Reference no: EM133348270

Question 1. Efforts to promote and protect human rights through international treaties meet with varying responses. Governments' records of compliance can be divided into four groups: 1) signing on to the treaties and complying with the obligations specified all or nearly all of the time, 2) signing on to the treaties but making little effort to comply, 3) avoiding the treaties while respecting some human rights but not others, and 4) avoiding at least some of the treaties and committing widespread violations of certain human rights. What international system level, state level, and individual level factors influence governments' policies regarding human rights?

Question 2. If governments were consistent rational utility maximizers possessing ample information about how interactions will play out as game theory assumes, there would be very few wars because governments would always have accurate estimates of the cost-benefit ratio of fighting. However, we know that governments have not always accurately estimated the costs of fighting. Thinking about 20th and 21st century wars, explain how governments' estimates of the costs of armed conflict can go wrong.

Question 3. It is tempting to confuse unilateralism (a government's preference for acting on its own) with isolationism (a government's preference for having itself and its population avoid interconnection with governments and populations of other states). Is it possible to follow an isolationist policy in the 21st century? Explain why or why not.

Question 4. Many observers argue that the main line of division in world politics today is not between "rich states" and "poor states" or between "the West" and "the Rest" but between democratic states and authoritarian states. To what extent is this true? Explain, identifying issues on which domestic regime type matters and issues on which domestic regime type does not matter.