INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
COMPREHENSIVE EXAM
Fall 2011
Minor
ANSWER THREE QUESTIONS FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST. YOU MAY NOT
ANSWER MORE THAN TWO QUESTIONS FROM ANY ONE SECTION. YOU
HAVE EIGHT HOURS TO COMPLETE THIS SECTION OF THE EXAM.
PART A: THEORY AND METHODS
1) Most IR scholars are probably committed to the view that it is the collectivity of
social scientists, rather than individuals, which determines the truth or falsity of
knowledge claims about world politics; call it the “3rd person standard” for
authoritative knowledge. This makes sense with knowledge claims about aggregate
level phenomena (“structure,” say), but what about claims that depend upon
attributions of intentional states (interests, beliefs, and so on) to particular people or
groups? If those people are still alive, do they have any special, 1st person authority
to say what their intentional states were that could overrule a 3rd person social
scientific claim? For example, if you were Henry Kissinger and an enterprising
young IR scholar came along with a theory about US interests in Vietnam that
differed substantially from your own view, do you have any special say vis-à-vis
that theory, or are US interests at that time something for the community of scholars
to decide? In short, who ultimately owns this knowledge – observers or the
participants—and either way, should IR scholars’ assumptions about actors’
motivations and beliefs defer, to those “who were there”? Does the situation change
appreciably for cases where the subjects of our theories are no longer alive, as in the
origins of WWI?
2) Although Schmitt’s view of the sovereign as “he who decides the exception” seems
to suggest that leaders have an almost unlimited agency, a skeptic might plausibly
argue that almost all leaders are deeply embedded in material and normative
structures, internally and externally, that significantly constrain their creativity and
freedom of action. After carefully defining what you mean by agency (and why),
how much agency do modern sovereigns really have (focusing here on the foreign
policy domain), and what does it look like? What are the greatest structural
constraints today on sovereigns’ agency, and are these constraints likely to become
greater or lesser in the future? In short, does the quality of foreign policy leadership
“matter,” and why or why not?
3) Political science is now abuzz with the need for “multi-method” research designs.
Why? Is there anything inherently superior to having more than one
methodological approach to answer a question? Are there domains of questions,
perhaps, that should lend themselves to particular combinations of methods, or just
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one single best method? Are there any methodological approaches that are
inherently incompatible – for example, ethnography and formal models or
experiments? Why or why not?
4) IR scholars talk a lot these days about “process tracing” as a research method.
What is process tracing and what are its supposed advantages as a method relative
to the alternatives? What are some questions that have been answered effectively
by using process tracing or related techniques? Finally, what are the limits of
process tracing, either inherent or as practiced by IR scholars?
5) Most observers agree that the United States is in relative decline and, as a result, the
current international order is in transition. On the other side of this transition, what
sort of order might emerge? What are the possibilities, and what variables and
circumstances will shape outcomes? For this question, drawing on and
exemplifying relevant bodies of theory, identify the logic of THREE alternative
futures and the sorts of mechanisms and pathways that might facilitate or inhibit
their emergence. While the reordering of global politics might actually be a blend
of alternative logics, the point of this exercise is to isolate ideal types so as to
identify the various moving parts that are at work.
6) This fall, the Palestinian Authority is seeking formal international recognition of its
sovereignty: membership in the UN General Assembly. Since even if this effort
succeeds it will not change the distribution of power on the ground, from a realist
perspective it might seem that the effort is a distracting and pointless exercise. And
yet, judging from the uproar among policymakers, diplomats, and commentators on
all sides, the bid seems to “matter” a great deal. What do you make of this apparent
disjunction between one of our best theories and the Palestinian bid for recognition
of their sovereignty, and why? Discuss in light of relevant theory.
PART B: APPLIED SUBFIELDS
7) Almost everyone agrees that states comply with international law almost all the
time. However, scholars disagree over how to interpret these high rates of
compliance. What does compliance behavior tell us-and not tell us-about how and
to what extent international law matters for international politics? What evidence,
in addition to compliance behavior, would be useful for helping us address this
question?
8) Can war be reduced to a bargaining problem? What are the strengths and
limitations of this approach?
9) Scholars and analysts have argued, especially since the end of the Cold War, that
transnational networks of domestic actors are changing the broad contours of
international relations. The basic condition of world politics, we are told, is less and
less one of sovereign states and increasingly one of interconnected societies,
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groups, corporations and activists seeking to implement change outside of
governmental channels. The supposedly Twitter-fueled Arab Spring is often cited
as an exemplar of this fundamental shift. In your opinion, is this a valid argument?
What evidence leads you to your conclusion?
10) Under what conditions is economic statecraft (as opposed to military coercion or
diplomacy) most likely to be used and most likely to be effective?
11) There is a lot of talk among Americans these days about a new Wilsonianism in
Washington and the importance of morals concerns. At the same time, it seems
almost no one outside the US takes the proposition that the US is motivated by
moral concerns very seriously. They see this as just eyewash for nationalistic
Americans who are attracted to a feel-good cover-story. Meantime, American
realists like Mearsheimer and Walt attribute U.S. policy to neither morality nor
U.S. strategic interests. For them it is driven by the interests of a U.S. ally. Why is
there such huge variation in the interpretation of what makes the United States act
as it does in world affairs and what does this imply for theory building? What is
your favorite interpretation of the motivating forces behind U.S. policy and why
does it convince you?
12) Perception is a popular concept. It qualifies most realist theories that emphasize
power and/or threat and is central in rational choice modeling. As we introduce the
idea of perception both the empirical difficulty of identifying what perceptions are
and the multiplicity of possible perceptions confound analyses. What are the best
ways to deal with these problems? Show how the concept of perception might be
used to explain US-European relations, US-Chinese relations, Korean-Japanese
relations, and Iranian-US relations.
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