International Relations and Global Conflict Vocabulary

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering history, theories, mechanisms of statecraft, causes of war, and 21st-century conflict based on the lecture material.

historical approach

learn from what’s happened before. this is why history is relevant to IR theory

Sovereignty

the AUTHORITY to rule: states have legal and political supremacy, or ultimate authority, within their territorial boundaries.

authority

the right to command and be obeyed. requires legitimacy (constitution treat, body of law, etc)

ultimate authority

no higher power

State Capacity

The ability of a state to use its power to carry out sovereign authority and execute governance functions. Practical ability of a state to execute laws, implement policies, collect revenue, maintain infrastructure, and deliver public services. basically the ability of a state to act like a state.

State Autonomy

The ability of a state to use its power independently of its public and the international community. (degree of independence free from external or internal pressures—like special interest groups)

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The treaties signed in $1648$ that ended the Thirty Years War, recognized state rights of sovereignty over territory, and marked the start of the modern state system.

states are no longer under the overarching control of the pope or the holy roman empire. can start to make their own sovereign decisions

Mercantilism

An economic doctrine based on the belief that military power and economic influence complement each other, favoring monopolies and colonial exploitation.

Doctrine of the Two Swords

A papal doctrine articulated by Pope Boniface VIII (~$1300$\,CE) stating that temporal authority is subordinate to the spiritual authority of the Church.

Renaissance

leaders should act in the best interest of the state—morality and spirituality is no longer the guide. start of intense colonialism and mercantilism.

legally defining a state

basically a territory that’s soverign.

territory with boundaries. population within territory. population recognizes govt. as legitimate. other states recognize government as legitimate. (so has both internal and external sovereignty)

Pax Britannica

The period from $1815$ to $1914$ during which the United Kingdom served as a global hegemon, maintaining maritime dominance and free trade stability.

Concert of Europe

An ad hoc system of diplomacy among major European powers designed to maintain the balance of power and prevent internal revolutions.

goal was to stop any one country from taking over Europe as well as protect traditional monarchies (disliked any emerging political ideas). countries work together to crush internal uprisings

ultimately fell apart bc of WW1

wilsonianism

a general association of nations must be formed for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

(collective security—attack on one state, attack on all, diplomacy, cooperation, peaceful management of disputes)

liberal internationalism

same as wilsonianism! (think Obama)

League of Nations

the direct result of wilsonianism. the crowning centerpiece of the entire ideology

better at preventing recently concluding tragedies than to deal with the momentous issues of the future. no US, no Russia, no defeated powers. had low legitimacy and weak capacity to enforce sanctions

dissolved after failing to dissolve WW2

Globalization

A historical process involving a fundamental transformation in scale that links distant communities through cross-border flows of goods, services, people, money, and ideas.

Cosmopolitanism

A political and moral self-identification beyond one's own state, nationality, or ethnicity as a citizen of the world.

Power-to

A conceptualization of power as capacity or potentiality that may or may not be actualized in political outcomes.

Power-over

A relational view of power involving direct coercion, agenda setting, or influencing and shaping the fundamental desires of others.

Realism

The dominant IR school of thought during the Cold War asserting that international relations are anarchic (absence of central authority) and zero-sum (security is a trade off), with states seeking power and security.

Classical Realism

An IR theoretical approach developed by Hans Morgenthau asserting that politics is governed by objective laws rooted in human nature, with interests defined as power.

Humans are inherently self-interested, fearful, and driven by an innate desire for power. States act the same way because they are run by humans

power has no fixed meaning, no universal morality, how do polices affect the power of a nation. ZERO SUM

Structural Realism (Neorealism)

An IR theoretical framework that focuses on the structure of the international system itself (anarchy) as the cause of realism rather than human nature as the driver of state survival behavior.

Basically, an absence of central authority forces states to fight for themselves.

Heavy on polarity (unipolarity, bipolarity, etc). ZERO SUM WORLD (security is made off), cooperation is unlikely

multipolarity example

concert of Europe

bipolarity example

Cold War

unipolarity example

US in the 1990’s

Defensive Realism

A structural realist approach formulated by Kenneth Waltz arguing that defense has the advantage and that conquest rarely pays because aggressive states face counter-balancing.

Offensive Realism

A structural realist approach formulated by John Mearsheimer asserting that uncertainty forces great powers to maximize relative power and seek global or regional hegemony.

Security Dilemma

A structural dynamic where measures taken by one state to increase its own security decrease the security of other states, triggering competitive armaments. one state’s win is the other’s loss

internal balancing

arms race

external balancing

alliances

Liberalism

IR theory positioned as Realism's primary rival, emphasizing individual rights, private property, free markets, and the potential for international cooperation.

