STRUCTURAL REALIST VOCABULARY FOR BEGINNERS

Dr. Ibrahim KoncakDepartment of International Relations

TERMS OF REALISM• Power: Ability to make others do (or not do) what you want them to do.• Structural Realism: Also, called as neorealism, system analysis of

International Relations or third level analysis.• Great Powers: The main actors in the realist account or big states in

terms of military and economic power such as the USA, China, Russia etc.

• Balance of power: Theory in International Relations suggest that national security is enhanced when military capability distributed so that no one state is strong enough to dominate others. Example; Concert of Europe

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• Regime type: it is not important for realist the regime of a state, state is state and actions of a state is determined by structure which is anarchic, or no central authority- no world government.

• Black Boxes: Structural realists treats states as if they were black boxes that is who makes decisions in a states is not important, they tend not to see what is inside state in terms of foreign policy decisions. State behave alike only some states are more or less powerful than others.

• Defensive Realists: Theorists such as Kenneth Waltz (Theory of International Politics 1979) who claims that it is unwise for states to try to maximize their share of world power, because the system will punish them if they attempt to gain too much power.

• Offensive Realists: Theorists such as John Mearsheimer (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,2001) who maintain that it makes good strategic sense for states to gain as much power as possible and, if the circumstances are right, to pursue hegemony. Overwhelming power is the best way to ensure one’s own survival.

• Latent power: A kind of power. Socioeconomic ingredients, state’s wealth, the size of overall population, that go into building military power. Raw potential. Latent power which China has gained over the last few decades.

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• Five assumptions: Neorealist assumptions which shape world politics when all combined.

• Anarchy: Ordering principle, there is no centralized authority or ultimate arbiter that stands above states. Opposite is hierarchy, ordering principle in domestic politics.

• Revisionist states: States that are determined to use force to alter the balance of power.

• Status quo states: States that satisfied enough with balance of power that they have no interest in using force to change it.

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• Rational choice: Calculating costs and benefits carefully when making foreign policy decisions.

• Self-help world: States have to rely on themselves to ensure their survival. • Tragedy of great power politics: States to survive have little choice but to

assume the worst about the intentions of other states and to compete for power with them.

• Security Dilemma: A situation in which steps a great power takes to enhance its own security decrease the security of others leading perpetual security competition.

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• International Community: Not so much important in neorealist thought. state interest is far more important than interests of international community.

• Hegemony: leadership or dominance, especially when one country dominates all others in international system only then can ensure survival.

• Balancing: Defensive realist claim that when a states becomes too powerful other states get into alliances and may weaken or destroy the hegemon.

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• offence-defense balance: The defensive realist argument about whether conquest pays or not

• Central Wars: Conflicts involving all or almost all great powers• Security Dilemma: the paradox that occurs when a state seek to improve

its own security, resulting in the decreased security of other states. At the hard of security dilemma is the idea that security is a relative concept: all actors cannot have more of it.

• Buck-passing: When a state in balancing coalition attempt to get other states to assume the burden of checking powerful opponent while it remains on the sidelines.

TERMS OF STRUCTURAL REALISM

• Deterrence: Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires.

• Preponderant power:   superior, satisfied major state in the system