International Politics: Theory, Levels of Analysis, and the Bargaining Logic of Conflict
What this domain tests
국제정치학 rewards structural explanation over description. Name the theory, state its assumptions, derive a prediction, then confront it with a case - in that order.
Core frameworks
- Levels of analysis (Waltz): individual, state, and international system. Misplacing a cause across levels is the most common analytic error.
- Realism: Morgenthau's interest defined as power; Waltz derives self-help and balancing from anarchy plus the distribution of capabilities; Mearsheimer's offensive realism predicts hegemony-seeking; the security dilemma and spiral model explain unintended hostility.
- Liberalism: Keohane's neoliberal institutionalism - institutions cut transaction costs, supply information, and lengthen the shadow of the future; democratic peace and commercial liberalism supply the empirical claims.
- Constructivism: Wendt's "anarchy is what states make of it"; identities and norms constitute interests rather than merely constraining them.
- Bargaining theory of war (Fearon): war results from private information with incentives to misrepresent, credible-commitment problems, and issue indivisibility.
- Two-level games (Putnam): a narrow domestic win-set can strengthen a negotiator's hand abroad.
Worked example
A protected state doubts its patron would risk its own cities for it. Realism names the symptom - abandonment fear - but not the mechanism. Bargaining theory supplies it: the promise is not credible because honouring it is costly ex post. A standing consultative body, forward-deployed forces, and tripwire troops raise the patron's cost of reneging, which is exactly why they reassure.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading realism as "realists predict war"; realism predicts balancing, which may deter.
- Confusing neoliberal institutionalism (states cooperate under anarchy for absolute gains) with domestic liberalism.
- Answering a levels-of-analysis question with a policy recommendation.
- Using "balance of power" loosely for any equilibrium.