1. The overriding goal of states in the environment of international anarchy is to:
a. survive
2. Do realists think there is a way out of international anarchy?
b. no
3. Realists such as Hans Morgenthau think that the nature of man is:
c. flawed
4. Neorealists argue that the causes of conflict are:
a. social
5. In which level of analysis did Waltz find the cause of war:
d. none of them on their own
6. The second image, of states, is a(n) ______________ cause of war:
b. immediate
7. Which of Waltz’s books marks the break between realism and neorealism:
a. Theory of International Politics
8. Which arrangement does Waltz think is most likely to ensure a “balance of power”?
b. bipolarity
1. What are the three assumptions of the anarchy myth?
2. What is the neorealist anarchy myth according to Kenneth Waltz?
'international anarchy is the permissive cause of war'
3. What three levels of analysis does Waltz use to answer the question “what causes wars?”
4. Describe Rousseau’s parable of the stag hunt used by Waltz.
5. According to Waltz, the two major forms of organization that explain politics are:
6. In a situation of structural anarchy as defined by Waltz, what is the best chance states have to survive?
Maximize their power
7. What is Waltz’s “security dilemma”?
8. What does Waltz believe prevents competition among states leading to war?
Balance of power
1. Compare and contrast the realist view of human nature with the neorealist view. What are the implications for how they conceptualise international anarchy?
1. In the Lord of the Flies, adults represent the _________ in a realist system.
a. orderers
2. The island world is:
b.anarchical
3. Piggy is the voice of:
a. hierarchical reason
4. What key aspect of Waltz’s myth does the film Lord of the Flies make evident?
a. fear
1. The film Lord of the Flies suggest that rules mean nothing without __________.
Enforcement/an enforcer
2. What does the conch symbolise?
Rules and order
3. What are the five moves in the film Lord of the Flies that support Waltz’s anarchy myth?
4. If Ralph represents hierarchy, what does Jack represent?
Anarchy
5. Describe how fear of the beast allows Jack to challenge Ralph’s leadership.
1. What does anarchy require to cause, or allow for, conflict?
a. fear
2. For Waltz fear is always:
b. divisive
3. Conflict amongst the boys occurs _________ they embrace the fear of the beast.
b. after
4. The fear created in the film Lord of the Flies is fear of:
d. fear itself
1. Why does anarchy require fear to be conflictual?
Causes of conflict - competition, survival, self-help – are not automatically present in anarchy. They only come after fear is introduced.
2. Where does the film Lord of the Flies locate fear, outside of Waltz’s three images?
Irrationally generated by the boys and externalised
3. Name two effects that Waltz attributes to anarchy:
4. How does Waltz characterize fear?
Something that always divides peoples, states and societies, and worlds
1. How does the film Lord of the Flies demonstrate how fear is necessary for Waltz’s anarchy myth to function?
1. What does the international society myth say needs to mediate anarchy in order to move from conflict to cooperation?
a. community
2. Which IR tradition is international community most commonly associated with?
b. idealism
3. What do Idealists believe about human nature:
b. basically good
4. According to idealists, what does “good organization” require to produce good states and societies?
a. communication
5. Which event was crucial to the re-emergence of idealism through neoidealism?
a. end of Cold War
6. Kegley argues that the behavior of states immediately after the Cold War was:
b. cooperative
1. Define “international community”.
A formal or informal collective and cooperative set of social relationships among sovereign nation-states.
2. What is the “domestic analogy”?
Drawing parallel between what happens within states in their domestic relations and what happens among states in their international relations.
3. What two reasons did Kegley give for rejecting orthodox realism after the end of the Cold War?
4. Name two things that, according to Kegley, idealism could explain (and realism couldn’t) about post-Cold War cooperation among sovereign states:
5. What are the six core principles with which Kegley sums up idealism?
6. What is the seventh, post-Cold War, neo-idealist principle that Kegley adds to Woodrow Wilson’s six principles of idealism?
