ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ I - Deneme Sınavı - 6

Following Marxist thought and inspired by the work of Hobson, Lenin (1870-1924) also developed a theory of imperialism. In fact, it would not perhaps be wrong to say that the best-known theorist of imperialism is Lenin, who expressed his ideas in his influential book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, first published in 1916. The correct answer is B.

Lenin viewed the war as a struggle among the advanced capitalist powers for the control of colonies and markets. To Lenin, capitalist countries first formed alliances for the exploitation of underdeveloped areas, especially in Africa and East Asia. They claimed territories and spheres of influence. Yet eventually capitalist countries had to fight, since overseas markets and raw materials were not limitless. Because the advanced capitalist economic system was dependent heavily upon new markets and raw materials to survive, a large-scale conflict became endemic. The correct answer is D.

The world-system, as used by Wallerstein, refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor that divides the world into  core countries,  semi-periphery countries, and periphery countries.  While core countries focus on high-skill and capital-intensive productions, the rest of the world basically focuses on low-skill, labor-intensive productions. This, in turn, constantly reinforces the dominance of core countries over underdeveloped ones. The correct answer is A.

The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are the five states that the United Nations Charter grants a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. These are the United States, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France and People’s Republic of China. The correct answer is C.

In liberalism, the political and economic behaviors cannot be separated from each other. It is impossible to categorize them as two distinct issue areas. The liberal reading of IR is composed of both conflictual and cooperative behaviors of states, non-state entities and individuals. Also, liberalism has criticized realism’s inadequacy to explain international cooperation and argues that the realist analyses are confined with the limits of narrow definitions of the national interest. The liberal scholars were affected by the international circumstances around them such as the Cold War or the increasing effects of globalization. Correct answer is C.

International Relations as a discipline was born following the devastation and trauma of the First World War (WWI).

There are six key concepts of classical liberal philosophy that are commonly mentioned by the liberal writers, these are; individualism, freedom, natural law, spontaneous order, rule of law and limited state. Correct answer is D.

Immanuel Kant is a philosopher of the Enlightenment. He is the one who argued that human reason one day would be mature enough to establish a world society of harmony and peace. Kant believed in human dignity and that justice could be secured through a universal political order. Correct answer is E.

The Wilsonian doctrine revolved around the concept of “collective security” aiming to provide
security for all states, by the action of all states, against all states that might challenge the existing
order.

The shift from integration to interdependence was also because of the acceleration in globalization. The reluctance of states to transfer their sovereignty to regional organizations was due to complex interdepence.Keohane and Nye formulated “complex interdependence” as a structure of multiple channels connecting states and making them sensitive to “what goes on” in each other reciprocally. Correct answer is B.

Studies in the field of International Relations (IR) are taken into account by dividing the discipline into two or three schools. For example:

* “traditional theories, global society theories and neo-Marxist theories”

* “realism, pluralism and globalism”

*  “conservatism, liberalism and radicalism”.

* Machiavellianism, Grotianism and Kantianism

There are some other categorizations which are not mentioned above, such as realist approach, rationalist approach and revolutionary/ cosmopolitan approach.

As it is understood from the classifications and conceptualization, they all set forth the different aspects of the similar approaches. For example, the concepts of traditional classic theories, realism and conservatism are used to explain the basic arguments of the realist approach. Similarly, the theories of global society, pluralism and liberalism can be named under pluralism or liberalism. They can also be named under Kantianism, Grotianism communitarianism, cosmopolitanism and functionalism. The third group, which is classified with neo-Marxist theories, globalism and radicalism can be grouped with the concepts of Third World theories, Neo-Marxist theories, structuralist theories and dependency theories.

There is NO mention of post-modern approach among all these divisions.

Kantian liberalism emphasizes the enlargement of the rights of individuals as a main point of concern.

It's not the developing countries but major/global powers seeking to restructure the world market for their interests cause the deep conflicts and competition particularly along with the development process of world economy. Since these situations persist, potential wars among the global powers are inevitable and inherently exist.

Morgenthau and Niebuhr among leading post war realists explain IR with human nature.

Wallerstein, Galtung and Modelski are well known scientists and made real contribution for dependency theories or theories of structural Marxism.

Joseph S. Nye, Robert O. Keohane, Richard W. Mansbach and John A. Vasques who agreed with the description of David Easten for politics as authoritative allocation of values claimed the necessity of changes in the statecentric paradigm.

When the systems approach is used, the structure becomes the main focus to emphasize and the features of each state and their decision makers or power capabilities are not taken into consideration. In other words, in such cases, public opinions, local characters, ethnic or ideological differences are not a point of concern for the researcher.

The basic advantages of approaches receiving the state as a level of analysis is that they point out the differences between states by taking each state’s characteristics into consideration. These theories and models lead the researcher to regard (not disregard) the details of variables concerning the states. Taking the states to the core of research as mentioned above provides the researcher the opportunity to make concrete generalizations (not prevent them from doing so). On the other hand, in system (not state) level analysis, characteristic differences among states are neglected. Nevertheless, state level analysis sometimes overemphasizes the unnecessary details (and this in not an advantage).

The basic feature of positivism as a methodological position and philosophical thought is that science is accepted only as valid scientific knowledge and acts are basic objects to be experimented on. This outlook is based on two important philosophical beliefs: 1) The main source of human knowledge is data (fact) and it is easily observed, 2) Data (or fact) is available only as a result of our senses.

The others are not related to positivism but other approaches.

The law of gravity cannot be observed but its results can. Hence, according to rationalist scientists, empiricism is not enough for the theory of knowledge (or epistemology) and for this reason they prefer reason and logic to empiricism to find out scientific knowledge. However, Rationalists don’t completely ignore experimental knowledge stemming from experiences and observations that is they don’t claim that knowledge can only be reached through reason.

Positivism is an alternative effort not only related with the international relations but all social and natural sciences. (So it is not related to postmodernism.)

It is positivism which is still influential in the field of IR. It is not postmodernism criticised by others for not being influential enough.

Main agenda of post-modernism is to criticize modernism and refute its foundations but not replace it with certain methodological and social approaches. Because postmodernists do not offer alternatives to replace the existing ones -the ones that they criticise, they are themselves criticised.

Finally, Postmodernism actually challenges the scientific standpoints of modernism.

Marx tried to understand how the capitalist society works, how it arose out of feudalism, and where it is likely to lead. Concentrating on the social and economic relations in which people earn their livings, Marx saw behind capitalism a struggle of two main classes: the capitalists, who own the productive resources, and the workers or proletariat, who sell their labor force to survive. Marxism is basically Marx’s analysis of the complex and developing relations between these two classes.