This article I will devote to the less well known ideologies or atleast 'argueably' the less mainstream ones in today's world.
These ideologies are in my opinion not derived from the "big 3" Liberalism, Conservatism and Communism so any ideologies that I have missed out will probably appear under articles relating to them 3, for example Democratic Socialism.

Fascism
Fascism appears in the interwar period in mostly those countries who were on the losing end of the first war.
Fascism is at essence a response to the perceived failures of liberal democracy and thus alot of its reasoning is a deliberate anti-thesis to liberal rational reasoning.

Essentially, people are not rational, or are not best when rational but when united around 'myths' which are large and all encompassing. In Italy this was the nation and allusions to the Roman empire, in Germany it was more the allusion to the "race-soul" the idea of a racial unity and purity. These myths would be solidified and exemplified in a ruling elite and a powerful leader who would maintain the myth but also be shining exemplars of it, especially the leader.

Furthermore, in Facism, war or being prepared for war is to be the norm rather than the exception. The mobilisation and the public unification that war brings is the true measure of the collective will of the people/nation. This mobolisation being a key factor in maintaining of the non-rational unity the ideology exudes. Tieing in such ideas with military symbols helps amplify this.

As a note, in theory things like genocide and the Holocaust are not strict doctrines of Facism, but more developments of the racism and xenophobia uniting people around the 'nation' brings, mixed with the specific German myth of "Race-Soul", it can be argued, but in my opinion is an extremely likely consequence of such an ideology.

Feminism
Feminism is as broad as the whole discussion on ideology. There is no one dominant theory or approach in Feminsm and this section will not go into too much depth regarding individual theories, this section will focus more on the history or "waves" of Feminism.

"First wave" Feminism comes out of enlightenment Liberalism and rationalism of the 18th Century. As people were ascribed rational thoughts and rights based on such, thus came the argument that women were to be given the same such rights and regard. Thus women deserve rights the same as men as both are rational and have natural rights.

"Second wave" Feminism is roughly in the 1960's and 70's. The essential arguement being that the improvement of rights for women had not lead to a similar improvement to actual women's lives in terms of autonomy and equality. Thus it became argued that there existed a culture present in society that marginalised women and disempowered them by relegating women to subsidiary economic roles and to a domestic life. Thus it was argued that "the personal is political" and changes in economic rights and employment rights were needed along with a change in the current culture.

Coming out of this period came other thoughts and views. A more radical version posited that society is built on a sytem of patriarchy that not only denies access to women but is completely designed to exclude them as it is designed for the benefit of men. This forms the ideological basis for the more politcal feminists who seek wholesale change of system, culture, language politcs etc.

Also more recently is the emphasis on gender difference as a basis for ideology. It is argued that feminine culture is distinct from masculine culture and is only disempowering because masculine culture has made it so. Thus feminine culture needs to be given greater attention to bring it into acceptability, or to an extreme, advocate a complete separation.

Within Feminism there are also individual and distinct strains, some of which resemble the more 'mainstream' ideologies, these may become the focus of a longer article on feminism.

Ecologicalism
Ecologocialism broadly seeks to define nature as not apart from ourselves but part of a large ecosystem of which we are part and of which we have responsibilities in.

Ecologicalism's broad arguements embody a critique of the modern day capitalistic system of production based on consumption via a profit driven device. This system ignores the ecological costs, and once those costs are factored in, it is argued the rational course is to re-engineer our economy to less destructive and wasteful avenues, normally seen as more local, renewable and sustainable. In such a system human values that are not based on selfish maximisation of interests will emerge, or re-emerge.

This basis leads into two broad categories, 'Humanist Ecologicalists' argue for a balance of interests between environmental and human interests and as such advocate rural protection schemes, animal rights etc. The other category being 'Deep Ecologists' who argue that the demands of nature are over and above the demands of material human interests. As such a new set of moral principles is in place. More radical measures such as 'zero' or 'reverse' growth economies are proposed, removal of industrial production and a wholesale dismantling of the capitalist system.

In some cases, ecologicalism has formed syncretic ideologies with others to present a different ideological package. However mostly green theorists assert a position that is a challenge to the assumptions in modern ideologies.

