Essay On State Actors

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1. Types of Actors : international organizations, multinational corporations, and individuals. Actors in IR can be individual leaders, citizens, multinational corporations, terrorist groups, but most importantly states.
State actors – a state is a territorial entity controlled by a government and inhabited by a population.
Non-State Actors strongly influence state actors.
Examples – intergovernmental organizations – organizations whose members are national governments. IGO’s fulfill a variety of functions and vary in size from just a few states to virtually the whole UN membership.
OPEC, the World Trade Organizations (WTO), military alliances (NATO), African Union (AU)
Nongovernmental organizations – private organizations.
Together, NGO’s and IGO’s are considered IO’s (international organizations)
Multinational corporations- companies that span borders
Exampes – Exxonmobil, Toyota, Wal-Mart
There are substate actors who exist within one country but either influence that country’s foreign policy or operate internationally, or both.

2. Different levels of Analysis
Individual level of analysis concerns the perceptions, choices, and actions of individual human beings
Domestic – concerns the aggregations of individuals within states that influence state actions in the international arena. Such aggregations include interest groups, political organizations, and government agencies. These groups operate differently in different kinds of societies and states.
Interstate level- concerns the influence of the international system upon outcomes. Focuses on the interactions of states themselves, without regard to their internal makeup or the individuals who lead them. Important because if pays attention to the relative power positions in the international system and the interactions among them.
Global level- seeks to explain international outcomes in terms of global trends and forces that transcend the interactions of states themselves.
Human technology, world beliefs, human relationships to the natural environment are all processes of the global level.
These levels of analysis offer different sorts of explanations for international events.
Example : The War in Iraq
Individual level- war could be attributed to saddam husseins gamble that he could defeat the forces arrated against him, or president bushes desire to remove a leader he personally deemed threatening.
Domestic- the war could be attributed to the rise of the powerful neoconservative faction that convinced the bush administration and Americans that saddam was a threat to U.S. security
Interstate- war might be attributed to the predominance of U.S power. With no state willing to back Iraq militarily, the united states was free to attack Iraq without fear of a large-scale military response.
Global – war might be attributed to a global fear of terrorism, or clash between Islam and the west.
3. Different Theories of IR : Realism – explains international relations in terms of power.
Realists and idealists differ in their assumptions about human nature, international order, and potential for peace.
The most important single indicator of a states power is in GDP.
Short term power capabilities depend on long term resources, both tangible and intangible. ‘
Military force is the most important power capability.
Realists believe that there is international anarchy, meaning no central government- therefore each state is pursuing their own national interests.
States form alliances to increases their effective power relative to that of another state/alliance.
Liberal theories – try and explain how peace and cooperation are possible. Kant brought up the reciprocity principle which stats that states could develop organizations and rules to facilitate cooperation by forming world federations
Realists are skeptical of the peace-promotes-trade argument
Liberal theories treat actors as rational, and capable of forgoing short-term individual
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