History suggests that global change and cooperation are not only possible but empirically persuasive
7. What do neoidealists consider the best form of governmental organisation?
Democracy
8. Explain Kegley’s domestic analogy
1. Compare and contrast Kegley’s and Waltz’s characterizations of international politics
1. Name the four heroes of Independence Day
2. What are the key virtues shown by each of the four heroes in Independence Day?
3. What is the new evil introduced into the post-Cold War world of Independence Day?
Aliens
4. What are the three moral assumptions in the world of Independence Day?
5. What is deviant in the world of Independence Day?
6. What are the key neoidealist messages of Independence Day?
1. What mediates international anarchy in a neoidealist reading of Independence Day?
a. international society
2. What role does fear play in Independence Day’s international society myth?
c. unites people
1. Why is the US setting of Independence Day crucial to the neoidealist principles it shows?
It is a democratically organised state and society which therefore enables citizens to behave morally
2. What pure form of communication unites the sovereign nation states around the world into one just military mission against the evil aliens?
Morse code
3. What are the two vital elements that Independence Day adds to the neoidealist story?
4. Does Independence Day prove that an international society can exist without fear?
No
1. Discuss the different role fear plays in the realist myth “anarchy is the permissive cause of war” and the neoidealist myth “there is an international society”.
2. ‘Independence Day really shows an international hierarchy under US leadership rather than an international society.’ What are the implications of this claim for the neoidealist myth?
1. Constructivism argues that identities and interests in international politics:
a. change
2. In constructivism, international anarchy is:
c. what states make of it
3. Constructivism is a bridge between:
a. neorealism and neoliberalism
4. “Identities are the basis of __.” (Wendt, 1992)
b. interests
5. Name the fourth term: Actors – identities – interests -- ________
a. institutions
6. Identities and institutions are:
c. mutually constitutive
1. What does constructivism say is the important thing to look at in understanding international politics?
How identities and interests are constructed
2. Constructivism’s definition of international anarchy depends on the identity of the state as:
Actor with intersubjectively constituted identity and interests
3. What are the two key aspects of anarchy stressed by theorists in the debate?
4. What are the three things Wendt argues that neorealists and neoliberals have in common?
5. What is Wendt’s problem with rationalism?
6. Wendt challenges the neorealist logic of anarchy by reclaiming a place for ________ in international politics:
Practice
7. What are the two structures that Wendt argues explain state behavior in international politics?
8. What are the three fundamental principles of constructivist social theory?
1. How does Wendt defend his state-centrism, and is his defence justified?
1. Who defines reality in the world of Wag the Dog?
c. media
2. Who is the author of the tale in Wag the Dog?
d. no one
3. Production only functions when it is truly:
b. seductive
1. What is typical and deviant in Wag the Dog?
Typical: for the tail (spin-doctors) to wag the dog (US public)
Deviant: for the dog (US public) to wag the tail (spin-doctors)
2. What are the three roles Stanley attributes to producing in Wag the Dog?
3. Define “seductive” as used by Stanley and Wendt in relation to production.
Withholds its own labor from view
1. What set of practices does Wendt ignore:
b. stories that construct states as authors
2. Wendt’s theory of anarchy ends up reifying the:
a. state
1. What is production driven by?
Practices – the mediatic representation of the tale
2. What is the relationship of “tale,” “tail” and “dog” in Wag the Dog?
Tale wags the tail so that it appears the tail wags the dog
3. What are the 2 key disadvantages of the Wendtian compromise?
1. Take the three key characters in Wag the Dog (President, Connie and Stanley) and explain why they aren’t the decision-maker. What does this reveal about who is the decision maker in international politics?