That is it for now, following articles will either expand on specific areas or catalogue the derived ideologies that stem from the big 3, or come from elsewhere, at some point I will get around to putting my own favourite theory down 'Discourse', ohh what a lot of fun that will be.

Regards
Zammo

This article is the second part of a series of explaining political ideologies in simple and condensed manner, this part will focus on ideologies that are seen to derive from Liberalism or are syncretic with another tradition and Liberalism.

Left wing Anarchism a la Kropotkin
People are rational beings capable of coming to thier own arrangements through discussions and mutual understanding and are able to organise themselves without intervention from government, when such organisation is needed. However it is not right for people to decide on a governmental system and then only periodically update it and not give others the opportunity to argue and discuss it fully. Thus the less government there is (or most government at the lowest level possible), the better we can come to arrangements and live peaceful communal lives. Work towards this goal can be by revolution and dismantling of the state, although Kropotkin advocated building enclaves as beacons to the future.

Right wing Anarchism a la Emma Goldberg and Ayn Rand
People are individuals and are only free when there are no outside pressures on them, especially from government. No matter the shape and size of government, just because the oppressor has the backing of a representative section of society in no way justifies such oppression, at the end of the day it is still oppression.

Also argued is that the free market is a representation of our creative outlets but also of nature rewarding those who are fit. People with the right ideas and fill the right niches will succeed in the free market and thus be successful. The free market is fair in the same sense nature is fair to those who are strong and succeed. No market can be truely free if there is a government monitoring it and hindering it, the free market doesn't need a government to support it.

Social Liberalism
People are rational and can come to decisions about the right way to structure society by agreeing and debating laws which all can understand and follow. Society can become better by ensuring people have rights within a set framework. For society to work properly though, people need to be properly educated and supported to understand thier rights and responsibilities within the society. It is also recognised that rational as people are, not everyone will or is able to make a choice that will allow them to live a decent life, which then calls for a system of help and support to those in need.

Isiah Berlin highlights a key choice between a society based on "negative" rights and one based on "positive" rights. He argues that "positive" rights will eventually lead to a system of government that will force/manipulate its citizens into a system that may not be either convincingly "right" or benficial to its citizens. [Me or tomzini can make up another article which discusses positive/negative rights if nessecary]

Neo-Liberalism a la Margret Thatcher and Ronald Regan
Arguably a form of conservatism as well, Neo Liberalism is a syncretic tradition of free market liberalism and social aspects of conservatism, plus conservative respect of the status quo.
Essentially, people are free rational and enterprising, with the free market as the example of this. People are best when they are free-est from government intervention and the like and as such, the government should be smaller within reasonable limits (actual results are always arguable).
However society should be more like it was in the victorian times. People should be in coherent family units and traditional family values are the best.

These are most of those seen to derive from liberal traditions. I have left out Social Democracy for now because I feel it will be better in a follow up article in Communism although I feel it is a syncretic tradition with Liberalism like Neo-liberalism is with Conservatism.
Neo-Liberalism some may argue should be more under Conservatism possibly from the arguement that it was introduced in the U.K via the Conservative party. While some may make disputes on this, Neo-liberalism does contain many of the lines of tought within Liberalism and therefor its name is justified.

Thats it for now, prepare for part 3, hopefully soon.

The Rational Egoist

Since John saw fit to mention rationality I'm going to have a stab at explaining a cornerstone of rational choice theory. Namely the "prisoners dilemma". Rational choice starts with a couple of assumptions:

* People have desires and needs.
* People make decisions based on fulfilling these desires and needs (this makes them rational)
* These desires/needs have different weightings. As an example usually you would expect in people the desire to prevent starvation is stronger than the desire to watch TV.
* Many rational choice thinkers also assume that a person is an "Egoist". An egoist is essentially selfish and will look after themselves first.

Now we have our "Rational Egoist".

The Prisoners Dilemma

Now I will bring in the Pirsoners Dilemma (PD). The PD explores the possibility for cooperation between actors. Let us say a that two people have committed a crime together. Citizen A and Citizen B have robbed a bank. The police have caught them and now are holding them seperately. The police only have proof of a minor offense for both of them, but wish to ensure a larger conviction on at least one of them. To this end they offer each a deal individually:

"If you testify against your partner in court we will lower your sentence, we are offering the same deal to your partner."

