Questions: National Interest and State Power

Question 1

A trade agreement would increase State A's GDP by 8% and State B's GDP by 15%. A realist analyst would predict State A might refuse this deal. What is the realist reasoning?

• A. State A's economy is too underdeveloped to benefit from trade agreements
• B. Realists believe states refuse any deal where gains are not exactly equal
• C. Even though both gain in absolute terms, B's larger relative gain translates into greater future military and economic capacity, weakening A's relative position
• D. Realists predict that states always maximize their own absolute economic output and would accept any gain

Answer: (C)

This is the relative gains problem at the heart of realist IR theory. In an anarchic system, today's economic partner may be tomorrow's military threat — and the size of the power gap determines who can coerce whom. If B gains 15% and A gains 8%, B becomes relatively more powerful even though both gained absolutely. State A may rationally refuse a deal that widens this gap, even sacrificing absolute gains for relative security. This is why international institutions that reduce the salience of relative gains — through transparency, binding commitments, or iteration — can facilitate cooperation that pure power politics would otherwise block.

Question 2

What is the key disagreement between offensive realism (Mearsheimer) and defensive realism about what states want?

• A. Offensive realists focus on economic power; defensive realists focus exclusively on military capability
• B. Offensive realists think states are rational; defensive realists think leader psychology drives state behavior
• C. Offensive realists argue states perpetually seek hegemony because only maximum power guarantees security; defensive realists argue states seek just enough power to be secure, and expansion beyond that point typically backfires
• D. Offensive realism applies to nuclear powers; defensive realism applies to conventional-weapons states

Answer: (C)

The offense-defense debate has real empirical stakes because the two views generate different predictions about state behavior. Mearsheimer's offensive realism holds that states are never satisfied — they rationally seek to maximize relative power because hegemony is the only reliable guarantee of security in an anarchic world. Defensive realism argues that most states are security-seekers rather than power-maximizers: they want enough capability to deter threats, but aggressive expansion typically triggers balancing coalitions that leave the expanding state worse off. Offensive realism predicts more aggressive great-power behavior; defensive realism predicts more restraint and accommodation.

Question 3

The national interest of a state is determined solely by its structural position in the international system — two states in identical structural positions will define their interests identically.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the key empirical critique of purely structural realism. Domestic political processes, elite ideology, historical analogies, and bureaucratic pressures all shape how leaders interpret threats and construct national interest. The 1930s United States and Germany faced similar post-Depression structural conditions but pursued radically different foreign policies. If structural position fully determined national interest, we would expect more behavioral convergence across states with similar capabilities than we actually observe. Explaining this variance requires attending to domestic politics and ideology — which is why IR theory has increasingly supplemented structural realism with domestic-level factors.

Question 4

A state may refuse to participate in a trade agreement that provides it with absolute economic gains if the agreement offers even larger gains to a rival.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is the relative gains problem and is one of the central claims of realist international political economy. In an anarchic system, states care about their position relative to potential adversaries — not just their absolute welfare — because relative position determines future military and economic capacity. A deal where A gains 10% and B gains 20% leaves A relatively weaker than before, even though A is better off in absolute terms. This explains why cooperation can fail even when it is mutually beneficial in absolute terms, and is one of the core puzzles that liberal institutionalism and constructivism attempt to explain away.

Question 5

Why do realists argue that states sometimes reject mutually beneficial cooperation, and what does this reveal about how realists understand the national interest?

Model answer: Realists argue states care about relative gains — changes in their position relative to rivals — not just absolute improvements in their own welfare. In an anarchic system where no global authority can prevent states from using accumulated power against each other, today's cooperative partner might be tomorrow's military threat. A partner that gains more from cooperation becomes relatively stronger — a potential future coercer. So states may refuse deals where the distributional outcome widens the power gap, even when both would gain absolutely. This reveals that the national interest, in the realist view, is defined by security and relative standing rather than maximum wealth, and that zero-sum positional logic can override positive-sum economic opportunities when survival depends on relative capability.

This reasoning also explains why international institutions can sometimes unlock cooperation that pure power politics would block: by making relative gains transparent and manageable (through ongoing iteration, side payments, or monitoring), institutions can reduce the relative gains problem enough that states will engage cooperatively. The realist prediction is not that cooperation never happens, but that it faces a structural obstacle whenever the distributional terms of the deal are asymmetric — which is most of the time.