IS405 Debate §

Class: IS405 Created Time: December 8, 2021 6:34 PM Database: Assignment Database Last Edited Time: December 30, 2021 3:36 PM Provided Materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ht2JVT9qaKNJzRhA1PCTesHXw30uDoE8yNvw5lEeLbw/edit Status: Done Type: 🎙️

Group 1 Members §

1. Chea Resan
2. Heng Serey
3. Sorika
4. Rachana
5. Sim Sovachana
6. Sok Udom

Preparation

• Give one questions to the other team, one day before the debate
  • Something you want them to explain or can’t explain to your advantage

Realism/Structural Realism vs Neo-Liberalism §

• Anarchy international system: both theory believes in no higher authority, how does that impact IS

  • Neo-Liberalism : due to interdependence: war is not an option, focus economic policy
  • No world government
  • State is the main actor
  • Self-help and security dilemma
    • Nature of state doesn’t change but the structure change

• Pessimistic view of human nature: possibility of human development in cooperation

  • View of IO: cooperative or a tool
    • Realism : when state and IO interest is opposed, they will abandon IO
      • Indonesia & US
      • created by states, given legitimacy and enforcement power by state
  • Neo-Liberalism: the IS has accumulating progress in humanity and gets better
    • Comparison past to now
    • Realism: humanity might have brief spurts of cooperation, but it is fragile and will eventually turn back into conflict as a cycle.

• Regime change: is the cause of war

  • Realism: bipolar & multipolar
  • Collective Action Problem: its hard for a group of actors to get together to solve collective problem ¹
    • Free ride: as the problem if solved benefits everyone and doesn’t matter who contributed, states have incentive to wait for others to solve it for them instead of helping (global warming)
      • If everyone free rides the objective will fail because it does need contributions
  • Interdependence, MAD
  • The cycle of IS changes still results in State as most important actor

• Utopianism vs Realism

• Interdependence

  • Neo-Liberalism: believes in ‘leveling effect’
  • Realism: as earlier advanced states invest in technology first, later advancing states still can’t catch up ⇒ ‘leveling effect’ doesn’t happen

• What is power? Serey & Resan

  • Soft Power: doesn’t matter when violent conflict happens
    • Economic power more important than military?
  • Hard Power: concentrated in state, ability to make someone do something they wouldn’t do by themselves

• Realism’s weakness

  • Why can some states without military power challenge a powerful state? ²
    • Iceland challenging UK for fishing area: it used law method rather than military. It threatened to leave the NATO if UK kept harassing it (it had a NATO base)
      • membership in a multinational institution as a mechanism of power
    • Realism’s Weak Counter: National politics, international institutions, and ideological or cultural affinities among nations have little relevance to FPD,
      • Weakness: but if that’s true Iceland would have aligned with the Soviet, but due to cultural differences it didn’t

• COVID-19

  • Realism: Why do countries have vaccine technology and don’t share it with everyone. Commercial benefits, selfishness,
  • COVAX

💡 Research Cold War, if it’s success

• Reductionist approach to IS studies

cooperation isn’t impossible but not long lasting

concessions are made by smaller

when larger states get what they want it will end

Reference §

Anarchy_and_the_limits_of_cooperation.pdf

Footnotes §

1. IS405 Lecture Neo-Liberalism ↩

2. Neo-liberalism versus Neo-realism | by Kenneth Andres | Medium ↩