Between this week's class and the assignment due, I feel like the concept of ideas and the application of them to international theory have solidified in my head quite a bit. I enjoyed the in class work on the 2x2 matrix and am not ashamed to say I was relieved to be in the upper right quadrant with interests and rational institutions as those are very intuitive for me.
I greatly enjoy the works of George Friedman (author of The Next 100 Years), and it is through his works that I came to understand national interests and the role those play in international relations. Friedman discusses across multiple books and through his company, Stratfor, how countries have geopolitical imperatives (which roughly correspond to interests). It is those imperatives which govern all that countries do, and make predicting the future over the span of years or decades easier than predicting short term events. Friedman tends to discount the long term impact of ideas on the geopolitical world, and while I don't fully agree with him, I think that when countries follow their hearts (ideas) it ends up getting them in more trouble than they would have otherwise if they had followed their heads (interests). My case and point with this is Germany invading Russia in 1941 (if you want more you will have to listen to my presentation on that :) ).
Tim, its interesting to hear that you find yourself at the intersection of attunement and impermeability. I personally feel more influenced by the bottom left quadrant: autonomy and permeability. This might be due to my utter stubbornness at times while constantly needed to feel the comfort of pursuing the popular opinion.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you brought up the idea of geopolitical motives as I think they are something that has been lacking in our discussions. However, I agree with you that taking into consideration all the factors at play, countries do get in more trouble when not following their "heads" (interests). It reminds me of a perspective mentioned in Goldstein & Keohane's article about how "ideas are unimportant or epiphenomenal either because agents correctly anticipate the results of their actions or because some selective process ensures that only agents who behave as if they were rational succeed" (Pg.4). Maybe countries get into trouble when following *only* their hearts because their ideas can both affect and be affected by and their surrounding actors. Therefore, they need to use their heads a little bit to anticipate (re)actions.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the class work and the group assignments. They definitely helped me to better understand the 2x2.
You make a good point about how countries get into trouble when following their ideas rather than following their heads. I definitely agree with you that this was the case during Germany's invasion of Russia. I also think that had the British made more rational calculations before casting their votes instead of following their hearts, many of them would have voted against Brexit. As I wrote in my comment to Daniel's presentation, not only does Brexit have negative consequences for Great Britain's economy, but this will also negatively affect their oh so favorite sport soccer.
Following their hearts also caused the former Yugoslavian countries to go to war with each other. I wonder if they had followed their heads rather than their hearts if they would have ever gone to war with each other.