the decisions one has made in the past or by the events that one has experienced, even though past circumstances may no longer be relevant. - "Historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or even chains that have deterministic properties" (Mahoney 2000) - what impact the path has on the way in which institutions unfold over time in a political context -
China's "century of humiliation" (past exam)
- chinese were run over by other countries, all of whom took wealth from china, humiliated the chinese - refers to the period of intervention and imperialism by Western powers and Japan in China between 1839 and 1949 - The Chinese experience is uniquely challenging, as it evolved entirely independently of European influence until modern times - Until the second half of the nineteenth century, Chinese international relations were subject to their own distinctive rules, norms, discourses and institutions. - WIKIPEDIA - The term arose in 1915, in the atmosphere of rising Chinese nationalism opposing the Twenty-One Demands made by the Japanese government and their acceptance by Yuan Shikai, with the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party both subsequently popularizing the characterization. - Symbolism of the 2008 olympics is important when looking at that century of humiliation - "twenty one demands" 1915 japan - Try to impose measures on china that would give japanese further control within china. Control ports, operations of railway, seize important mineral production, allow them access to mongolia
National Identities
- identities involve domestic institutions and policies that motivate citizens to create and use wealth. - How do we track relative domestic factors as well as relative national power? I suggest we do so by developing the concept of relative national identity to go along with the concept of relative national power. - NAU Reading -- relative national identity: the capacity of nations to inspire their citizens is the flip side of their capacity to possess arms and wealth. This motivates citizens to accumulate and use power. -- His narrative: first religion, then aristocracy and culture, nationalism and with it liberalism. Ideology as the dominant source of state identity in the twentieth century. -- In the post-cold war period, national identities change and redistribute the motivation to use power. When national identities diverge, they may exacerbate the struggle for relative power. When they converge they may temper and even eliminate the struggle for power.
War
- is a singular exercise, individuals putting themselves in harms way on behalf of the group. - Get away from the notion warfare is always about the group.
Ahistoricism (past exam) (why so widespread in canada)
- refers to a lack of concern for history, historical development, or tradition
Imperial court gift system (past exam)
- the "tribute system" - Until the second half of the nineteenth century, Chinese international relations were subject to their own distinctive rules, norms, discourses and institutions. - Central to the way in which china and neighbours conducted their IR - When we think about nations in the international, we lose sight of the fact that nationalist ideas have nothing to do with what we are seeing the in the imperial relations of imperial china - Think about this as inter-polity relations - Classical chinese worldview - It was highly ritualistic and because of the incredibly detailed accounts that were kept by both sides, and the various tributaries, they were able to reconstruct these ceremonial rituals - Ritualistic recognition of the order": the imperial court gift system - The tribute system: normative pacification in the international system. China as the superior moral power. Against the barbaric tribes. - Why did this system persist so long? Constitutional structure: hegemonic belief in the moral purpose of the state
hyperpuissance (past exam)
A "hyperpower" - this occurred in the 1990s (not a superpower, because this notion was very much linked to the cold war) Hubert Védrine: hyperpuissance ------ wikipedia - Hubert Védrine , former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued in 1999 the thesis that the United States was a hyperpower. - the concept of hyper power seems to be the concept that best expresses the reality of American power.
state-centric conception of sovereignty
BARKIN AND CRONIN - which stresses the link between sovereign authority and a defined set of exclusive political institutions - emphasizes the integrity of borders based on historical possession, national frontiers, and viability. - If we follow this logic, the viability of a state is based on the ability of established institutions to exercise authority over the population - Thus from the perspective of the stability of the international system, international norms should favor the stability of sovereign states over the unpredictability of sovereign nation - since there is no international authority capable of enforcing treaties and agreements, long-standing states based on stable institutions and historic control of territory can better ensure compliance than those based on principles of nationality.