Now from the perspective of Citizen A he has two choices:

* Confess
* Remain Silent

If he confesses he gets a reduced sentence (and B gets an increased one, but since he's an "egoist" he doesn't care).
If he remains silent he runs the risk of B confessing and increasing his sentence hugely.

Usually numbers are put to this to illustrate the dilemma, there are 4 outcomes:

A and B both confess = Both get 10 years
A confesses and B does not = A gets 1 year and B gets 12
B confesses and A does not = B gets 1 year and A gets 12
A and B both do not confess = Both get 2 years

So from the perspective of an Egoist the choice is simple. If A confesses the worst that can happen is 10 (B confesses) years and the best 1 (B does not). If he does not the worst is 12 (B confesses) and the best is 2 (B does not). In both cases he is gaining nothing for himself by not turning on B.

So what does this mean?

Cooperation is unlikely in a world of rational egoists. Since helping the other means losing yourself. Further from this the distrust between the two candidates is saddening because if they considered the gain to both of them higher, then the best choice is not to turn in the other, for a combined jail time of 4 years instead of 13 or 20.

A and B both confess = Both get 10 years (Total of 20)
A confesses and B does not = A gets 1 year and B gets 12 (Total of 13)
B confesses and A does not = B gets 1 year and A gets 12 (Total of 13)
A and B both do not confess = Both get 2 years (Total of 4)

Is this applicable to the real world?

Rational choice theory is common place in Economics and Political Theory. I will give an example from International Politics since I know it better. It is argued that the logic of the PD manifests between states. Since all States must look to their own security as the top priority they must steer the safest course of action which usually involves self reliance rather than trust and risk in another state (which is assumed as an egoist and will also look after its own interests). Thus cooperation only exists where it benefits both parties at minimal risk to security.

Me personally

I don't agree with the above conlusion about International Politics, I am more convinced by authors who claim that rational choice can reach drastically different conclusions. However I do not wish to lead so I will leave this open to discussion. Consider instead what happens when it is assumed that there will be more than one PD dilemma the two actors play together. How will actions in one game affect the next?

Hello there, long time since I have written an article, hopefully this will be a bit of a restart to my political writing career on this website. This is also a test for myself, to write in smaller nuggets rather than my trademark essay length comments and articles. So this will be some short descriptive sentences on a few well known philosophies, hopefully they will prove to be of some interest. A second and third part may come later in the week.

Classical Conservatism a la Burke: People and society do not change much and do not like change, people need to be kept in line by traditions and people wielding power. Traditions are there because they work, have worked in the past and thus they are self legitimising. The rights you enjoy are only there because traditions are there to give you them rights.

Classical Conservatism unattributed but possibly Burke
Also attributed to Conservatism is the adherence to the status quo, essentially a thread that runs through most conservative thinkers is to accept the status quo as true and thus not move away or against it.

Classical Liberalism a la Locke: People are passionate beings who learn and live through our emotions and our experiences, life is your own and should be treated as such. Essentially it is a denial of previous lines of thought that suggest that people need to restrict thier 'urges' otherwise society will implode.
This arguably is where the 'human rights' stuff in liberalism comes from.

Classical Liberalism a la J.S.Mill: People are "rational". People learn and evaluate thier surroundings and make decisions based on being rational and the like. People and socieities become stagnant when they do not change and allow for discussion, people and societies grow through interaction and through discussion/arguement. Rather notably J.S.Mill ascribed equal rights to women as he saw that women are just as capable of rationality as men and thus should have the same rights.

Classical Liberalism unattributed but possibly J.S.Mill
As an extention of rationality is the concept of agreement through discussion. That people can agree to a mutually beneficial arrangement. This arguement is used for a democratic legitimacy of government. That the political system that runs the country should be debated and agreed upon (as opposed to be a matter of tradition).

Also there is a strain within liberalism that see's a product of a persons labour as the sole property of the person who created it, people have rights in regards to property and to trade these products in a beneficial way is a natural extension of our rationality.