Can liberals explain peace?

-Built on reciprocity—cooperation leads to mutual gains.

-Certain governments will reduce chances of war

-Kant: self interest + reason (peace makes sense bc war is destructive, expensive, and a terrible trade off; in democracies/republics, those who would have to fight, pay taxes, and rebuild after war are the ones making decisions..self interest pushes them to avoid war. basically, when rational self interest meets a democratic system, peace is the logical outcome between similar states

-Democratic peace theories: democracies don’t fight other democracies

Can realists explain peace?

-in an anarchic system, war and conflict are natural outcomes. peace is a fragile state.

-peace is created when the global structure makes war too risky for everyone

-factors like polarity, power imbalance, changes in tech can alter how nations assess risk

-something like the Cold War: bipolarity meant both sides knew exactly who this opponent is, reducing miscalculation. MAD led to peace.

Neoliberal Institutionalism

An IR perspective arguing that despite structural anarchy, complex interdependence and formal institutions allow states to achieve absolute gains (being in a better place than they were before rather than comparing to others), broad material power (not just military), and sustained cooperation.

starts with the same assumptions as structural realism. observes that states do often seem to cooperate under anarchy.

complex interdependence

states engage in repeat interactions formally and informally across a range of issues.

Democratic Peace Theory

The empirical finding and theoretical claim that democratic states rarely, if ever, wage war against other democratic states.

Constructivism

our world is socially constructed through shared ideas, norms, identities, and discourse.

“anarchy is what states make of it”: many concepts in IR don’t necessarily have a fixed meaning

politics is shaped by shared ideas and norms (eg. human rights)

state behavior

states cannot just be assumed to be rational actors

state behavior is “conditioned”=what decision makers believe, its identity, norms of behavior

power is discursive

Discursive power is the capacity to shape public understanding, norms, and political agendas by controlling how topics, language, and narratives are framed within communication spaces

World Polity

A sociological theory postulating that modern nation-state structures follow global cultural models and scripts propagated through transnational networks.

there is a script to being a modern state (having navies, appearing to care about human rights, adopt neoliberal policies, have certain bureaucratic structures)

Marxism

A critical approach analyzing political outcomes through economic determinism, focusing on class struggle between the proletariat and the capitalist bourgeoisie.

predicted that communist revolutions would happen spontaneously in advanced, highly industrialized capitalist nations (like 19th-century Britain or Germany) driven by an educated urban working class.

Marxism—leninism

introduced the need for a disciplined "vanguard party" of professional revolutionaries to lead the working class, applying this method to agrarian or less-developed societies like Russia

imperialism

a state policy or practice by which a powerful nation extends its power and dominion over other territories and peoples, usually through direct territorial acquisition or indirect political and economic control

lenin on imperialism

1. capitalist states overprpduce

2. working class under-consumes

3. bourgeoisie over save

4. expand! expansion=competition=global hierarchy

not just a aggressive foreign policy, but the inevitable economic outcome of capitalism as it matures into monopolies. 

Because the world is fully divided, the only way for growing capitalist powers to gain new markets or resources is by seizing them from rival empires,

economic determinism

a socioeconomic theory stating that a society's economic system forms the foundation that completely shapes and controls all other parts of life, including laws, politics, religion, and cultur

the economic system shapes everything!!! central to marxism.

World Systems Theory

An expansion of Marxist IR thought by Immanuel Wallerstein dividing the global capitalist architecture into an exploitative core, semi-periphery, and periphery.

the world is structured by capitalism (the entire global economy), not states

the hierarchy:

core: wealthy, industrialized nations that specialize in high-skill, capital-intensive production and technologies, dominating global finance and extracting surplus value

periphery: Poorer, developing countries (parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia) that specialize in low-skill, labor-intensive production, raw material extraction, and agriculture, remaining heavily dependent on and exploited by the core. 

semi-periphery: Intermediate industrializing countries (like Brazil, India, and China) that exhibit characteristics of both core and periphery zones, acting as a political buffer and stabilizing the global capitalist order.

Trade between the core and periphery is not a fair exchange of equal value; instead, it systematically transfers wealth and surplus labor upward from poor regions to rich ones. Wallerstein rejected the idea that all countries follow a linear, independent path to economic development, arguing instead that the system actively keeps peripheral regions "underdeveloped" to sustain core wealth. 