1. Jones argues that the gender variable needs to be:
b. expanded
2. What is the 4th “essential feature” of feminism that Jones identifies?
a. men as an international ruling class
3. Jones accuses feminist scholarship of being suspect because feminists are:
c. partisans for women
4. Feminism claims that “the personal is ___________.”
b. political
5. Jones suggests a solution to the problems he identifies in feminist IR scholarship by focusing on:
a. men and masculinities
1. What is needed for gender to be a variable?
2. What does Jones argue needs to be included in the gender variable?
Men and masculinity
3. What are the three essential features of feminism that Jones identifies?
4. Jones identifies four areas where feminism engages with realism. What are they?
1. Compare and contrast Jones’ and Peterson’s characterizations of feminism.
1. Fatal Attraction makes sense of the world by valuing:
c. the heterosexual nuclear family
2. In Fatal Attraction, Alex represents a(n) _______ woman:
a. illegitimate
3. Alex’s behavior is portrayed as:
b. irrational
1. What is typical and deviant in the world of Fatal Attraction?
Typical: respecting the heterosexual nuclear family as the only legitimate and reasonable source of meaning.
Deviant: disturbing the heterosexual nuclear family through outside, irrational and illegitimate influences.
2. What does Fatal Attraction tell us about the place of femininity?
That it must be kept in its place.
1. Where does Jones locate legitimate meaning in IR?
a. classical tradition of realist/idealist questions of war and peace
2. What would feminists argue does the normative agenda of the classical approach to IR privilege?
c. "normal” subjects and sexualities
3. From a feminist perspective, does classical IR theory have a gendered point of view?
a. yes
4. Feminists say it is possible to have a gender-neutral point of view:
a. false
5. Which female character in Fatal Attraction represents feminism?
b. Alex
1. For Jones, what is the gendered perspective of feminism in IR?
Women and the feminine
2. Give two ways Jones suggests managing feminist “excesses.”
1. Ignore work inconsistent with the “gender variable”
2. Replace feminist work with a more “balanced” gender variable that reemphasises men and masculinities
3. Name three of the “wrong questions” that feminism asks of traditional IR theory:
4. What does Jones claim about feminism in IR in order not to have to take it seriously?
That it is “unbalanced”
1. Does Fatal Attraction support Jones’ claim that gender has a place in IR theory?
1. In what philosophical tradition does an Historical Materialist explanation of globalization have its roots?
a. Marxism
2. For Historical Materialists, what process drives all others?
c. economic
3. Historical materialists regard international economic processes as:
b. conflictual
4. Who claimed that liberalism was “the end of history”?
b. Fukuyama
5. What aspect of liberalism does Fukuyama claim has already won in the “victory of liberalism”?
b.ideology
6. In a dialectical process, what is the term used for ‘a higher truth’
a. synthesis
7. In Hegel’s dialectic, what are in conflict?
1. What 3 processes occur simultaneously in neo-liberal globalisation?
2. where does conflict occur for Historical Materialists?
Among economic classes.
3. For Historical materialists, history is the history of:
Class struggle.
4. What are the two ways in which Fukuyama put liberalism beyond debate?
5. How does Fukuyama understand history?
“A dialectical process with a beginning, a middle, and an end”
6. In the dialectical process, when do we reach an end of history?
7. What does Fukuyama argue were the two main challengers to liberalism in the 20th Century?
8. What does Fukuyama identify as two future challenges to liberalism and why does he think they will fail?
1. Compare and contrast neo-liberal and historical materialist understandings of globalisation.
1. In The Truman Show what ideology does Truman represent?
c. liberalism
2. What does Truman want that he can’t have in Seahaven?
b. freedom
3. How does “The Truman Show” make sense of the world?
a. celebrating history
4. What is deviant for Truman in the world of “The Truman Show”?
c. become aware and leave
1. what is typical in the world of “The Truman Show”?
For Truman to be blissfully ignorant of his situation.
2. How does Christof contain Truman’s desires in “The Truman Show”?
By substituting the category of what he wants for the specific thing/person Truman wants.
3. what leads to Truman’s awakening?
Christof’s inability to fulfil his desires.