"Classical" Communism a la K. Marx: History is a series of struggles relating to our relationship to resources. Throughout history, post hunter/gatherer times, there have always been people who own the means of production and they always restrict this access to themselves so they can dominate those who live on/work the means of production. History shows that there are violent revolutions caused by these inequalities and eventually a new order arises which offers a better balance between the owners and the workers. The latest examples being the Bourgoise and the Proletariat (workers). Thus in Modern times, the inequalities that capitalism creates will eventually cause a revolution that will lead to a fairer socieity.

Marx also notes that capitalism is an 'institution' among others such as the church, which are allied to or run by the Bourgoise to keep down and brainwash the Proles into not causing a revolution. Other noteworthy mentions are: the opression of women will be alleviated in a fairer post revolution system; the revolution will have a small period of "dictatorship" of the proletariat, a transitional period where a type of martial/worker rule occurs; lastly the revolution is an objective fact that will need to be examined and learned from so that future revolutions can be conducted and adapted to each individual case.

These are what I would call the sortof 'modern origional' philosophies that many others stem from, I will go into these 'derived' philosophies in subsequent articles.

Fell free to discuss and to expand/correct me, its been a while since I have read these so there might be some details which are a bit iffy, but I think I got the core right.

Regards
Zammo

Rather than write one huge comment I thought I would write an article instead, bulk this section out and whatnot.
Tom has not gotten anything wrong as far as I'm aware but I think I might be able to expand or clarify in some areas.

Point 1)
There is always an assumption of a trade-off as far as I'm aware, nothing is free, especially time. Thus you can never have more security and more living standards, one will impact on the other. The only way both will increase is if the entire economy as a whole increases which normally happens at a fairly slow rate (2-3% last time I checked for the UK)

Point 2)
Supply and Demand is the bedrock of economics pretty much all of it is based on this, one way or another.
The 3 factors in the equation, Price, supply and demand are all separate but effect each other.

A higher price will raise supply (because suppliers can make more money off it) but demand will go down because less people can/will be willing to pay for it.
The higher available supply for a good, will mean a lower price (because the good is less scarce) and a higher demand (because more people can afford it).
The higher demand for a good will mean a higher price (because people will be willing to pay for it) and a higher supply (because suppliers will make money supplying a good people are willing to buy).

The factors that effect each of the parts of the equation are too numerous to put down here but for supply can involve things like the cost of labour and the seasonal weather. Demand can be influenced by advertising and necessity and lastly price can be effected by the former two (Supply and Demand) but also taxes, price fixing measures etc.

Also there are expections to these rules but that would be delving too much into A-level economics

Point 3) The other way of looking at this is that people will buy the thing of the most value to them, so if an Xbox is £200 and will provide 30 hours of fun and a PS2 is also £200 but will provide 90 hours of fun then a person will buy the PS2 over the Xbox.

Point 5) Trade makes everyone better off because people are willing to to sell things that are of little value to themselves (e.g Coal) in exchange for something that is more valuable to themselves (E.G coffee).
Key to specialisation is that there is always more benefit to trade goods rather than make them yourself. Its a bit obvious, but if you can make more coal and coffee, than you could get back for making just coffee and trading the surplus coffee for an amount of coal, then you aint gonna do it.

Point 6) This is probably best (if cynically) epitomised in the film Wallstreet that "greed is good".
People will only buy the things they want (or discover they want) thus the market is beholden to produce things people want, and in the quantity people want it in, because otherwise people will not buy the goods and the companies involved will not be able to run and make a profit.

Point 7) Is a bit of a tricky one as the role of governments is more political than economic in most economic theory that I have heard.
On the basic level, the government is there to ensure that peoples possessions are safe, which is critical when possessions are what people are trading in the market. Its the arrangement that can be epitomised by a wild west analogy.

Imagine you have a gold mine and you try and stake your claim, with you on your own there is nothing to stop people to take over your claim while you are gone (or unawares). To get around this you arrange with people nearby that if they watch over your patch and not steal it, you will watch over thiers and not steal thiers. The basic function of government is just an extension of this agreement.

Other government interference can be summed up in economic ways, but often is more political than actually market based.
Redistribution of wealth can (from an economic perspective) be also achieved by altruism (charity) as good as and probably more efficient than a government scheme (as there is less bureacracy involved). Economic redistribution other than altruism (as it is a form of preference, because altruism makes people feel good which can be a preference over other goods) in my knowledge is a political construct, not economic.