Dependency Theory

An economic perspective associated with Raúl Prebisch asserting that resources flow from underdeveloped periphery nations to wealthy core states, reinforcing global poverty.

neo-imperialism: capitalists have gotten smart about control of periphery (big players are multinational corps—MNCs enter developing countries to extract raw materials, cheap labor, or resource wealth and the profits get sent back to the corporations home country which is a core nation; AND development banks—give loans to developing countries under certain conditions which leads to the country getting trapped in a cycle of debt )

neoimperialism

a modern form of global power where wealthy nations control developing countries through economics, politics, and culture instead of direct military conquest

Postcolonialism

A critical lens examining global hierarchies, the subaltern, historical colonial exploitation, and the dominance of Western-centric discourse in IR (ongoing dominance of North American and European frameworks, concepts, and languages in shaping how global politics is studied, taught, and practiced.

concerned with hierarchy, ethnocentricity, and race, discourse dominance, etc.

liek in marxism and dependency theory, postcolonalism observes that international order is exploitive and is constructed from theories built on exploitation

Difference Feminism

A feminist IR strand proposing that biological or socially constructed differences incline women toward cooperation, peace, and an “ETHICS OF CARE”.

Liberal Feminism

A feminist IR strand arguing that gender differences in political decision-making are negligible and focusing on ending the structural exclusion of women from foreign affairs.

GENDER MAINSTREAMING—integrating perspective of gender equality into all aspects of government

Levels of analysis in IR

frameworks within which you can analyze different events. you can look at an event (like the rise of hitler) from different zoom levels which changes where blame or credit is placed.

globally: great depression sweeping across the globe

systemic/international: harsh terms of the treaty of Versailles and European power imbalance

state/domestic level: domestic economic crisis

global/transactional level

things that interact with states but are not created directly by them: social media, transnaitional activism, environment, pandemics, multinational corporations

systemic/international level

things created by states by/for their interactions.

alliances, treaties and IGOs

state/domestic level

system of govt. (eg. democracy) and how it makes policy.

economic system

geographic location, resources

interest groups

ideas: ideology, political culture, national narratives

Actors (International Relations)

The fundamental units of analysis in international politics, defined as individuals or groups of people sharing common interests.

study of leaders and elites. belief systems and personalities. perception and misperception.

actors’ interests

power and security

economic/material growth/standards

ideological/values

Nation

A human collectivity defined by shared language, ethnicity, origin, or cultural heritage, which may exist with or without a sovereign state.

Statecraft

The array of instruments—including diplomacy, economic inducements, sanctions, and physical force—used by states to exert power.

REQUIRES CREDIBILITY

Coercion

A strategy aimed at imposing or threatening to impose costs on other actors to force a change in their behavior.

requires credibility

Compellence

(subcategory of coercion). A coercive strategy designed to force a state to undertake a specific action or reverse a previous decision.

("Do X, or stop doing Y, or I will punish you with Z"). something like US sanctions on Iran

Deterrence

subcategory of coercion.

A coercive strategy intended to prevent an adversary from taking a specified unwanted action.

preventing them from even STARTING the action in the first place. whereas in compellence, the action has already been taken

"If you do X, I will punish you with Y"). something like MAD

economic statecraft

engagement/inducement and sanctions

engagement: trade relations, particular goods, encourage investment, aid

sanctions: freeze assets, embargo, aid cutoff

engagement/inducement

trade relations, particular goods, encourage investment, aid

sanction

freeze assets, embargo, aid cutoff

Public Goods

Nonexcludable and nonrivalrous goods, such as national security or clean air, that generate collective action problems due to free riding incentives.

International Institutions

“any institution that regulates actors in at least two Staes”

Shared and known sets of rules that structure interactions among actors across two or more states.

they help by setting standards, varying compliance (self reporting), reduce the cost of joint decision making, resolve disputes

FORMAL INSTITUTIONS:

• Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs): Formed by treaties between sovereign states. Examples include the United Nations (peace and security) and World Trade Organization (global trade rules). 

  Wikipedia +3

• Financial and Economic Institutions: Groups like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bankmanage global financial stability and fund development. 

  YouTube·The Learning Studio +1

• Regional Organizations: Bodies like the European Union or African Union coordinate policy and economic integration within specific geographic areas. 

  Welcome to the United Nations +1

• International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs): Private nonprofit groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross operate across borders without state membership

INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS:

-treaties, conventions, international law (he put on his slides nuclear taboo or diplomatic immunity)

why is a treaty an institution? bc it is fundamentally a persistent and connected set of rules that prescribe behavioral roles, constrains activity, and shapes expectations. structures how countries interact with each other even fi not physical.

