CURRENT EVENTS QUIZ 1

International Relations (IR)

Study of how states and other global actors interact. Example: U.S.–China relations involve trade, Taiwan, military power, and international organizations.

Power

Ability to influence another actor’s behavior. Example: The U.S. and EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine to pressure Russia economically.

Conflict

When actors pursue incompatible interests. Example: India and Pakistan have both claimed Kashmir, producing repeated disputes and military conflicts.

Cooperation

When actors work together toward shared goals. Example: Nearly every country adopted the 2015 Paris Agreement to cooperate on climate change.

Collective Goods

Benefits shared by a group, even by actors who do not contribute. Example: A stable global climate benefits countries regardless of how much each country reduces its emissions.

Dominance

A powerful actor provides or enforces a collective good. Example: The U.S. Navy helps protect major international shipping routes, benefiting global trade.

Reciprocity

Actors cooperate with those who cooperate and respond against those who do not. Example: During U.S.–China trade negotiations, each country has responded to the other's tariffs with tariffs of its own.

Identity

Actors cooperate because they see themselves as part of a shared group. Example: EU members cooperate partly through a shared European identity and commitment to common institutions.

State

A political entity with a defined territory, population, government, and sovereignty. Example: France has recognized borders, a population, a government, and sovereign authority.

Anarchy

There is no central authority or world government above sovereign states. Example: The UN cannot simply order Russia, the U.S., or China to obey it like a national government can order its citizens to follow domestic law.

Sovereignty

A state has supreme authority over its territory and political affairs. Example: Japan has authority to create and enforce laws within Japanese territory.

Internal Sovereignty

A government's authority and control within its own borders. Example: The French government, rather than another country or the UN, enforces French criminal law inside France.

External Sovereignty

A state's independence from control by other states. Example: After India became independent from Britain in 1947, Britain no longer had sovereign authority over India's government.

Overlapping Authority

Before Westphalia, multiple authorities could claim power over the same people or territory. Example: In the Holy Roman Empire, local princes, the emperor, and the Catholic Church could exercise overlapping forms of authority.

Territorial Sovereignty

Political authority belongs to the state within defined territorial borders. Example: France exercises political authority within its recognized borders rather than claiming authority over all Catholics or French speakers elsewhere.

Non-Interference

States should not interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Example: The UN Charter generally prohibits states from using force against another state's territorial integrity or political independence.

Treaty-Making

Sovereign states can negotiate and enter agreements with one another. Example: The 1648 Peace of Westphalia consisted of treaties negotiated among European political powers to end major conflicts.

Geopolitics

The way geography affects political power and international strategy. Example: Russia's access to the Black Sea makes Crimea strategically important for military and naval power.

Natural Resources

Natural resources can give states economic and strategic power. Example: Russia's large natural-gas supplies have historically given it economic leverage because many European countries depended on Russian energy.

Trade Routes

Routes used to transport goods between regions and states. Example: The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas and allows ships traveling between Europe and Asia to avoid sailing around Africa.

Chokepoints

Narrow strategic routes through which large amounts of trade must pass. Example: The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow passage between Iran and Oman through which a major share of globally traded oil passes.

Pipelines and Cables

Infrastructure that moves energy or information across borders and can create dependence between states. Example: The Nord Stream pipelines carried Russian natural gas directly to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea.

Smith — Division of Labor

Smith believed specialization allows workers to become more efficient and increases productivity. Example: Smith used a pin factory where workers specialized in different steps of pin production to show how division of labor raises output.

Smith — Self-Interest

Smith believed people pursuing their own economic interests can unintentionally benefit society through exchange and competition. Example: A baker sells bread to earn income, but in pursuing that income also provides food that consumers want.

Smith — Invisible Hand

Smith believed market forces can coordinate people's self-interested economic decisions without central direction. Example: Smith famously wrote that we get our dinner not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, brewer, or baker, but from their regard for their own self-interest. They provide good food because they want to earn money, which satisfies our need for food.

Adam Smith — Overall Theory

Smith believed markets based on self-interest, competition, specialization, and relatively limited government interference can increase productivity and prosperity.

Marx — Bourgeoisie

Marx saw the bourgeoisie as the capitalist class that owns the means of production and profits from workers' labor. Example: Wealthy factory owners during the Industrial Revolution owned factories and machinery while employing wage laborers.

Marx — Proletariat

Marx saw the proletariat as the working class that sells its labor because it does not own the means of production. Example: Industrial factory workers in 19th-century Britain worked for wages but did not own the factories or machinery.

Marx — Class Conflict

Marx believed history is driven by conflict between economic classes, especially the bourgeoisie and proletariat under capitalism. Example: 19th-century factory workers organized strikes demanding higher wages and better conditions from factory owners.

Marx — Socialism

Marx saw socialism as a transitional stage after capitalism in which workers gain political control and productive property becomes collectively owned. Example: Marx expected workers to take control of factories and other means of production rather than leaving them in private capitalist ownership.

Marx — Communism

Marx envisioned communism as the eventual classless society in which the means of production are commonly owned and class exploitation disappears. Example: This is Marx's theoretical end goal; no modern state perfectly represents the classless, stateless communist society he envisioned.

Karl Marx — Overall Theory

Marx believed capitalism divides society into competing economic classes, especially the bourgeoisie and proletariat, creating class conflict that would eventually lead toward collective ownership and a classless society.