Government can protect people from outside interferece but it will have to be explained in some form of rational economic way. Thus Government can protect against slavery, but only because emancipated citizens are preferable to enslaved ones or there are less costs involved (In some way).

Point 8)
Standard of living is dependant on what you can produce and how much but only in the context of how much people want it. To maximise production of a good everyone wants and is willing to pay for will increase your living standards, not nessecarily the act of production in itself.

Point 9)
This is basically true but its a bit more complicated.
The more money is printed, the price of good drops relatively.
So if one coconut cost £2 and you earned that in an hour then that coconut is worth the same as one working hour.
If they doubled the amount of money in the economy and you earned £4 an hour then a coconut (at £2) would only be worth half an hours work. If you were still willing to pay an hours worth of work for a coconut (e.g £4) then the shop keeper can raise the price of a coconut upto £4 and you will still buy it. Thus the shopkeeper will raise the price of coconuts to £4, doubling its price but keeping its value (one working hour). This is a very basic example of inflation.

Point 10)
This is a complicated one.
Using my above example, imagine when the persons pay doubled it was not because the government printed more money but because the company was earning twice as much and thus decided to pay everyone twice as much. This means the person has more money but not everyone else does, still its enough money to devalue the coconut at its present price, so a shop keeper raises it to £3 instead of £4. This means the person has £1 more to spend (per hour working) than usual, so he buys a apple. This then creates a demand for apples more than usual, which means more people are needed to supply apples to willing customers. Which obviously means more people are needed to work, which will hopefully be drawn from unemployed people and reduce unemployment. This is a very simple example of the situation.
High inflation is when the prices of goods have gone up (for various reasons) above the rate that people are increasing thier pay and the rate that the economy is growing.

Hope thats expanded on Toms points in a meaningful way.

Regards
Zammo

I'm not an economist. But I felt the need to understand the basics, so anyway else interested in how economists view the world should like this. I read the book which told me the "10 principles of economics" and I took some notes(Source is "Principles of Economics" by Gregory Mankiw).

So too the ideas:

Individual Level:

1) Economics is about trade offs in the distribution of resources. This can be either an item or time. How you distribute resources also reflects your priorities. For instance a government which spends more on the militairy is prioritizing security over improved living conditions.

2) Somethings value is what you are willing to pay for it. This is sumarized often as "Supply and Demand". If there are a lot of people chasing a few items then only those most eager to pay more for it will get it.

3) Rational people optimize their own resources. Given a choice between two identical items at a different cost people will choose the cheaper one.

4) People respond to incentives. This one is fairly obvious. A rational person will be more likely to do something you give them an incentive to do. For example if you want more Teachers you pay them more.

Interaction Level:

5) Trade can make everyone better off. Well this is the idea of "specialization". When you do a job a lot you get better at doing it. When you are better at doing it you produce more and better quality goods. If everyone specializes and trades their produce then everyone gets better quality goods.

6) Markets make self interest work for society. The idea of a market is that within it everyone acting for their own interest works for the good of the whole. Everyone within the market is trying to be as efficient as possible to improve their own profit. This means all of society is encouraged to maximize their produce.

7) Governments can sometimes be a positive influence on the market. Government is able to do what an uncontrolled market cannot. For instance government interference is most common in redistributing wealth from the richer to poorer elements. Government can also act to curb a crisis that numerous individual actors will not cooperate to solve. Finally governmnet can act to reduce damaging effects to people outside the market. For instance banning slavery.

Conclusions

8) A countries standard of living is dependant on its ability to produce goods - More produce means more to split between the populus

9) Prices will rise when too much money is printed - Supply and Demand

10) In the short term low inflation means higher unemployement - This is slightly more complicated. Low inflation means less money is being printed. This means prices will rise more slowly. This means confidence which is essentail to the system remains. When prices rise faster confidence goes down, people spend less and jobs are lost in the long term. So I guess in the short term high inflation means that people are being employed to do something inefficient in reality but efficient in the market.

I hope interesting to people, I'll get Mr Economics AKA Zammo to check it over. He did A Level, I didn't.

Yes in an attempt to move this section away from the more theoretical aspects of politics, I thought I would bring up a discussion or two around the Tory leadership race.

