After reading this chapter students should be able to understand:

• What are the major perspectives and levels of analysis
• How explanations or hypotheses describe causes of international situations using perspectives and levels of analysis
• How causal arrows link factors or variables emphasized by different perspectives and levels of analysis, and how different perspectives and levels of analysis draw causal arrows in different directions
• What factors, variables, and concepts each perspective emphasizes
• How the prisoner’s dilemma works and how it can be modified to stress the factors emphasized by each perspective