4. Is the world of The Truman Show historical or post-historical?
Post-historical.
5. What is deviant in the world of The Truman Show?
No space for viewers to project their desires for history and ideology.
1. What does Liberalism require to function as a contradiction-free ideology?
b. a safe space for people to project their desires
1. What is the unresolvable contradiction within the ideology of liberalism that The Truman Show reveals?
1. How does The Truman Show reveal and illustrate the unresolvable contradiction within the ideology of liberalism?
1. Hardt and Negri argue which of the following best describes their Empire?
c. a mixed character of certain and elusive attributes
2. Deleuze and Guattari say that power:
a. flows through states, societies and international orders
3. Hardt and Negri describe Empire as having a ___________ center.
c. virtual
4. The agency/ontology of Empire is:
b. postmodern
5. What is the new world order for Hardt and Negri?
a. Empire
6. Empire is about __________ the new world order.
b. resisting
1. What has enabled the materialization of Empire?
2. How do Hardt and Negri define Empire?
3. Briefly summarise Foucault’s concept of biopower.
4. Does Empire have a foundation?
No.
5. What are the three intellectual debts that Hardt and Negri owe to postmodernism?
6. What are the two things the disparate parts of the multitude share?
1. How do Hardt and Negri combine postmodernism and neoMarxism in their theory of Empire?
1. Memento’s world is:
b. postmodern
2. What is typical in the world of Memento?
a. people have the ability to make new memories
3. In which direction does time move for Leonard in Memento?
c. backwards
4. In Memento, the color film sequences represent the:
c. fantastical
1. What are the two things that make the world of Memento uncertain?
2. What are the two things Leonard supplements his life with in order to survive the meaningless present?
3. What is Leonard’s motive for reordering his world?
Injustice of his wife being raped and murdered by John G.
4. Why do the color sequences in Memento make the audience identify with Leonard?
5. What three things make the black and white sequences in Memento make sense?
6. What are the differences between Sammy and Leonard’s memory loss?
7. Why couldn’t Sammy will himself to behave differently?
No reason/motivation
1. Hardt and Negri construct the enemy of the multitude (Empire) into a __________ agent.
b. coherent
2. Do postmodernists think that coherent agents/ontologies need to exist in order to have meaningful global resistances to objectionable uses of power?
a. no
1. What two things does Leonard firmly believe throughout Memento?
2. Explain how Leonard is caught between truth and desire in Memento.
Leonard desires to be a coherent agent but the truth is more likely that he is fractured and fragmented.
3. In addition to posing the problem of ontology – the idea that things are fragmented, fluid and foundationless – which two further arguments about the problem of ontology do postmodernists make?
1. What does Leonard’s desire and strategy for becoming a coherent ontology/agent reveal about Hardt and Negri’s myth of Empire?
1. When did the modernization and development tradition emerge?
d. during the Cold War
2. What was the modernization and development tradition a response to managing?
a. former colonial territories
3. What does Huntington argue is lacking in the modernization and development tradition?
b. political order
4. Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis claims to account for the evolution of _______ in the modern world.
c. conflict
5. Which historical event marked the key moment for the creation of Huntington’s thesis?
a. end of the Cold War
6. Which fault line between civilisations does Huntington devote the majority of his attention to?
a. Islamic and Western Christianity
7. What does Huntington assume causes conflict?
c. difference
8. The post-Cold War world will be a battle between the West and:
a. the rest
1. What was the modernization and development tradition conceived as an alternative to?
Marxist, communist, neoMarxist strategies of development
2. What four general conclusions did modernization and development theorists draw about the development process for states?
3. What two core principles of modernization and development theory does Huntington reject?
4. How does Huntington define civilization?
The highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity
5. How can civilizations be identified?
6. What are the eight civilizations that Huntington identifies?
Western Christian, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, African.