With it being on everyones lips at the moment I would like to bring up what I think is a key question in terms of the race.
Is David Cameron actually on the left wing of the party (and thus centre ground) if not what is he?

I think it is important that within this whole race with the MP's so far, the only real thing that has been flagged up was Ken Clarkes softening on his ideas of europe (and how he was against the war in some form or another). When it came down to D Davis, D Cameron and L Fox I couldnt tell what the differences was between then other than superficial or background differences (like that Cameron is very young, and Davis is from a council house background).

So I propose that we try and find out.
A small article in today's guardian titled "Cameron is no Moderate" posts an idea that Cameron is far from the left wing of the party and has real potential to be a hardcore rightwinger.
Here is the article for your perusal:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/toryleader/comment/0,16473,1599280,00.html

Now if people want to post up thoughts or other articles I think we might have an interesting time discussing this.

From the article I have given it could easily be seen that Cameron is actually more akin to a /Thatcherite/Neo-con/Eurosceptic type personality, scarily using the infamous Geroge Bush discourse of "Compassionate Conservatism".

If anyone has any thoughts please post them.

P.S I find this intersting because my personal bet is that the person who has the most right wing credentials will be able to get the votes of the 300,000 odd people who get to vote and become leader of the Tory party. My personal bet is that it will be David Davis, because as the language stands, Cameron is more moderate than Davis, but as the wheels turn who knows what the case is. Feel free to comment on this also

Hello there, this is real easy AS level Economics and Politics stuff, but I feel its a good subject to start writing on and it helps underpin what I will be going on later about rational choice (which I call positivism) and why I will use the terms I use.

Firstly: What is a Positive statement?

A positive statement is a statement where a cause an effect relationship is assumed, or slightly more broadly, a problem/solution relationship is stated.

For example: Unemployment is too high, we should provide more jobs.
This statement assumes that there is a relationship between jobs and unemployment, but also assumes that jobs are a solution to unemployment.

Although it is fairly simple, later on as we go onto the philosophical assumptions it can become quite important.
The core philosophical assumption is that there are objective entities that can be identified (e.g unemployment) and that they can be examined and reasoned with, and even solved (e.g by jobs). This is the core of rational choice theory (part of which is used in Tom's Realism article). The positions I plan to go into later in other articles (such as Discourse) do not have this assumption. It is a useful thing to bear in mind and I might refer back to this article later on.

Secondly : What is a Normative statement

A normative statement presents an ideal situation or viewpoint. Or an observation.

For example: We should end world poverty.
This statement presents an ideal that we should work towards ending world poverty. It is the assumption of this statement that ending world poverty is a good idea (I'm not saying it isn't).

Normative statements do not make assumptions about linkages between problems or solutions within the statement. Although normative statements can include rational and objective asumptions (e.g that there is a thing called world poverty) they don't have to and generally work on the assumption of idea/ideals. That the idea of how to structure the world is more important than the practicalities and the definition.

Okay that is the fairly simple stuff, it must be noted that these statements are not mutally exclusive or really adversarial to each other, but it does help underline other differences later on.

Disclaimer, to any other people who actually know what these things mean and have found glaring flaws in the explanations then I am sorry for the misrepresentation, although to my current understanding, this is what I am aware of in terms of the understandings of these concepts.

Regards
Zammo

Hello my name is John Zammit (Hence Zammo) and I am well.... Tom's friend, who is Matts friend, the Matt that runs this site. Well I do know Matt as well from the Lan parties mentioned in this very website, but Tom knows him more.

Anyway after realising that Tom had his own politics column on a swanky looking website I couldn't leave that happen lying down, so I took to action and begged Matt for a slot, so here I am, another university politico who assuming I fight the laziness inherent in me, will publish articles and the like on this page.

I am currently studying BSc Public Policy, Government and Management (At the University of Birmingham, INLOGOV), so I am more of a wannabe politico than an actual one like Tom, put simply, where Tom studies the concepts of power, I study the concepts of public policy, most use similar philosophical frameworks which I intend to go through and explain at one point.

