International Relations Midterm Review Terms

Comprehensive vocabulary review flashcards covering all 50 essential terms and concepts for the International Relations midterm examination.

Anarchy

In IR Theory, a term that implies not complete chaos but the lack of a central government that can enforce rules (Ex: the current international system).

Sovereignty

A state's right, at least in principle, to do whatever it wants within its own territory (Ex: China says its treatment of the Uyghurs is no one else's business).

Security Dilemma

A situation in which actions that states take to increase their own security are perceived as threats by other states (Ex: State A builds nukes, making State B less secure).

Multipolar System

An international system that typically has five or six centers of power that are not grouped into alliances (Ex: Pre-WWII Europe).

Bipolar System

An international system with two main centers of power (Ex: Cold-War World).

Hegemony (a.k.a. Unipolarity)

The holding by one state of a preponderance of power in the international system (Ex: The US in the 1990s - maybe earlier in terms of economic power).

Hegemonic Stability Theory

The argument that regimes are most effective when power in the international system is most concentrated (Ex: Pax Americana in the 1990s - or Britannica, Islamica, Mongolica, Romana, Sinica).

Balancing

Forming a coalition to counterbalance against a particularly strong state (Ex: States coming together to oppose Germany before WWII).

Bandwagoning

"Jumping on the bandwagon" by allying with a particularly strong state (Ex: States allying with the US in the 1990s).

Non-Aligned Movement

A movement of developing countries that attempted to stand apart from the US-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War (itself a specific example of "hedging").

Game Theory

A branch of mathematics concerned with predicting bargaining outcomes without trying to make imprecise, inelegant measurements of things like power (Ex: Prisoner's Dilemma Models of IR).

Deterrence

The threat to punish another actor if it takes a certain negative action (Ex: "If you close the Strait of Hormuz, we will attack.").

Compellence

The threat of force to make another state take some action viewed as positive, or "undo" a previous negative act (Ex: "unless you reopen the Strait of Hormuz, we will attack.").

Rational Actors

Actors conceived of as single entities that can "think" about their actions, coherently make choices, and identify and rank their interests (Ex: A candy-maximizing player that always defects in Prisoner's Dilemma Games).

Interdependence

A political and economic situation in which states are mutually dependent on each other for products (Ex: US and Canada as of 2026).

Democratic Peace

The proposition that democracies almost never fight wars against each other, although they do fight against authoritarian states.

Optimizing

Picking the very best option or making the best or most effective use of a resource (Ex: Playing a prisoner's dilemma classroom game as if winning some fun size candy was the world's most important thing).

Satisficing

The act of finding a satisfactory or good enough solution to a problem (Ex: Losing interest in a candy game after you've won all the candy you want; devoting no more than 1 hour to a foreign policy problem given more pressing concerns).

Groupthink

The practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility (Ex: Shutting up about your opposition to a war because everyone else in the room seems to want war).

Interest Groups

Coalitions of people who share a common interest in the outcome of some political issue and who organize themselves to try to influence the outcome (Ex: AIPAC with regard to US aid to Israel).

Rally Round the Flag Effect

The public's increased support for government leaders during wartime, at least in the short term (Ex: The US public was initially extremely supportive of our 2001 war against Afghanistan).

Diversionary Foreign Policy

Foreign policies adopted to distract the public from domestic political problems (Ex: Argentine leaders past and perhaps present responding to declining approval ratings by threatening military action in regard to the Falklands/Malvinas Islands).

Difference Feminism

A strand of feminism that believes gender roles are not just socially constructed (Ex: Arguing, like Jacinda Ardern, that male leaders should learn from women an "ethics of care").

Liberal Feminism

A strand of feminism that emphasizes gender equality and views differences in men's and women's abilities as trivial (Ex: Women who, like those in the Syrian Democratic Forces, take up arms to fight the patriarchs they see as oppressing them).

