International Relations: Paradigms, Concepts, and Institutions
Core concepts
Know the paradigms and what each predicts. Realism (Morgenthau; Waltz's neorealism; Mearsheimer's offensive realism) stresses anarchy, self-help, power, and survival; states balance and sometimes bandwagon. Liberalism (Keohane and Nye's complex interdependence, commercial peace, democratic peace, institutional regimes) argues cooperation is achievable through reciprocity, information, and institutions. Constructivism (Wendt) holds that identities and interests are socially constructed - "anarchy is what states make of it." Use the levels of analysis: individual, state, and international system. Master the vocabulary: sovereignty (Westphalia, 1648), security dilemma, balance of power, collective security versus collective defense, deterrence and mutual assured destruction, entrapment and abandonment in alliances, hegemonic stability theory, and international political economy (IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO). Know norms and law - just war tradition, Geneva Conventions, the ICC - and soft power as attraction rather than coercion.
Traps
Collective security is not collective defense: the former is universal and aimed at any peace-breaker, while NATO's Article 5 is a defensive alliance commitment. Realism does not deny that cooperation occurs; it predicts cooperation is difficult and fragile. The democratic peace is a dyadic claim (democracies rarely fight one another), not that democracies are peaceful in general. Waltz argued bipolarity is more stable than multipolarity.
Worked example
A stem describes states forming temporary coalitions against a rising power in a self-help system: the answer is balance of power under neorealism. If the same scenario adds shared norms and institutions that increase trust, the intended answer shifts to liberal institutionalism or constructivism.