International Politics: Actors & Structures

Module 1: Introduction to International Politics

• The international system includes a complex, global mix of people, organizations, ideas, and rules that concentrate on political, economic, and social connections.
• Actors are individuals or groups sharing common purposes and/or identity with similar goals.
• Structure involves the arrangement that connects, orders, and influences actors within the system and allocates power through both formal laws and informal norms.
• "Thinking systemically" means groups or individuals consider the interactions of each part and the whole to solve a problem.
• Structure is the framework of a system.
• Structure examples include power distribution/polarity, international institutions, economic systems and globalization, and norms and laws.
• Structure shapes international outcomes by constraining state behavior, shaping alliances/conflicts, affecting economic development, and determining crisis responses.
• Structure constrains behaviors of international actors through power dynamics, economic dependencies, and enforcement of rules and norms.
• In the UN, the P5(+1) have permanent Security Council membership and veto power, giving them more influence, while smaller countries need to agree.
• Structure constitutes actors by influencing identities, interests, and international norms.
• International norms help shape state identities

Anarchy and Prisoner's Dilemma

• Because no supranational authority enforces rules, states rely on themselves for survival, leading to power accumulation, security alliances, uncertainty, competition, and threatening cooperation.
• The Prisoner's Dilemma is a game theory scenario showing how rational actors pursuing self-interest can achieve worse outcomes than if they cooperated, highlighting the tension between individual rationality and collective benefit.
• The Prisoner's Dilemma shows why state cooperation is difficult, even when mutually beneficial.

International Actors

• Key actors in the international system include states, great powers, domestic groups, international organizations, multinational corporations, transnational activists, non-governmental organizations, and individuals.
• Actors are differentiated by functions, influence levels, and decision-making power.
• The UN facilitated the Iran nuclear accord through multilateral talks, with the P5+1 using its power to lift economic sanctions for Iran.
• Trump withdrew from the Accord in 2018 due to state leader and political shifts, regional power rivalries, security dilemmas, and mistrust.
• The anarchic nature of international relations allows states to alter/abandon deals.

Module 2: US Foreign Policy Apparatus and National Interest

• Foreign Policy encompasses official actions and/or statements by a government directed at a foreign audience.
• The foreign policy bureaucracy in the U.S. includes U.S. government officials, the President, State Department, and Department of Defense to manage diplomatic relations, national security, military interventions, and economic strategies.
• The national interest guides and motivates US foreign policy, defines the collective identity of Americans, is subject to domestic political conflict, and is composed of security, economic, and ideational values.
• The Biden Doctrine values traditional alliances, multilateralism, and seeks to restore America's global leadership by addressing transnational issues and great power competition.
• Threats for the Biden administration include great power competition and transnational challenges.
• The Biden Doctrine addresses threats by strengthening alliances, promoting economic engagement, and advocating democratic values.
• Trump views terrorism as the primary security threat
• Trump focuses more on restricting immigration to prevent potential terrorists from entering the US and is skeptical of military intervention/regime change.

Grand Strategy

• Grand strategy is the intellectual architecture providing the foundation for foreign policy with links to domestic partisanship, global role viewpoints, threat perceptions, and policy shifts.
• Components of grand strategy include principles of international political order, main threats, content of national interests, best policy means, engagement vs isolationism, alliances/partnerships, and domestic political hurdles.
• Obama's West Point Speech emphasized military force, multilateral action, international cooperation, democracy/human rights promotion, economic development, and addressing emerging threats.
• Liberal internationalism includes multilateralism, democracy promotion, economic interdependence, and collective security.
• Isolationism leverages geographic isolation to minimize military threats, limits foreign entanglements, and institutionalized relationships/war participation.
• Historical examples of isolationism are Washington's Farewell Address and republican successors to Wilson in the 1920s.
• Restraint is a grand strategy prioritizing the prevention of great power war, reducing military spending/troop deployments, and scaling back alliance obligations gradually.
• Restraint critiques Clinton, Bush, and Obama for overusing military power to promote democracy and says liberal internationalism overextends US power.
• Restraint could lead to sustainable and effective foreign policy outcomes, avoiding overextension/unnecessary conflicts.
• Libertarians, noninterventionists, progressive democrats, anti-war activists, realist and conservative foreign policy thinkers support restraint.

