Chapter 2 - International Relations

Empires

Political entities that contain a substantial geographical space, often many different peoples, and over which a powerful ruler governs.

Dynastic states

States ruled by 'imperial dynasties' or 'dynastic families,' in which members of a given extended family, over a number of generations, maintain power.

Feudalism

A system in which individuals receive land in exchange for swearing loyalty to specific leaders.

Balance of Power

Process by which a state or coalition of states increase their capabilities to prevent the dominance of an opposing state or group of states.

Peace of Westphalia

Treaties that ended the Thirty Years War and divided Europe into sovereign states independent of higher authorities.

Westphalian State System

The modern state system in which each state is sovereign, with no higher authority (such as a church or empire).

Concert of Europe

An agreement among the great powers to maintain order collectively within Europe.

Mercantilism

The idea that military power rests on financial wealth, and the financial wealth of the world is a fixed quantity.

Colonies

Areas and people conquered and exploited by a colonizer that exercises political and economic control..

Rum Triangle

A transatlantic trading triangle active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas.

Meiji Restoration

An important period in Japanese history during which it strengthened itself militarily and technologically relative to the West.

Triple Alliance

A military alliance finalized in 1882 between Germany, Austria-Hungary.

Triple Entente

A military alliance finalized in 1907 between France, Britain, and Russia.

Schlieffen Plan

A German military plan believed by the Germans to result in a quick victory.

League of Nations

An international body established by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I.

Weimar Republic

Republic formed by democratically elected German delegates in the aftermath of World War I .

Locarno Accords

An agreement that sought to stabilize Germany's relations with its neighbors.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

A 1928 international pact outlawing war.

Great Depression

An international economic disaster precipitated by the 1929 crash of the US stock market.

Beggar-thy-neighbor policies

Policies designed to shift the negative consequences of a global economic downturn onto a state's neighbors.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

A 1930 US law that raised tariffs to high levels to protect the US economy.

Rhineland Crisis

In March 1936, in clear violation of the Versailles settlement, Hitler ordered troops to reoccupy the Rhineland.

Appeasement

An effort by one state to reduce conflict with another by accommodating the demands of the latter.

Munich analogy

A critical reference to the 1938 transfer of a part of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany by Western European democratic leaders.

Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

A pact signed between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in 1939 in which the two countries agreed not to attack each other and to jointly attack Poland, dividing the country between them.

Battle of Stalingrad

A battle between September 1942 and February 1943 in which Soviet forces destroyed a massive German army. It was a major turning point of World War II's European theater.

Cold War

Period from the mid-1940s to the late 1980s of high tension between the United States and Soviet Union.

United Nations (UN)

A critical international organization, that today includes virtually all countries, founded in 1945.

Self-determination

The idea that every people should determine and manage their own political systems.

Isolationism

The historical practice by the United States of avoiding alliances and engaging only sporadically in European balance-of-power politics and the management of global affairs.

Containment

A strategy by which one state tries to check efforts by an adversary state to extend its global sphere of influence.

Truman Doctrine

The declaration by its namesake US President that US assistance would be given to 'free peoples everywhere facing external aggression or internal subversion.'

Marshall Plan

A US plan to counteract Soviet influence in Europe by providing economic aid to help European nations rebuild after World War II.

Sphere of Influence

A set of geographically proximate countries whose policies and institutions are greatly influenced by an external power.

Bipolarity

An international competition between two especially powerful states.

Warsaw Pact

An alliance between the Soviet Union and several mid-level powers in Europe that formed a Soviet sphere of influence.

Third World

A designation, no longer relevant today, given to developing countries over which the United States and Soviet Union competed

Proxy Wars

Military conflicts in which states avoid directly engaging each other, but instead back opposing sides of smaller conflicts to gain influence.

Détente

In general, a relaxation of tensions between states; specifically, a phase of the Cold War in which economic interdependence began to develop between East and West.

Decolonization

The process by which imperial powers relinquished their overseas holdings leading to new independent nation-states.

Nationalism

A term that describes an intense political identity a people share, or a sense of collective fate as a political community.

Non-Aligned Movement

A movement founded in 1955 to create a pathway by which member states could remain apart from the confrontations of the Cold War. It now includes over 100 countries, representing over one-half of the world's population.

Unipolarity

An international system containing one dominant power relative to all others.

Populism

A political idea or movement that proposes to support the interests of common people rather than those of a privileged elite.

Caliphate

A state governed in accordance with Islamic law.

Collective Action Problems

Problems that require international cooperation yet nevertheless may be difficult to solve