Like Tom I might try and bother to be neutral, but if I aint I will try and be blatant about it, I am generally considered left wing although I aint no firebrand and can see the values of most political persuasions. I consider myself centrist looking leftward as a more precise indicator (unless you go onto political compass in which I am fairly left/libertarian). I am also generally more of a discourse leaning realist in most conceptual matters, although please note that the term I used there is different from the one Tom used in his article called Intro to Realism, to make things complicated I would call his theory Positivism or Rational actors theory but I will write articles on that later.

Anyway thats it for my introduction, hope it wasn't too long and hope to have fun on this page.

Regards
Zammo

P.S
Same rules and threats apply as Tom layed out in his introduction.

Alright so far I've described how a "Realist" reacts in a situation among competitors. However I've left out the important case of potential adversaries. Realism describes a concept known as "International Anarchy" as I mentioned before. In this state there are no rules and no police. Competition will inevitably lead to disagreement and even hostility. States will be insecure (and even foolish) if they are not able to further their interests militairly if needed. Stalin's alleged comment in regard to the Pope's disagreement with his policies is a very good example of this view:

"And how many battalions has the Pope?" (IE "What's he gonna do about it?").

So a sensible state has an ability to use armed force. And if his neighbours are sensible they too have armed force. In this eventuality emerges the "Security Dilemma". Let us pretend we have a State A and State B who have a mutual border. State A will be insecure in a situation where State B has a higher militairy power, as State B will be potentially able to impose it's will on them via force. So State A will try and keep it's potential force on a par or preferably greater level than State B. If State A starts arming itself then State B will be insecure. Why is State A arming itself? How can they know for certain? To be safe State B needs to increase it's armamament level. You can see what emerges here is a Spiral, which one side must eventually lose. This is known as an "Arms Race". When multiple states are involved then alliances can be made to solve the problem. A state should ally itself with enough nations to achieve parity with any opposing alliance. What emerges in this instance is known as a "Balance of Power". The theory is with parity in militairy strength the sides will be unwilling to war due to the extremely high risk. There are many criticisms of this argument, go ahead and post some in comments :-).

In International Politics the dominant school of thought for the last few hundred years has come to be known as "Realism". Those who do not believe its theories hold true it should be noted believe its ideas to be far from "Realistic". Realism is built upon the understanding that the international system is one of "Anarchy". This means there are no rules, no boss and it's effectively every state for itself. Realists argue that depressing as this may sound it is self-evident. There is no World Government which could punish those that act in their own interest at the expense of others, so therefore states will act selfishly. Infact to an extent it is the best thing a statesman can do to act selfishly for the interests of his own state too a certain degree. This is because no other state is going to protect his peoples interests, and this means that the statesmen has to. A good explanation of this idea comes from the "Stag Hunt":

The Stag Hunt:
Several hunters leave their village to find some game to take back to their families. They are looking for a Stag, which would be large enough to feed all their families. After an hour or so without success one of the hunters spots a rabbit, this will be enough for him and his family, therefore what should he do? He will certainly get the rabbit but this reduces the chance of the other hunters catching the stag. If he doesn't go for the rabbit one of the other hunters might see it and then his chance of eating is reduced. So he chases the Rabbit.

You can see what realists are arguing here. The hunter is looking after his own and himself, which to an extent is noble. Applied internationally it would mean that every states leader must act for the interest of his own people first and foremost, and for the population of other states as a secondary concern.

Well this is a sample of the kind of thing I will talk about, if anyone would like to post comments or opinions on the Stag Hunt analogy please do, it should be noted the contents of this are largely inspired by lectures and readings I heard/read in my first year.

Alright then. My name is Tom and I'm Matt's friend (I think). He asked if anyone was interested in posting like he does in insidereality.net and I said yes. First of all the focus of what I post will be almost exlusively Political, mostly International Politics as that is the degree I am working towards. Though I will try and be impartial it should be remembered that if you disagree you are welcome to post why, but not to flame. Infact I will welcome comments and any questions or ideas for topics you may wish to send me. I believe debate is a thouroughy healthy occupation, and it will be encouraged. I will post something "Interesting" as in a sample of what can be expected in a little while, I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully learning!

Some rules:
Refraim from "flaming" (personal attacks against posters)
No Spamming or wholly offtopic posts.

I have admin powers and friends with superior admin powers, so just dont :P.