FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Friday, August 24, 2012

IR Notes on Power and Levels of Analysis

BONUS LINK:  My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here. 

IR Notes on Power and Levels of Analysis


Power =
            - Ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants
            - Ability to get others to do what they wouldn’t otherwise do
            *This is the difference between getting your kids to go outside and play and getting them to clean their room

- Typically realists align with hard power (using force to get what you want)
            Hard power = military (but this hard power comes in degrees: WAR vs COIN)     
            Soft power = material power/ideas

**Power must be addressed/examined in context because each situation may require different power resources
- Power is a relational concept that must be though of within BoP context

- BoP can be outcome or policy
- Walt also talks about the “balance of threat”

- Levels of analysis is a method of categorized events/causes:
           
            System (neorealists)
                        Structure (mechanical metaphors)
                        Process (biological metaphors)
            State (liberalists for the most part)
                        Types of states (democracies, autocracies)
                        Traits of states (nationalism)
            Sub-state
                        Aspects of states (bureaucratic politics, organizational process)
                        Disaggregated sovereignty
            Individuals (constructivists for the most part)
                        Human nature (psychological processes)
                        Particular people


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