Week 6 Concept/
Case Definition Notes
9/11 On September 11, 2001 terrorist from the group called Al Qaeda hijacked four planes.
2 crashed into the trade centre, 1 into the pentagon and 1 into a field in Pennsylvania most likely headed for the white house.
• US launched ‘global war on terror”
• Invaded Afghanistan whose government hosted Al Qaeda
• Invaded Iraq due to suspicion it had produced nuclear weapons and could supply to terrorist
• Led to civil wars in both countries
• US forces found Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden in 2011
• Start of a new age of war – not against states but against transnational terrorist networks and rebel groups
Civil War An armed conflicting which the main participants are within the same state, such as the government and a rebel group Definition: “armed combat taking place within the boundaries of a recognised sovereign entity between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities.”
• Scholars require 1000 battle related deaths in order to qualify as a civil war
• At the root of all civil wars is some conflict of interests between the government and a subset of the population
Can come from two different sources –
• Grievances o Ethnic o Religious o Linguistic o Political
• Greed
o Public governmental control of rents o Private gain
• Potential for civil violence arises when 1) There are groups of people within the
country motivated by greed or grievances that put their interests in conflict with those of the government
2) Those people cannot persue their grievances through regular policial institutions
3) Those people can, owing to their own resources, foreign support and or the states weakness, overcome collective action problem to recruit enough fighters and weapons to pose a threat
• Rebellions that involve more factions tend to last longer as it is more difficult to get all groups to agree.
State failure “a state that is unable to perform its key role of ensuring domestic order by monopolising the use of force within its territory,”
• The spike in failures after the Cold War often attributed to both:
o The withdrawal of international support for autocratic governments o A pressure to democratise domestic
political institutions.
separatist An actor that seeks to create an independent state on territory carved from an existing state
• E.g. Kurdish group in turkey and Syria.
Irredentist An actor that seeks to detach a region from one country and attach it to another, usually because of shared ethnic or religious ties
Proxy wars Conflicts in which two opposing states
‘fight’ by supporting opposite sides in war, such as the government and rebels in a third state
• Very clear within the cold war
- dangers of direst war were so high, conflict was often channelled through other actors
- Soviets and China suppored rebels in Vietnam whilst US gave support to the government
• Civil wars in which both rebels and
government receive external support tend to last longer.
Insurgency A military strategy in which small, often lightly armed units engage in hit and run attacks against military, governments, and civilian targets.
• Attack military bases, government buildings, or population centers
• Suited to groups that are small and weak compare to their competitor
• Form of asymmetric warfare
• Results in military strategies very different from conventional state vs state conflicts Asymmetric
warfare Armed conflict between actors with highly unequal military capabilities, such as when rebel groups or terrorists fight strong states.
Terrorism The use or threatened use of violence against non-combatant targets by
individuals or nonstate groups for political ends
• Described as the premeditated threat or use of violence against non-combatant targets by individuals or subnational groups to obtain a political or social objective through imitation of a larger audience.
• Unlike conventional warfare, terrorism is a attempt to win concessions not by defeating the armed forces of another actor but by attacking civilians or civilian police forces or military units not engaged but in combat.
• sow fear among some target population in the hope that they will concede to the terrorist's political or social demands.
• There is an overlap between terrorism and civil wars, since many rebel groups engage in systematic violence against civilians
• Terrorists are weak compared to their targets and relative to their demands
• People can also be lone wolfs – have no membership in a terrorist group but are inspired by.
extremists Actor whose interests are not widely shared by others; individuals or groups that are politically weak relative to the demands they make
coercion A strategy of imposing or threatening to impose costs on other actors in order to induce change in their behaviour.
provocation A strategy of terrorist attacks intended to provoke the target government into making a disproportionate response that alienates moderates in the terrorists home society or in other sympathetic audiences.
• Basically to strike back, cause a war
• After 9/11 President Bush had no choice but to react
• Terrorists may take action to provoke a response from a government.
• State action can play into the terrorist strategy of provocation.
• A disproportionate response from the state may cause sympathetic audiences to
radicalise and increase support for terrorists.
Spoiling A strategy of terrorist attacks intended to sabotage a prospective peace between the target and moderate leadership from the terrorists home society.
• Terrorists may attempt to sabotage, or “spoil,”
a potential peace between the target and the leadership from their home society.
• Target states will generally not want to negotiate with a group that cannot prevent future terrorist attacks.
• Spoiling, a problem in many peace
negotiations, makes a target state believe that the moderate leadership is not sincere about making peace.
• This creates a credibility problem.
• Attacks motivated by spoiling are most likely to occur during or just after peace
negotiations.
outbidding A strategy of terrorist attacks designed to demonstrate superior capability and commitment relative to other groups devoted to the same cause.
• Gain support by the people at home
• In some cases, a terrorist group may attack a target simply to increase support for the group within the home population.
• When two or more terrorist groups compete for support, a group may try to “outbid” the other, hoping to demonstrate its superior leadership and devotion (e.g. competitive dynamics between Al Qaeda and ISIS).
Conclusions • There are similarities (and overlap) with the causes of interstate war.
• Generalizable dynamics that have been seen across the centuries.
• Civil conflict—parties have conflict with the state and canʼt overcome collective action and bargaining problems.
• Terrorist organisations—relatively small numbers with extremist preferences also face bargaining problems.
Week 7
Concept/ Case Definition Notes
International/fore
ign Trade • Gain benefits from specialization
• Often goveernent policy makers believe that exports give more jobs and imports lose jobs However economics logic insists the opposite – imports are gains from trade while exports are its costs.
• In international trade rich countries have typically exported manufactured goods.
• Instead of self-sufficiency, each actor concentrates on and earns income from what he does best and trades for remaining needs.
• The Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O)theorem and the Stolper- Samuelson (S-S) theorem outline the economic rationale for international trade (H-O) and the economic implications (S-S) of this trade.
•
• Comparative
advantage The ability of a country or a firm to produce a particular good or service more
efficiently than other goods or
• Like people, countries should do what they do best
• implies that a nation gains most by specialising in producing and exporting what it produce most efficiently