International Relations and the State System Review

A comprehensive set of 100 vocabulary flashcards defining key themes, historical events, and theoretical perspectives from the study of International Relations.

IR

The academic study of international relations, focusing on the nature and consequences of interactions between separate territorial political communities.

Independent States

Separate territorial political communities that form a global system and affect the lives of virtually every person on Earth.

State Sovereignty

A state's characteristic of being politically independent of all other states and possessing supreme authority over its territory.

State System

The relations between politically organized human groups that occupy distinctive territories and are not under any higher authority or power.

Five Basic Values of a State System

The fundamental social goals states are expected to uphold: security, freedom, order, justice, and welfare.

Security

A social value involving the protection of citizens from internal and external threats, which is a primary concern of states.

Freedom

A core value that includes both the personal liberty of individuals and the national independence of the state.

Order

A value states uphold by maintaining international law and facilitating stable, predictable interactions through diplomacy.

Justice

The value associated with upholding human rights and adhering to legal and moral standards within the international community.

Welfare

The socioeconomic well-being of a population, which the state supports through economic policies and managing international interdependence.

Realism

A traditional IR approach that focuses on power politics, military competition, and the conflictual nature of armed states.

Liberalism

An IR perspective that assumes states can cooperate to maintain peace, foster freedom, and pursue progressive global change.

International Society Theory

An approach suggesting states are socially responsible actors with a common interest in preserving global order and promoting justice.

IPE (International Political Economy)

An IR approach that views international relations as a socioeconomic world focusing on wealth, poverty, and economic equality.

Security Dilemma

The paradox where states provide security for their own citizens but also act as a source of threat to other people and nations.

Medieval Authority

A historical arrangement of political life characterized by dispersed and overlapping religious and political powers rather than centralized sovereignty.

Modern State Authority

A centralized political arrangement where power is concentrated in one supreme government ruling over a specific territory.

Hegemony

The exercise of power and control by a leading state over other states in the international system.

Balance of Power

A doctrine and arrangement designed to check the power of one state through the countervailing military power of other states.

Antarctica

The only large territory on Earth that is not a state and is instead administered by a consortium of sovereign states.

Internal Sovereignty

The dimension of statehood where the national government acts as the highest governing authority within a country.

External Aspect of the State

The dimension of statehood where a country is recognized as politically independent by other members of the international system.

Juridical Statehood

The status of a state as a formal legal institution in its relations with other states, requiring international recognition.

Empirical Statehood

The extent to which a state has developed solid political institutions, an economic base, and national unity.

Quasi-states

States that possess juridical statehood and recognition but are severely deficient in the empirical qualities of effective governance.

Great Powers

A small number of dominant nations, such as the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France, that exert significant global influence.

Strong States

Countries with a high level of empirical statehood, effectiveness, and legitimacy, regardless of their military status.

Weak States

Countries with a low degree of empirical statehood, characterized by poor institutions, frail economies, and lack of national unity.

Strong Power

A state that possesses substantial military strength and international political influence.

Weak Power

A state that lacks significant military strength and exerts little influence on the global stage.

Hellas

The ancient Greek system consisting of numerous small city-states that formed the first recorded state system in Western history.

Roman Empire

An ancient political system that controlled Europe and the Mediterranean by subordinating other communities rather than recognizing them as independent.

Christendom

The medieval European world characterized by a dual hierarchy of religious authority under the Pope and political authority under the Emperor.

Byzantine Empire

The Orthodox Christian empire centered in Constantinople that claimed to be the continuation of the Roman Empire.

Thirty Years War (1618-1648)

A massive European conflict involving religious and dynastic stakes that ended with the Peace of Westphalia.

Peace of Westphalia

The 1648 settlement that legitimized a commonwealth of sovereign states and established the foundations of the modern international system.

Stato

The state as a political entity in control of internal affairs and independent externally, a concept that triumphed after the Westphalian settlement.

Habsburg Empire

A major power that attempted to impose hegemony during the Thirty Years War but was blocked by a coalition of rivals.

Concert of Europe

A balance of power arrangement between great powers that maintained stability for most of the period between 1815 and 1914.

Western Imperialism

The historical expansion of European states to control non-European territories and resources through military and economic power.

Global Economy

An international market system that began expanding around 1500 through European maritime trade and colonial expansion.

Settler States

Countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia where European settler populations eventually achieved independent statehood.

Treaty of Paris (1854)

A diplomatic agreement that required the Ottoman Empire to follow the rules of the Western state system.

Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)

A conflict in which Japan defeated a great power, demonstrating its emergence as a modern state and major power.

Self-determination

The political principle that peoples have the right to govern themselves, which drove anti-colonial movements in the twentieth century.

Decolonization

The process by which Western overseas empires were dismantled and replaced by independent states in Asia and Africa.

United Nations (UN)

The primary international organization whose membership dramatically increased as the state system became truly global.

1945

The year marking the end of the Second World War and the start of a major expansion in the global state system.