Subtext

Meanings that are implicit or hidden in a text rather than explicitly addressed (Ex: Seeing realist objections to "weakness" or liberal objections to "tyranny" as male-gendered).

Hegemonic War (a.k.a. World War)

War for control of the entire world order (Ex: WWII).

Total War

Warfare by one state waged to conquer and occupy another (Ex: Iraq vs. Kuwait in 1990).

Limited War

Military actions short of the surrender and occupation of the territory (Ex: The US reversing Iraq's gains in Kuwait but not occupying Iraq in 1991).

Civil War

A war between factions within a state (Ex: The US Civil War).

Guerrilla War

Warfare without front lines and with irregular forces (Ex: The Colombian Civil War; related terms include insurgency, counterinsurgency, paramilitaries, pro-government militias).

Genocide

An intentional and systematic attempt to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group (Ex: Nazi Genocide of Jews). Note that the formal legal definition distinguishes ethnicity from religion and race.

Self-Determination

The principle that people who identify as a nation should have the right to form a state (Ex: Israelis, Palestinians and Kurds have all made self-determination arguments, with varying degrees of success).

Irredentism

A form of nationalism whose goal is to regain territory lost to another state (Ex: Russia invades Crimea to reverse Khrushchev's 1954 transfer of the peninsula from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic).

Operationalization

The practice of turning abstract concepts into measurable variables (e.g., measuring how "rich" a country is with purchasing-power adjusted GDP per capita).

Drunkard's Search Problem

The problem of only being able to study a problem "where the light is" (e.g., wanting to get 2019 data on freedom but only having 2025 data).

Independent Variable

A variable that might potentially "cause" something else (e.g., the gender of national leaders might potentially "cause" certain IR outcomes).

Dependent Variable

A variable that seems to be an "effect" of something else (e.g., the IR outcomes in a hypothesized relationship between leader gender and IR outcomes).

Probabilistic Relationship

A causal relationship that falls short of necessity and sufficiency (e.g., despite many exceptions, smoking is strongly associated with lung cancer).

Chicken-Egg Problem

A situation where we don't know which variable is a cause and which is an effect (e.g., does poverty cause war or does war cause poverty?).

Selection on the Dependent Variable

Making inferences based only on positive outcomes of a given phenomenon (e.g., looking only at wars to ask "what causes war" without asking whether similar causes were present during times of peace).

Infantry

Foot soldiers who use assault rifles and other light weapons (Ex: The US Army 1st Infantry Division and the VA National Guard 116th Infantry Regiment stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day).

Armor

Tanks and other armored vehicles, with much debate about their potentially reduced utility in the era of drones (Ex: Russian tanks stopped in their tracks attacking Ukraine).

Counterinsurgency

An effort to combat guerrilla armies (Ex: The US and Iraqi government combined in fighting a counterinsurgency war in Iraq from 2003-2011, with mixed success).

Power Projection

The ability to use force in areas far from a country's region or sphere of influence (Ex: The US's large fleet of aircraft carriers helps it to project power globally).

Human Intelligence (HUMINT)

Traditional intelligence collection, analysis and operations by human "spies" (Ex: CIA stuff like Operation Ajax).

Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)

Digital intelligence collection, analysis and operations (Ex: NSA stuff like Stuxnet).

Ballistic Missile

A "rocket-style" delivery system for nuclear and other weapons (Ex: submarine-launched ballistic missiles).

Cruise Missile

An "airplane-style" delivery system for weapons of increasing popularity given the rise of anti-ballistic missile systems (Ex: Russia and China developing "hypersonic" cruise missiles traveling over $5 \times$ faster than the speed of sound).

Proliferation

The spread of weapons of mass destruction (especially nuclear weapons) into the hands of more actors (Ex: North Korea didn't used to have nukes until it withdrew from the NPT in 2003).

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

The possession of second-strike nuclear capabilities, which assures that neither of two adversaries can prevent the other from destroying it in an all-out war (Ex: Any nation attacking France facing MAD due to France's nuclear-armed submarines).