Liberal Internationalism and Primacy

• Liberal internationalism is a grand strategy advocating for military power and international institutions to pursue a liberal international order, based on American values.
• Liberal internationalism relies on the belief American threats are global and security is collective/multilateral,
• A critique of liberal internationalism is that it can be too expensive and perceived as imperialism. Its assumptions can be naïve, and can harm US workers.
• Woodrow Wilson exemplifies liberal internationalism through the League of Nations, self-determination, democracy, trade, and open seas.
• The crisis in liberal internationalism involves the collapse of the post-WWII order, a relative decline in US rise, and the notion that globalization has left some behind.
• One solution is to acknowledge shortcomings and allow states more room while renewing alliances.
• Primacy is a grand strategy focusing on unilaterally establishing American hegemony over all rivals, where security is achieved unilaterally with reliance on military power.
• The Primacy critique says it can lead to overreach and isolation, as well as provoking power rivalries.

Trump's "America First" Policy

• Trump's "America First" foreign policy principles revolve around the centrality of economic means, neomercantilism, importance of domestic industry, protection, border restrictions and wealth redistribution to the US.
• Neomercantilism, an economic policy emphasizing export promotion, import restriction, govt intervention to strengthen national economic interests, with the use of tariffs/barriers/subsidies.
• US participation in multilateral organizations included withdrawing from agreements/institutions, undermining trade, alliances, along with hostility to global institutions.
• Military tools used included military strikes, covert operations, defense spending and nuclear strategy expansion, withdrawal of troops, and hardline policies on China and Iran.
• Trump's grand strategy is a combination of isolationism and restraint, and is not liberal internationalism or primacy.

Biden's Grand Strategy

• Biden focuses on global threats requiring US interests, reemergence of power competition, and multilateralism.
• Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord is a key aspect of this strategy.
• Biden's foreign policy fits best under liberal internationalism with multilateral institutions, alliances, selective engagement, cooperative security, and democracy promotion.

Module 5: President in Foreign Policy

• The constitutional foundations of presidential leadership in foreign policy making includes the executive power, Commander in Chief authority, power to make treaties and appoint ambassadors.

Challenges Managing Foreign Policy

• Coordinating the actions of the foreign policy bureaucracy is a challenge that presidents face to avoid inconsistent messaging.
• Other challenges include bureaucratic fragmentation + interagency rivalries, along with interference from civilian, military and congressional bodies.
• A lack of coordination between foreign policy actors affected the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
• Mixed message included Glaspie telling Saddam that the U.S. had "no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait and the State Department emphasized diplomacy and ties with Iraq.
• Agency competition affects US foreign policy with the DOD and State department struggling for dominance

Module 6: Congress in US Foreign Policy

• The Constitution designates Congress with the power to declare war, raise/support armies, provide/maintain a navy, and make rules. Congress also ratifies treaties.
• War Powers Act limits presidential war-making through notification requirement, a 60-day limit, and congressional power to end engagement.
• Congress shapes foreign policy through partisan composition, power of the purse, treaty ratification, oversight, investigations, trade policy, economic sanctions, diplomacy and foreign aid.
• Partisanship influences congressional action on foreign policy pushing officials to lean closer to their viewpoint
• Divided government occurs when the president's party does NOT hold both chambers of Congress, causing more conflict and congressional oversight.
• Congress shapes public opinion over foreign policy through public criticism of the president, oversight, and agenda setting.
• Congressional inactivity leads to shift of deference to the President in decision making,