Economic Interdependence

A condition of intense mutual economic dependence among countries, a key feature of the modern state system.

Globalization

The process of increasing economic, technological, and social interconnectedness across national borders.

Global North

The grouping of developed, wealthy nations at the center of the global political and economic system.

Global South

The collection of underdeveloped or peripheral countries that often have limited influence in the state system.

World System Theory

An IPE perspective focusing on the unequal relations and exploitation between the capitalist center and the underdeveloped periphery.

Reciprocity

The norm of mutual exchange and cooperation that allows states to interact routinely and peacefully.

Diplomacy

The practice of formal communication and negotiation between the governments of independent states.

International Law

The rules, treaties, and customs that states are expected to observe to maintain international order and justice.

National Interest

The fundamental goals and ambitions of a sovereign state, often used as a justification for its actions in the state system.

Territorial World

A way of organizing human life based on distinct land areas under the legal jurisdiction of different independent governments.

Recognition

The process by which existing states acknowledge a new country as an independent sovereign member of the state system.

Ho Chi-minh

The leader who declared the independence of Vietnam in 1945 using principles of self-determination and equality.

OPEC

A cartel of oil-exporting countries that highlighted global economic interdependence through the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Critical IR Theories

Approaches that view the state system as an institution that may foster human suffering or inequality rather than upholding basic values.

Economic Underdevelopment

A condition in many Third World states characterized by poverty and lack of infrastructure, which undermines empirical statehood.

Partition

The division of an existing state into new entities, a process that is often resisted to maintain international stability.

Internal Sovereignty

The authority of a government to rule over its own domestic society and manage its national economy.

League of Nations Covenant

The founding document of the first major twentieth-century organization aimed at preventing great-power war.

Great Depression

A global economic crisis that revealed how market conditions in one country can destroy the livelihoods of people in others.

Appeasement

The policy of making concessions to aggressive powers, famously used by Britain and France with Nazi Germany before WWII.

Cuban Missile Crisis

A 1962 confrontation that brought common awareness to the catastrophic dangers of nuclear warfare.

2001 Attacks

Terrorist events that awakened the world to the heightened dangers of international terrorism in the twenty-first century.

City-state

A small political community based around a city, such as those found in ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy.

Feudalism

A medieval way of organizing life based on local ties of protection and labor rather than centralized state power.

Hegemon

A dominant state that attempts to use its power to bend weaker states to its will and establish an empire.

Human Rights framework

The set of international laws concerning civil, political, and economic rights developed after the Second World War.

Standard of Living

The level of welfare and wealth of a population that states are expected to defend against international economic shifts.

1648

The year associated with the Peace of Westphalia, often cited as the birth year of the modern international system.

350 Years

The approximate duration that the modern state system has existed and adapted to historical changes.

Inequality of Nations

The realist concept that nations are inherently unequal in power, which determines their status in the state system.

Center vs Periphery

A distinction in IPE describing the relationship between developed capitalist states and weak underdeveloped states.

Universal Academic Subject

The status of IR today as it concerns a global institution that affects people in every culture and region.

National Unity

The degree of popular support and social cohesion within a state, a key element of empirical statehood.

1990-1

The years of the Gulf War, which served as a reminder of the importance of international order.

Treaty Commitments

Obligations that states are expected to meet as part of the international legal order.

Monopoly of Warfare

The concentration of military power under the control of the state government, characteristic of the modern era.

Protestant Reformation

A sixteenth-century religious transformation that deeply divided the European population and fueled many early wars.

National Freedom

The condition of independence for a country, which is often considered a prerequisite for personal freedom.

International Stability

The condition of certainty and predictability in relations between states that is supported by international law.

Economic Policies

Government actions designed to deal with international markets, trade, and exchange rates to preserve national wealth.

Technological Innovation

A factor that continuously reshapes international relations through developments in military, transport, and communications tech.

Anti-colonialism

A movement and ideology that undermined Western overseas empires by challenging the moral justification of colonialism.

Modernity

The era characterized by expanding power, science, and technology that coincides with the rise of the sovereign state.

Sovereign Statehood

The central historical institution of world politics, though its future and permanence are subjects of debate.

Dispersed Authority

The medieval characteristic where power was shared among popes, emperors, kings, and local rulers.

Political Communities

Groups of people organized politically that occupy separate territories and seek ways to coexist.

National Self-determination

The principle that each nationality should have its own sovereign state, which expanded the number of states in the twentieth century.

Functional Issues

Common global problems, like drug trafficking or pollution, that require state collaboration to solve.

Strategic Contribution

The liberal idea that the routine cooperation of states leads to international freedom and progress.

Juridical Equality

The formal legal equality of all recognized states in the state system, despite their actual economic or military power differences.

Regional State System

A set of independent states within a specific geographic area, such as those that emerged in Africa after decolonization.

States as War Machines

A realist description of states as entities that remain heavily armed and ready for military rivalry.