PS 100 Exam 3

bretton woods institutions

the collective name given to the international finance institutions set up as World War II ended. These institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were set up by agreement of 43 countries at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944

cold war

a conflict between the two largest military powers in the world after World War II, the US with its allies and the United Soviet Socialist Republics and its aimed at the other, but the conflict went cold because, despite a few incidents in which threat of use of force seemed imminent neither side pulled the trigger

empirical

having to do with observation, data, or experience rather than theory or logic

epistemology

a branch of philosophy concerned with asking questions about why and how we know what we know, and how we distinguish fact from opinion and objectivity from subjectivity

global north

countries of Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan that were the first part of the world to industrialize in the nineteenth century and where economic and political power relied on the raw materials of countries from the Global South. May also refer to those parts of a political economy within a country that experience economic growth by relying on the labor and raw materials of others

global sout

countries that were either legally or economically colonized by countries of the Global North, resulting in economic and political positions in the terms of international institutions, including trade, finance, climate, and security. May also refer to those parts of a political economy within a country that experience economic stagnation or decline even when other parts of the same economy grow

international relations

interdisciplinary field of study blending political science, law, history, anthropology, economics, linguistics, geography, philosophy, women’s studies etc that takes up questions of international, transitional, regional, and global politics and how these are influenced by and affect national politics

positivism

in international relations, an epistemology that holds that knowledge is the result of empirical data interpreted through reason and logic, as it might be in the natural sciences and math

racialize

a process of constructing a political and social hierarchy by ascribing racial identities and political meaning to difference, often reified in social and political policies and institutions

sovereignty

a state’s control of their own affairs both domestically (internal) and externally (over foreign policy)

structural violence

ways in which social structures or institutions systematically harm or disadvantage certain groups of people

anarchy

the absence of a central, overarching authority or world government above soveirgn states. no superior authority exists to enforce laws, resolve disputes, or protect states from one another

balance of power

how power is distributed in the international system between states

bipolarity

system where power is split between two competing super-powers that aim to control the international system. if it is non-aligned countries that try to stay neutral in the superpower conflict

collective security

states working together to guarantee mutual defense

constructivism

the structure of the international system affects what states can do in the international system but it also notes tthat states can change the system through their actions

hard power

the use of coercive, tangible tools to compel force or bribe other actors to change their behvaior

hegemony

a system where power is concentrated in a superpower or hegemon that can structure the international system to its benefit

multilateralism

negotiations and agreements between many states, not just two

multipolarity

a system where power is split between many states that can still differ in power, but where no state or group dominates the system

national interest

sovereign state’s fundamental goals and ambitions that guide its foreign policy and actions in the international system

realism

explains politics as resulting from an unchanging and destitute human motivated by fear