Comprehensive Exam International Relations May 2000

This exam is designed to test your knowledge of and ability to synthesize the complete field of international relations. The best answers consequently will demonstrate a broad understanding of the literature on and processes of IR. They will show fire commonalities across and gaps between the different theoretical approaches, and the evolution of debates in and across those approaches. They will deploy meaningful historical evidence in support of their arguments. Theoretical or empirical overlap between your answers will diminish the quality of your exam. Note as well that citing UVa faculty, especially gratuitously, will not improve your grade.

"Majors" should answer one question from each of the three parts of the exam. "Minors" should answer one question from Part I, and one question from either Part II or Part III. Majors have six hours, and minors have four hours. You have the choice to either type your exam, or handwrite it. If you choose the latter, make a clear photocopy and give us tire original at the end of the allotted time. Then type up the exam word-for-word from the handwritten version and hand in the typed version within twenty-four hours (include a signed pledge that the typed version has exactly the same words as the handwritten version).

Part I: Theory of International Relations

1. "The transitions from realism to neorealism, from idealism to constructivism, and from liberalism m neoliberalism, represent significant advances within international relations theory." Evaluate this statement, contrasting the core assumptions/hypotheses of these perspectives regarding the nature of the system, the goals and characteristics of states, the causes of conflict and cooperation, etc..

2. "Theories of morality and shared norms have little value in the study of state behavior and international outcomes." Discuss this statement with reference to some of the major approaches approaches to international relations.

3. "The never-ending debate between realism and liberalism/idealism over security, economic affairs, and international law has missed the point. They can never come to any synthesis because they are starting from completely different premises about actors, interests, and state behavior in the international system (or society)."
With reference to any two of these three areas (security, economics, and law), what are those premises, how incompatible are they, and what is the point to the debate, if any?

Part II: Application to Issues

1. Problems in international political economy and security are frequently described as a prisoners' dilemma. If so, how is it that a mutual cooperation outcome often seems to occur? Support your answer with examples and with regard to alternative explanations.

2. "International institutions play little role in international relations. If they matter at all it is only because they reflect what powerful states want and would do anyway." Argue for or against, citing appropriate exampleslhistorical evidence, and applying your argument to a specific, non-trivial problem.

3. "If it weren't for domestic politics and the formation of pathologically aggressive regimes, international conflicts and wars in history would be very rare indeed." Evaluate this statement with reference to two or three important historical periods since 1648.

4. "[O]nce it is accepted that the only intrinsically rightful and morally good constitution which a people can have is by its very nature disposed to avoid wars of aggression, [then]...there is the aim, which is also a duty, of submitting to those conditions by which war, the source of all evils and moral corruption, can be prevented. If this aim is recognized, the human race, for all its frailty, has the negative guarantee that it will progressively improve or at least that it will not be disturbed in its progress. " (Kant, The Contest of Faculties)
Discuss this statement. Does the collapse of communism and apartheid on the one hand and the apparent growth of democracies in the world on the other, seem to you to vindicate Kant's faith? Or has the resurgence of violent ethnic conflict simply demonstrated the 'frailty' of the so-called democratic peace argument?

Part III: Regional and Area Foreign Policies

1. Assess Japan's record of "international economic leadership" over the two decades since it emerged as the second largest economic power in the world. Does it provide more leadership in some functional areas than others? Why?

2. Kenneth Waltz argues that successful states--especially great powers--become socialized by the logic of international competition to (a) adhere to certain fundamental principles of interstate conduct and (b) resemble each other in their domestic institutional structures for the conduct of foreign policy. Discuss the extent to which Waltz's proposition hold across any TWO of the following periods in Russian/Soviet foreign policy.
a) 1917-1924 b) 1927-1939 c) 1953-1962 d) 1968-1975 e) 1985-1990 t) 1992-1999

3. Inter-Arab relations have been interpreted as supporting both realist balance-of-power notions, as well as constructivist approaches. Looking at the period 1947-1967, analyze inter-Arab relations with respect to these two schools of thought.

4. Discuss and explain the different responses of China and Japan to external pressure from the United States.

5. Compare and constrast the different approaches for explaining the decisions by European states to turn over sovereign state functions to supranational institutions. Which approach, if any, is more powerful, and why?

6. The world capitalist system inexorably forces all states, especially those in the developing world, to organize markets in ways that serve the interests of global capital. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss with reference to the ways the process has played out in at least two specific developing nations.

7. A decade ago Jbhn Meusbeimer predicted that European politics would dissolve into traditional balance-of-power dynamics. Was he right or wrong? Why (i.e., what causal mechanisms best explain what has happened)?

8. "Arguments for humanitarian intervention all fail to confront a basic reality of international relations: states act only on the basis of their own interests. The `international community' exists only in the imagination of cosmopolitan dreamers; it can never consistently act to prevent ethnic conflicts and civil wars." Evaluate this statement with reference to arguments for and against collective intervention, supporting your position with at least two examples from the post-1945 period.

9. Discuss the utility and limitations of the concept of the balance of power with regard to ONE of the following cases:
a) Russia-CIS b) USA-Latin America c) China-Southeast Asia d) France-Francophone Africa e) India-Pakistan t) NATO expansion, 1994-1999