7. Where does Huntington identify the civilizational fault lines in Europe?
Western Christianity – Orthodox Christianity – Islam
8. Where does Huntington locate conflict?
Between identities, between civilizations
9. What does Huntington argue is the best way to manage difference?
Assimilate it within or expel it from identity
1. How does East is East cast identity?
a. religious and national terms
2. If the Khans represent Islam, which other family in the film do they civilizationally “clash” with?
c. Moorhouses
3. When does the conflict occur in East is East?
b. when George turns difference into identity
4. Where is the fundamental fault line in East is East?
c. within George’s identity
1. What is typical in the world of East is East?
For George and Ella’s values to coexist, even if the latter’s have to be concealed
2. What does Huntington argue for instead of transforming difference into identity?
Separation, segregation, securitization
3. What is George’s solution to his children’s lack of a unified identity?
Have them marry (Bradford) Muslims
1. Do the Khan children represent Huntington’s fault line between civilizations, or do they foreshadow multicultural Britain? Justify your choice.
1. Huntington’s idea of culture is:
c. stagnant
2. From Huntington’s perspective, culture provides individuals with:
a. security
3. In East is East, post-World War II Britain identifies itself as:
b. multicultural
1. How does culture provide individuals with political security?
Cultural identities are easily collectivised and so can ground states and civilizations
2. How does Huntington solve the problem of cultural difference within states and civilizations?
3. Equating identity with culture is a contemporary response to the problem of:
Cultural difference
1. Do events post September 11th support or contradict Huntington’s thesis that identity is a source of stability and security?
1. Ecocentrism places humans as:
c. part of nature
2. Who popularised the “limits-to-growth” argument in the 1970s?
a. Meadows
3. What type of film is An Inconvenient Truth?
c. documentary
4. What does Gore’s 1992 book Earth in the Balance propose?
b. Global Marshall Plan
5. An Inconvenient Truth was designed to forge a:
a. common purpose
6. An Inconvenient Truth focuses on the actions of:
c. individuals
7. Does Gore think we need world government to address climate change?
b. no
8. Does Gore think that economic growth and a healthy sustainable environment are compatible?
a. yes
1. What is the core premise of environmental/green theory?
Received wisdom about the relationship between nature and culture (humans should dominate nature and extract what they want and need from it) must be questioned.
2. What three points does Paterson claim are key to bringing about a positive change in the human-nature relationship?
3. What are the two things that Paterson argues has pushed the earth to its environmental limits?
4. What is the key message of An Inconvenient Truth?
Human-made climate change is an inconvenient truth that can be solved by humans because it is a human-made problem.
5.What are the three key parts of Gore’s Strategic Environment Initiative (SEI) (1989)?
6. In Earth in the Balance (1992) what does Gore want to make “our new organizing principle”?
The preservation of the earth
7. What are two key things that An Inconvenient Truth does not include?
1. How idealist is Gore?
1. The film WALL-E is set in the:
c. future
2. What is the character WALL-E nostalgic for?
a. love
3. Buy N Large is a:
d. global corporation
4. What do the space-bound humans seem programmed to do?
b. consume
5. What central character does the film WALL-E introduce that is missing in Gore’s work on the environment?
c. Buy N Large corporation
1. How does the film WALL-E make sense of the world?
2. What constitutes the bulk of space-bound human engagements?
3. What is typical in the world of the film WALL-E?
Humans abandoned earth and live in hyper-convenient corporatized space, where they can consume uninterrupted.
4. What goes without saying in order for Gore’s myth to appear to be true?
Human-made climate change is not necessarily inconvenient for global corporations because his solutions do not require sacrifices in economic growth.
