US Foreign Policy and the Iraq War. An empirical study of realism?
(2005)Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- This BA-thesis examines whether realism can be empirically tested on the Iraq war in 2003. I am inspired by Mearsheimer's offensive realism, which holds that all states are aggressive because of the structure of international politics. Realism has a lot of theories about power, which I examine extensively and then apply empirically. Realism states that there are two strategies for a states? survival. One for gaining power, and one for checking aggressors. The Iraq war can be analysed as a way for the US to gain power, or as a way of checking Saddam Hussein as an aggressor. I analyse the American foreign policy using offensive realism, which holds that all states want to become hegemons. I analyse how realist theory predicts that the US... (More)
- This BA-thesis examines whether realism can be empirically tested on the Iraq war in 2003. I am inspired by Mearsheimer's offensive realism, which holds that all states are aggressive because of the structure of international politics. Realism has a lot of theories about power, which I examine extensively and then apply empirically. Realism states that there are two strategies for a states? survival. One for gaining power, and one for checking aggressors. The Iraq war can be analysed as a way for the US to gain power, or as a way of checking Saddam Hussein as an aggressor. I analyse the American foreign policy using offensive realism, which holds that all states want to become hegemons. I analyse how realist theory predicts that the US should behave as a state, and compare this with the empirical evidence. I also analyse the behaviour of Saddam Hussein using realist theory, which holds that all state leaders are rational. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1330708
- author
- Hansen, Camilla
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2005
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Realism, the 2003 Iraq War, Hegemony, Power, Geopolitics, Social sciences, Samhällsvetenskaper, Political and administrative sciences, Statsvetenskap, förvaltningskunskap
- language
- English
- id
- 1330708
- date added to LUP
- 2005-06-20 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2005-06-20 00:00:00
@misc{1330708,
abstract = {{This BA-thesis examines whether realism can be empirically tested on the Iraq war in 2003. I am inspired by Mearsheimer's offensive realism, which holds that all states are aggressive because of the structure of international politics. Realism has a lot of theories about power, which I examine extensively and then apply empirically. Realism states that there are two strategies for a states? survival. One for gaining power, and one for checking aggressors. The Iraq war can be analysed as a way for the US to gain power, or as a way of checking Saddam Hussein as an aggressor. I analyse the American foreign policy using offensive realism, which holds that all states want to become hegemons. I analyse how realist theory predicts that the US should behave as a state, and compare this with the empirical evidence. I also analyse the behaviour of Saddam Hussein using realist theory, which holds that all state leaders are rational.}},
author = {{Hansen, Camilla}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{US Foreign Policy and the Iraq War. An empirical study of realism?}},
year = {{2005}},
}