Short view on WW1 till arab spring

U.S. isolationism between the world wars, along with declining British power and a Russia crippled by its own revolution, left a power vacuum in world politics.

In the 1930s, Germany and Japan stepped into that vacuum, embarking on aggressive expansionism that ultimately led to World War II. As security dilemma, realism entails,

 In 1931, Japan occupied Manchuria (northeast China) and set up a puppet regime there. In 1937, Japan invaded the rest of China and began a brutal occupation that continues to haunt Chinese-Japanese relations.

Meanwhile, in Europe in the 1930s, Nazi Germany under Hitler had rearmed, intervened to help fascists win the Spanish Civil War, and grabbed territory from its neighbour under the rationale of reuniting ethnic Germans in those territories with their homeland. Hitler was emboldened by the weak response of the international community and the League of Nations to aggression by fascist regimes in Italy and Spain. In an effort to appease German ambitions, Britain and France agreed in the Munich Agreement of 1938 to let Germany occupy part of Czechoslovakia (known as the Sudetenland). Appeasement has since had a negative connotation in IR, because the Munich Agreement seemed only to encourage Hitler’s further conquests.  Which led to Poland..

While the war in Europe was raging, Japan fought a war over control of Southeast Asia with the United States and its allies. Japan’s expansionism in the 1930s had only under- scored the dependence on foreign resources that the expansionism was intended to solve: the United States punished Japan by cutting off U.S. oil exports. Japan then destroyed much of the U.S. Navy in a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) in 1941 and seized desired territories (including Indonesia, whose oil replaced that of the United States) 

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Levels of Analysis

As there are many actors involved in IR, which contribute to the complexity of theories. One way scholars have sorted out multiplicity of influences, actors and processes is to categorise them into different levels of analysis 

1) The individual level of analysis concerns the perceptions, choices, and actions of individual human beings. Great leaders influence the course of history, as do individual citizens, thinkers, soldiers, and voters. Without Lenin, it is said, there might well have been no Soviet Union.  

2) The domestic (or state or societal) level of analysis concerns the aggregations of individuals within states that influence state actions in the international arena. Such aggregations include interest groups, political organisations, and government agencies. These groups operate differently (with different international effects) in different kinds of societies and states. For instance, democracies and dictatorships may act differently from one another, and democracies may act differently in an election years The politics of ethnic conflict and nationalism, bubbling up from within states, plays an increasingly important role in the relations among states. Within governments, foreign policy agencies often fight bureaucratic battles over policy decisions. 

3) The interstate (or international or systemic) level of analysis concerns the influence of the international system upon outcomes. This level of analysis therefore focuses on the interactions of states themselves, without regard to their internal makeup or the particular individuals who lead them. This level pays attention to states’ relative power positions in the international system and the interactions (trade, for example) among them. It has been traditionally the most important of the levels of analysis. Neo realist heavily focus on this 

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Can be added a fourth, the global level of analysis, which seeks to explain international outcomes in terms of global trends and forces that transcend the interactions of states themselves. The evolution of human technology, of certain world- wide beliefs, and of humans’ relationship to the natural environment are all processes at

the global level that reach down to influence international relations. The global level is also increasingly the focus of IR scholars studying transnational integration through worldwide scientific, technical, and business communities 

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT? 

Levels of analysis offer different sorts of explanations for international events. For example, many possible explanations exist for the 2003 U.S.-led war against Iraq. At the individual level, the war could be attributed to Saddam Hussein’s gamble that he could defeat the forces arrayed against him, or to President Bush’s desire to remove a leader he personally deemed threatening. At the domestic level, the war could be attributed to the rise of the powerful neoconservative faction that convinced the Bush administration and Americans that Saddam was a threat to U.S. security in a post–September 11 world. At the interstate level, the war might be attributed to the predominance of U.S. power. With no state willing to back Iraq militarily, the United States (as the largest global military power) was free to attack Iraq without fear of a large-scale military response. Finally, at the global level, the war might be attributable to a global fear of terrorism, or even a clash between Islam and the West. 

levels of analysis help suggest multiple explanations and approaches to consider in explaining an event. They remind scholars and students to look beyond the immediate and superficial aspects  

What is a state actor

The main actor in IR are world's government.

Whilst the International stage is crowded with actors large and small that are intimately interwoven with the decisions of governments.  Such as terrorist groups, multinational corporations and others, the most important actors in IR are states.

A state is a territorial entity controlled by a government and inhabited by a population.  State government answers to no higher authority; it exercises sovereignty over its territory - to make and enforce laws

The population inhabiting a state forms a civil society to the extent that it has developed institutions to participate in political or social life. All or part of the population that shares a group identity may consider itself a nation 

The state actor includes the individual leader as well as bureaucratic organisation such as foreign ministries that act in the name of the state. 

Conflict usually arises due to the mismatch between perceived nations and actual state borders. When people identify with a nationality that their state government does not represent, they may fight to form their own state and thus gain sovereignty over their territory and affairs. 

NON STATE ACTORS

National governments may be the most important actors in IR, but they are strongly influenced by a variety of non-state actors. These actors are also called transnational actors when they operate across international border 



Can be an IGO or NGO

First, states often take actions through, within, or in the context of intergovernmental organisations (IGOs)—organisations whose members are national governments. IGOs do a variety of functions such as NATO

Another type of transnational actor, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), are private organisation, some of considerable size and resources 

There are also Multinational companies

MNCs  provide poor states with much-needed foreign investment and tax revenues. MNCs in turn depend on states to provide protection, well-regulated markets, and a stable political environment. 

Some non state actors are substate actors: they exist within one country but either influence that country’s foreign policy or operate internationally, or both. For instance, the state of Ohio is entirely a U.S. entity but operates an International Trade Division to promote exports and foreign investment, with offices in Belgium, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, India, Australia, and Mexico- Detracting from the argument that states run international affairs solely