1. What does the film WALL-E’s depiction of the Buy N Large Corporation reveal about Gore’s approach to the environment?
1. What is the contribution to tackling climate change that Gore asks of corporations?
b. create new technology
2. For Gore, corporate profit is:
a. an unproblematic universally accepted principle
3. What is the ontology of green politics?
b. ecocentric
1. What are the self-evident truths that Gore’s environmentalism relies on?
2. Which two theories does Gore mix in his approach to environmental issues?
3. What are some potential problems with relying on technology to solve the environmental crisis?
1. How green is Gore really?
c. Anarchism
2. IR theorists view anarchy as:
b. bad
3. Anarchy is the absence of:
a. an orderer
4. Anarchism is a type of:
b. Libertarianism
5. Anarchist believe that ‘the system is ________ us’
b. not going to save us
6. Graeber’s ‘new anarchism’ is:
d. global
7. Graeber’s Ethical Common decency requires working out what each us really:
b. owes each other
8. Genuine friendships are premised on:
a. incalculable obligations
9. ‘Debt is a promise corrupted by both _____and violence’ (Graber, 2011)
c. math
1. What are the three basic assumptions anarchists make about liberty, human capacities for self-organization, and power?
2. What is the fundamental question anarchists ask about the relationship between authority and morality?
Why should a person be expected to obey the authority of the state, for that reason alone, if he is prepared to follow the dictates of a morality that recognises the integrity of other persons?
3. Describe Graeber’s concept of Horizontal Direct Democracies.
Leaderless, self-organizing structures like the “General Assemblies” that were popularized by OWS, in which decisions are made collectively and consensually.
4. How does Graeber define debt?
The obligation to pay a certain sum of money
5. What is “baseline communism” as defined by Graeber?
Extending ethical common decency to everyone we encounter and helping people in need as best we can in our everyday social relationships
6. What are two ways violence can be part of debt?
7. Debt bondage has its roots in:
colonisation
1. In The Hunger Games, the Capitol is the:
b. Creditor
2. In the film The Hunger Games, what is the cost of freedom?
c. The Hunger Games
3. What is the only form of currency acceptable to The Capitol for debt servicing?
a. District children
4. Panem is a:
b. hierarchy
5. Which character drives the movement from what is typical to what is deviant in the world of The Hunger Games?
a. Katniss Everdeen
6. What is the key skill needed by a Tribute to survive in The Arena?
c. social
7. What does Katniss learn is the key to true liberty?
d. social relationships
8. What anarchical gesture does Katniss make at the end of The Hunger Games?
a. Suicide pact with Peeta
1. What is typical in the world of The Hunger Games?
The Capitol to rule over the Districts and the Districts having a moral obligation to pay their debt for their failed Rebellion to the capitol with the lives of their children.
2. What has the Capitol loaned residents of the Districts?
Their lives.
3. Why are The Hunger Games a debt and not just a general form of penance?
Because through the games the Districts’ obligation to show penance is converted into a “simple, cold and impersonal” formula for repayment
4. In the film The Hunger Games, how do The Hunger Games safeguard the future of Panem?
By reminding its residents of the costs of The Rebellion: civil war, hunger, famine, and death.
5. How does Panem demonstrate what Graeber claims is wrong with sovereign states?
6. What drives Katniss Everdeen?
Her desire for liberty.
7. What are the two obligations that Katniss is caught between that lead her to volunteer for The Hunger Games?
8. What are two key reasons that Katniss struggles to survive in The Arena?
9. Why is Katniss socially awkward?
She abhors being in debt
10. What is Katniss Everdeen’s (nearly) fatal flaw?
She confuses social obligations with calculable debts
1. OWS is an example of which sort of Anarchism?
b. Collectivist
1. What is the difference between Communitarian and Individualist Anarchism?
2. What goes without saying in order for the myth “We are the 99%” to appear to be true?
Just because a person battles for their private liberties in public does not mean they are battling for the public or are constituting a new public like the 99%
3. Why is it so easy to confuse individualist anarchists with collectivist anarchists?
Because anarchism is not an ideology but more a point of intersection of several ideologies
