1. Myths of Empire Domestic Politics and International Ambition by Jack Snyder Michael Walter 2015/04/15 Designing Social Inquiry

2. Research Question Why has overexpansion been so common among the great powers, and also why some states have been particularly inclined toward extreme overexpansion?

3. Independent Variable (IV): «State`s security can be safeguarded only through expansion.» Dependent Variable (DV): Leading to «Counterproductive agressive policies»

4. 3 Rationales for Expansion 1. The Domino Theory: Cummulative Territorial Gains and Losses Expansion as tool to add to state`s strength and ability for self-defense – Main Reason: AUTARKY – lacking self-suffiency for resources needed for war -> higher security. 2. Offensive Advantage: «Best defense is a good offense – Cheaper defense of empire, Advantage of first strike potential. 3. Paper Tigers and Bandwagon: Faith in Threats Threatening behaviour is expected to create allies (bandwagon effect) and initmidate opponents.

5. 3 Theories of overexpansion 1)Realist Theory: Competiton among states, anarchy – War at any time 2)Cognitive explanations: process of information under uncertainty. Reliance on only available date and applying theories and rules of thumb -> Can lead to shortcuts -> decisions probably towards a certain direction. 3)Domestic Explanations: patterns of behavior in politics and policy outcomes (e.g. interest groups influencing decision making process)

6. Case Selection Germany – Pre first WWI, WWI, WWII Japan – Meiji Restoration - WWII Britain – 19th century Soviet Union – 1947 - Gorbachev United States – Cold War  Selection Bias – only supporting cases for his hypotheses and theories

7. Conclusion  Good observations and theories applied to explain certain behaviors and pattern of these states  Only 5 supporting cases – one dimensional approach – higher variation!  No first-hand data – reliance on historical data alone  Limiting scope of research through adjusting title (adding the period)