International Relations: Theories, Institutions, Bargaining, and Conflict

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering theoretical paradigms, bargaining models, international institutions, security alliances, and conflict types in International Relations.

Interests

What actors want to achieve through political action, represented as their ranked preferences among the possible outcomes resulting from their choices.

Interactions

The way in which the choices of two or more actors combine to produce political outcomes.

Institutions

Sets of formal or informal rules that structure and prescribe the way actors should cooperate and compete.

Realism

An international relations theory asserting that states are the dominant actors seeking power and security under an anarchic system, where outcomes are ultimately decided by relative material power.

Liberalism

An international relations theory starting from individuals and societal groups, asserting that states aggregate diverse interests and that international institutions facilitate cooperation amid interdependence.

Constructivism

An international relations theory holding that actor interests and behaviors are socially constructed by culture, identity, prevailing ideas, and norms of appropriate behavior rather than material self-interest alone.

Security Dilemma

A condition in which a state's efforts to increase its own security inadvertently threaten the security of other states.

Balance of Power

A distribution of power sufficient to prevent any single state or entity from dominating others in the international system.

Anarchy

The fundamental condition of the international system denoting the absence of a central government above sovereign states, compelling states to rely on self-help for survival.

Mercantilist Era

A period from the 16th to 18th centuries marked by economic nationalism, positive trade balances, and the use of military power to enrich imperial states through colonial control.

The Peace of Westphalia (1648)

A 1648 European settlement that stabilized borders, resolved religious conflicts, and established the modern state system principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and legal equality among states.

Sovereignty

The legal and political supremacy of a state within its recognized territory and borders.

Hegemony

The predominance and dominance of one state over others in the distribution of power within the international system.

Cooperation

An interaction in which two or more actors adopt policies that make at least one actor better off relative to the status quo without making others worse off.

Credible Commitment

The act of deliberately relinquishing options, eliminating choice, or surrendering control over future behavior in order to influence another actor's choices.

Coercion

A strategy of imposing or threatening to impose costs on other actors in order to induce a change in their behavior.

Reversion Outcome

The outcome that occurs when no bargain is achieved during negotiations, representing the next best alternative for a party holding an outside option.

Agenda Setting

Actions taken before or during bargaining that make the reversion outcome more favorable for one party, creating leverage by altering the choices available to others.

International Governmental Organization (IGO)

An association of two or more states established with a concrete organizational structure and an administrative apparatus, typically created by a treaty or charter.

Public Goods

Products or resources that are nonexcludable and nonrival in consumption, meaning non-contributors cannot be excluded and one person's consumption does not diminish availability for others.

Collective Action Problems

Obstacles to cooperation that arise when actors have incentives to collaborate, but each individual actor expects others to pay the costs of providing the common good.

Free Riding

The failure to contribute to the provision or maintenance of a public good while continuing to benefit from the contributions of others.

Crisis Bargaining

An interaction in which at least one party has threatened the use of force if demands are unmet, also known as coercive diplomacy.

Compellence

A variety of coercive bargaining where an actor uses the threat of force to get an adversary to do something in order to change the status quo.

Deterrence

A variety of coercive bargaining where an actor threatens unacceptable costs to prevent an adversary from taking an action, thereby preserving the status quo.

Brinkmanship

A strategy of demonstrating resolve in bargaining by deliberately taking actions that increase the shared risk of war.

Article 5 (NATO Charter)

The core collective defense provision of the North Atlantic Treaty committing all allies to respond militarily if any member state is attacked.

Functionalism

The integration theory proposing that successful, intense cooperation in one functional area creates spillover demands for cooperation in adjacent policy areas.

Supranationalism

A structure of governance where authority transcends national governments, with institutions run by appointed officials representing the common union rather than member states.

Intergovernmentalism

A decision-making structure in an international entity where ultimate power remains strictly with individual member state governments.

Direct Effect

A legal principle established by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) establishing that EU law applies immediately in member states.

Primacy

A legal principle established by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) holding that EU law prevails over conflicting national laws of member states.

Peacekeeping

A collective security operation deployed with the consent of warring parties to monitor compliance with an existing peace agreement and overcome commitment problems.

Peace Enforcement

A collective security operation authorized under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that does not require warring parties' consent or a prior agreement, using force against aggressors.

Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

A UN norm declaring that state sovereignty entails a duty to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, which shifts to the international community if the state fails.

Civil War

An armed conflict occurring between organized actors within a state that meets an established minimum threshold for severity.

Terrorism

Indiscriminate violence or threats of violence against noncombatant targets executed by individuals or non-state groups to achieve political ends.

Insurgency

A civil war strategy in which small units of lightly armed rebels target government, civilian, or military sites in hit-and-run attacks without seeking to capture and hold territory.

Rally Around the Flag Effect

A temporary surge in broad domestic public approval and nationalistic support for a political leader during times of international crisis or war.