The classical perspective of Politics
Classical association - politics at world level is politics of anarchy - Not chaos, disorder, or a hobbesian state of nature - An + archy - without government
Trump cession (past exam)
DEFINTION: The rise of Donald J. Trump has accelerated both the decline of American hegemony, the rise of China as a global power, and the intensification of Russian opposition to the US as Trump has willingly ceded American leadership to others in the international system and has systematically sought to undo the major tenets of the post-1945 American-led global order. - Purposeful discarding of american leadership: the "trump cession" - Cedes power away - Ceding global hegemony -- Pulling back US so it no longer is in a dominant position - Ceding global leadership - Did it the first full day in office - Counter to the rise of china for one trade agreement he left (TPP) ----------------------------------- - The trump cession in trade: (We have a president who fundamentally doesn't believe in trade, truly a 17th c mercantilist of the most old fashioned kind, doesn't care about comparative advantage), protectionism, Economic nationalist, MAGA - All economic activity in the US and stop benefits of trade, impose tariffs - Security: America's alliances as a "protection racket" - Environmental protection and climate change --- Personalized approach to this issue - Multilateralism and global institutions: summit diplomacy -- 1945-2016 - you see the constant expansion and entrenchment of summit diplomacy as a way to manage IR global conflict and politics --Today - people don't want summits that he might come to - he loves to blow it up (NATO summit 2018), cancellation of summits - Dialectics of the trump cession: Governmental politics, Party politics, The politics of fear
Peloponnesian War
First major recorded historical account of a major systemic war
International Law
In global politics, international law is no more than an agreement between sovereigns about what the rules to govern their relations are going to be - Negotiable - I.e. criminal code of canada is non-negotiable and imposed on us - No standard of justice in global politics
unipolarity (WOHLFORTH & LAYNE)
LAYNE - Unipolar moments cause geopolitical backlashes that lead to multipolarity (emergence of the First World War). - I define a unipolar system as one in which a single power is geopolitically dominant because its capabilities are formidable enough to preclude the formation of an overwhelming balancing coalition against it. - Great power emergence is a structurally driven phenomenon. Specifically, it results from the interaction of two factors: (1) differential growth rates and (2) anarchy. - some states are gaining power while others are losing it - "The critical significance of the differential growth of power among states is that it alters the cost of changing the international system and therefore the incentives for changing the inter- national system." - rising power leads to increasing ambition. - rising power leads also to increased international interests and commitments. ---- Oftentimes for great powers, geopolitical and military capabilities are the consequence of a process that begins with economic expansion. Economic expansion leads to new overseas obligations (access to markets and raw materials, alliances, bases), which then must be defended.
invention of nationalism (past exam)
SCHROEDER - The major argument: 19th century was not a restoration of the 18th century international order. A new European equilibrium was the result of a systemic change. - The structural change: rise of liberalism, nationalism and revolution. Modernization and economic development tended to promote rivalry between states in the economic arena. - The events of 1848 undermined the old monarchical-conservative spirit of 1815 and liberated new forces of nationalism and liberalism.
systems theory (WOHLFORTH)
Systems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science, and is a framework by which one can investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work together to produce some result. (thank u internet)
Lock-in
Works like this: - T1 (time 1) - initial conditions (discovery of typewriter) - options: A B C - cannot predict outcome of best keyboard as they are all fundamentally facing the same limitations - T2 - critical juncture; contingent event - a particular layout produces outcomes that are different that the alternatives - B FUNDAMENTAL - T3 - self-reinforcement - where more and more people choose one option over others, then overtime we end up with a reproductive of a stable pattern that says qwerty works (B, B, B+) At a particular point there is no going back --------------- - Lock in suggests change is difficult - Lock in as deterministic - a strong tendency towards interia, not necessarily interia in all cases (mackenzie king said the last part) - Example of how inertia can be overcome - case of side of the road driving - Last jurisdiction that changed left to ride side driving - Recent example of lock in being overcome is Sweden's "Dagen H" -- Suggest that if there is enough political will (there was in sweden as they were tried being the outliers of europe), there was an ability and willingness to defy interior deterministic elements of lock-in
Questioning the anarchical tale
deeply embedded in our understanding of global politics 3 aspects we must rethink: - Rejecting presentism - Rejecting universalism (absolutely embedded in the tale) - Looking historically (by doing this the tale NEEDS to be rethought, not rejected in its entirety)
Herrenvolk
master race or master people
Inertia
often takes over in decision making and history
Rassenpolitik
race politics
Heteronomy (past exams proly wont be on)
refers to action that is influenced by a force outside the individual, in other words the state or condition of being ruled, governed, or under the sway of another, as in a military occupation.
Rational Choice (Theory) (Thelen)
school of thought based on the assumption that individuals choose a course of action that is most in line with their personal preferences.