War (Clausewitz Definition)

The continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means

War (Standard Academic Definition)

An organized and deliberate political act by an established political authority causing $1,000$ or more deaths in a $12$-month period between capable actors.

inter-state war

A traditional conflict fought between two or more recognized, sovereign states using their national military forces.

intra-state war

A conflict occurring within the borders of a single state, usually fought between the central government and a non-state group, or among multiple rival domestic factions (commonly known as a civil war).

other states are not allowed to intervene in others’ civil wars bc it breaks sovereignty BUT if certain thresholds of intensity are met, international law steps in through the international humanitarian law (Geneva conventions, article 3)

extra-state war

A conflict between a recognized sovereign state and a non-state political/1entity or rebel group located outside of that state's own recognized territory (often historically involving colonial or imperial conflicts in overseas territories).

non-state war

A conflict fought entirely between two or more non-state organized groups, where no formal state government military is a primary direct combatant.

Correlates of War (COW)

the Correlates of War (COW) Project collects quantitative data to systematically measure and analyze the causes, dynamics, and consequences of international conflict.

A historical conflict project identifying wars based on a threshold of $1,000$ battle-related deaths per year across interstate, intrastate, extra-state, and non-state categories.

Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) definition of conflict

incompatibility over government or territory involving armed force between at least two parties, where one is a state government, resulting in a minimum of 25 battle-related deaths in a calendar year

Brinksmanship

A crisis bargaining strategy of taking deliberate actions that heighten the risk of accidental conflict to compel an opponent to yield.

public diplomacy

brand management—promoting your values/ulture, etc. directly into foreign publics and elites (eg. culinary or gastro-diplomacy)

Hand-tying

A technique for creating credible commitments by making public declarations that create severe audience costs if a leader backs down.

(you’re TIED down to whatever you say)

Preventive War

A war initiated to destroy or limit the military potential of an adversary before it grows powerful enough to pose a threat in the future. (US and Iran)

Preemptive War

A war launched in anticipation of an immediate, imminent military strike by an adversary possessing a first-strike advantage.

the other side has not attacked yet, but there is clear evidence that an attack is very near.

preemptive—caused by anticipation

Rally Effect

A dramatic, short-term increase in a political leader's public approval rating during an international crisis or conflict.

Diversionary Incentive

A leader's motivation to provoke an international crisis in order to divert domestic public criticism away from internal economic or political trouble.

Asymmetric Warfare

Armed conflict between belligerents with vastly unequal military capabilities, prompting the weaker actor to utilize UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGIES

Separatism

A civil war ambition where an insurgent group fights to detach territory from an existing state to create an independent sovereign nation.

Irredentism

A civil war ambition where a regional rebel group seeks to detach territory from one state and annex it to a neighboring state.

Insurgency

An asymmetric military strategy where small, fluid rebel groups target state military assets using unconventional hit-and-run tactics.

Counterinsurgency (COIN)

A military and political strategy that focuses on defeating insurgents by protecting local populations, improving local governance, and winning hearts and minds.

basically, the government don’t fight back; they make the people around like them better so that they’ll be less sympathetic towards insurgents.

it is expensive and takes time. this is why it is harder to fight back against groups that use asymmetric tactics

Terrorism

The use or threatened use of violence against noncombatant targets by nonstate groups or individuals to achieve political ends.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

“the laws of war”. applies to all wars. in our civil war example above, we showed how it can be applied to civil war.

codified in the Geneva conventions of 1949. primary goal is to protect civilians, wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, etc; and restrict methods and means of warfare that cause unnecessary suffering.

Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

A structural shift in military operations and warfighting doctrine resulting from major advances in technology, strategy, and organizational structure.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

A condition of strategic stability where opposing nuclear powers possess secure second-strike capabilities, ensuring total destruction for both in a war.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

A $1968$ treaty restricting nuclear weapons possession to five recognized states while promoting peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament.

Nuclear Taboo

A normative prohibition conceptualized by Nina Tannenwald that stigmatizes the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable.

Military industrial complex

Military and industry have an informal partnership to keep funding weapons. Eisenhower warned that this network could threaten democracy and push for unnecessary military intervention

three main types of conflict

conventions, unconventional, assymmetric

conventional war

fought between clear adversaries, using conventional weapons and tactics, recognizing limits to conduct (humanitarian law—Geneva conference), and defeat is acknowledged.

unconventional

limits to conduct (international humanitarian law—Geneva conference) and/or acknowledgment of defeat are rejected/not practiced

asymmetric

armed conflict between actors with highly unequal military capabilities. results in use of unconventional weapons and tactics.

counterterrorism

Counterterrorism involves the laws, policies, and operational methods that governments and security forces use to prevent, stop, and respond to acts of terrorism (big on intelligence and surveillance)