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