1. Is Katniss a communitarian anarchist or an individualist anarchist?
1. Clinton’s speech is Kantian because it evokes the idea of:
c. universal humanity
2. Global LGBT studies wants to _______ the realm of what is considered ‘normal love’.
b. expand
3. Queer IR is interested in analyzing:
a. norms
4. Heteronormativity makes it appear as though heterosexuality were:
b. normal
5. Homonormativity describes same-sex couples as wanting:
c. equality with opposite-sex couples
6. In her speech, Hillary Clinton expands her definition of ‘normal love’ to include:
c. love between members of homonormative couples
7. What is absent from Clinton’s speech?
a. LGBT history and opposition to heteronormativity
8. As an international character, what does Clinton’s ‘LGBT’ help establish?
a. a progressive international order
1. Which key moves of Global LGBT studies does Queer IR reject?
2. What does the term ‘queer’ refer to?
1. Something that confounds identities but is still attached to people because of the way they perform sex, gender, and sexuality
3. Name two ways in which heteronormativity might be institutionalized.
4. Same-sex couples must have which characteristics to be considered ‘normal’ in homonormativity? Name three.
5. According to Clinton, how might states benefit from granting rights to their LGBT populations? Name two.
6. How does Clinton characterize ‘the LGBT in the shadows’ as dangerous?
1. Explain why Clinton’s ‘LGBT’ is a homonormative (international) character and how this character helps to uphold international order.
1. Why homonormative?
2. How does he/she uphold international order?
1. Who treats Ben and George as ‘perverse homosexuals’?
b. the Church
2. Which of these is an example of either/or logics:
c. rich/poor
3. While Ben and George are mostly treated as a ‘normal loving couple’, which action is considered inappropriate and potentially ‘perverse’?
a.Ben paining a portrait of Vlad
1. What is typical and deviant in Love is Strange?
2. How does Kate consider Ben and George to be both normal or perverse, and normal and perverse?
3. Name three characteristics that make Ben and George a homonormative couple.
1. How does homonormativity guard against the homosexual becoming perverse?
c. regulation
2. In homonormativity, what is the risk of unregulated homosexuality?
a. the wrong kind of love/perverse sex
1. What assumption about the homosexual is always implicit in heteronormativity?
That he is normal and/or perverse
2. What forms might ‘regulation’ of the perverse homosexual take? Name two.
Homonormativity restricts the right to have rights of characters like Ben and George. Explain.
1. Who or what are the fundamental actors in international politics for mainstream IR theory?
c. states
2. Of the theorists in this list, who is/are the only one(s) to examine war and peace in a non-traditional way?
b. Hardt and Negri
3. Mainstream IR theory is ___________-centric.
a. North American
4. Mainstream IR theory is primarily:
b. masculine
1. What three things does mainstream IR theory focus on in order to make sense of the world?
2. What international interactions are important for mainstream IR theorists?
Actions by states and statespeople on questions of war and peace
3. Name two concepts or issues that drop out of or are ignored by mainstream IR theory.
1. Choose two theories outside of the main three (realism, idealism and constructivism) that fit the criteria for mainstream IR theory and justify your choice.
1. When found in IR theory, unconscious or unnamed ideologies are called:
b. IR myths
2. What does IR theory defer and displace?
a. the myth function itself
3. What is the effect on traditional IR theory of exposing the myth function in IR theory?
c. disrupts it
1. Name two ideological practices at work in IR theory.
2. If IR myths work at the level of stories, what level does IR theory work at?
Framing those stories.
3. What “goes without saying” in IR theory?
That it is reasonable, rational and objective to narrate stories about IR theory that focus almost exclusively on sovereign nation-states in anarchy and “high political” international interactions.
1. Pairing popular films with IR theory exposes IR theory as:
c. a mythologized mix of fact and fiction
1. What are two reasons for using popular films to rethink IR theory?
2. Why have the chosen films and IR myths been paired up?
Because they produce and circulate the same myth.
1. Why are investigations of popular films so often relegated to the margins by IR theorists?
1. Reading IR theories and myths through popular films shows us that culture is:
a. political