Module 7: American Public and US Foreign Policy

• Components of a domestic model of international politics include the distribution of political interests, regime type, and economic factors.
• Domestic factors shaping US foreign policy are interests and institutions.
• The Two-Level Game model is used in the US to negotiate with foreign governments, allies, and international organizations, while ensuring their agreements gain domestic political approval from Congress, interest groups, the public, and other stakeholders.
• Domestic nonstate groups influence U.S. foreign policy, notably interest groups, economic firms, the media, Individuals and political parties.
• Institutions influence foreign policy through responsiveness (willingness of politicians to listen to voters) and selection (voters doing a good job selecting leaders).
• “Rally around the flag" is when there's tendency for the public to stand behind the president, while ''war fatigue" causes public to support military invention to gradually decline overtime
• "Casualty phobic" is when support decreases as casualties increase.
• Nonstate actors effectively shape foreign policy choices through access to policymakers, financial resources, organizational capacity, public support/opinion, expertise/credibility, coalition building, etc.
• Public goods are non-excludable/non-rival, while the free rider problem involves people benefiting from a public good without paying, leading to underfunding.

Free Rider Problem

• The free rider problem relates to foreign policy and national defense through a lack of incentive for contribution, because the government has to collect taxes to ensure everyone contributes, ex. the EU wanting the US to increase defence spending
• Special interest lobbying groups solve the problem by doing things like offering Selective benefits, mobilizing membership and political activity, political action committees and campaign contributions etc.
• Trump's #1 foreign policy goal = "America First", fusion of foreign and domestic, and critiquing internationalism.
• Trump combined this with a lot of things like, drill baby dill, trade/ tariffs, territorial expansion.
• Trump restricted immigration through a national emergency, deployment of troops, constructed a wall, and limited board crossigns
• Trump wants to increase domestic energy production with deregulation, economic growth, and job creation.
• Trump's policy goal was re-diverting global wealth back to the US which includes possibly retaliatory tariffs and higher consumer prices
• With regards to US foreign policy he planned to take back the P canal from nations like China and the US would exert its dominance
• Executive orders are used and bypass congress with presidential guidances to interpret US laws and fill in political gaps
• Trump's executive orders on the WHO, Paris Climate Agreement, and the Global Tax Accord all show a disdain and skepiticism of the intl community

Immigration policy

• Republicans see the bider criss as an invasion and Democrats see it as humanitarian concern only
• Obama's administration had a general decline of encounters and stricter enforcement and prioritized threats
• Trump's administration shows a surge in 2019, and implemented "stringent" immigration policies to deter illegala crossings
• Biden's admin shows substantial rise in border encounters, where they reversed the trend, and the most recent legislative shifts,
• Abbott has brought the southern border issue to national prominence with the creation of Operation Lone Star

Immigrant classifications and programs

• The homeland classification of foreigns include nationalized citizens, children who derive citizenship, lawful permanent residents, and those who've been granted asylum
• The unauthorized immigrants that poses temporary legal residence inlcude DACA, Humanitarian parooes, and people with temporary protection status
• TPSs give temporary legal status as protection from deportation immigrants who been a part of crisis like a from natural disaster
• DACA protects un documented children from being deported
• Asylum seekers are those who await a court ruling
• CBP one is a program and mobile App that migrants can use as a portal to a schedule legal arrival

Declaring Emergency at the border

• The president declaring a national emergency border allows for fed funds to support national security
• The "Catch and release" order allowed detaining immigrants until they can return to court
• Remain in Mexico needs asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their immigration process
• Terminated humanitarian parole affects populations that are experiencing crisis.
• A terrorist classification allows to take more stringent measures to apply on financial networks.
• According to the 14TH amendment for the Consistittution, all persons who were born nationalized are citizens

Birth certificate

• The Executive order attempts to undue and deny those certain groups of immigrants

Explore international systems, actors, and structures. Understand how structure shapes international outcomes by constraining state behavior, shaping alliances, and affecting economic development.