IR Comprehensive Examination, May 1998

Students are to answer one question from each port of the examination. Answers to different questions should not cover the same theoretical and empirical ground; questions might be chosen accordingly.

Port 1. Theory of International Relations.

A. It is hard to find a scholar who believes that power in international relations is not important or that states do not pursue their self intemst. What, therefore, distinguishes realism from other approaches? What has accounted for realism's "dominant" status in the discipline?

B. Discuss the relative validity of the following statement: "The `levels of analysis' debate has been made obsolete by the rise of globalization and transnational actors."

C. Assess the validity of the following claim, made in n 1948 text on international politics by Frederick Schuman:

"It is not democracy that promotes peace, but rather peace that promotes democracy."

Part 2. Application to Issues.

A. Assess the relative validity of the following claim: "India's recent nuclear tests once again show that norms in international relations do not matter."

B. Is war among major powers obsolete? Answer with regard to major theories of conflict and the history of warfare.

C. Assess the relative validity of the following claim:
"The United States of America is more powerful today compared to its closest rivals than any political entity since the Roman Empire at its apogee in the Trojan era. Yet its influence over security and economic outcomes in world politics -- as formidable as it is -- is still much less than the "objective" indicators of its power would suggest."

Part III. Regional and Area Foreign Policies.

A. For almost 20 years. China has experienced the most rapid economic growth among major countries, and this trend may well continue. Some tear that, in consequence, China might become more aggressive, as did Prussia and Japan in times of prolonged economic expansion. To what extent are these useful analogies?

B. Why did the cold war stay cold?
Africa?

D. How has the end of the cold war affected patterns of interstate conflict and cooperation in the Middle East?

E. Assess the validity of the following claim: The post-Soviet Russian Federation is not a great power, but merely a lane one.

F. Compare interdependence and security dilema approaches as applied to international relations in East Asia. Which provides n better lens for understanding the past and the future? Why

G. Assess the validity of the following statement: "The success of European Monetary Integration proves that the participants have finally transcended their respective nationalist interests and have left behind centuries of economic conflict and warfare."

H. Why have nationalism and contested borders throughout East-Central Europe not challenged the stability of the international political system since 1989 as they did twice in the first half of the twentieth century?

I. If. as C. Tilly and M. Mann assert "states make war and war makes states," has the relative absence of war in post-colonial Latin America caused a corresponding absence of states?

J. Assess the relative importance of security and economic interests in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the twentieth century.