International Relations - Chapter 1

international relations

the relationships among the world’s state governments and the connection of those relationships with other actors (such as the United Nations, multinational corporations, and individuals), with other social relationships (including economics, culture and domestic politics), and with geographic and historical influences

collective goods problem

a tangible or intangible good, created by the members of a group, that is available to all group members regardless of their individual contributions; participants can gain by lowering their own contribution to the collective good, yet if too many participants do so, the good cannot be provided

dominance

a principle for solving the collective goods problems by imposing solutions hierarchically

reciprocity

a response in kind to another’s actions; a strategy of reciprocity uses positive forms of leverage to promise regards and negative forms of leverage to threaten punishment

identity

a principle for solving the collective goods problems by changing participants’ preferences based on their shared sense of belonging to a community

issue areas

distinct spheres of international activity (such as global trade negotiations) within which policy makers of various states face conflicts and sometimes achieve cooperation

conflict and cooperation

the types of actions that states take toward each other through time

international security

a subfield of international relations that focuses on questions of war and peace

international political economy

the study of the politics of trade, monetary, and other economic relations among nations, and their connection to other transnational forces

state

an inhabited territorial entity controlled by a government that exercises sovereignty over its territory

international system

the set of relationships among the world’s states, structured by certain rules and patterns of interaction

nation-states

states whose populations share a sense of national identity, usually uncluding a language and culture

gross domestic product

the size of a state’s total annual economic activity

nonstate actors

actors other than state governments that operate either below the level of the state (that is, within states) or across state borders

intergovernmental organization - igo

an organization (such as the United Nations and its agencies) whose members are state governments

nongovernmental organization - ngo

a transnational group or entity (such as the Catholic Church, Greenpeace, or the International Olympic Committee) that interacts with states, multinational corporations (MNCs), other NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)

globalization

the increasing integration of the world in terms of communications, culture, and economics; may also refer to changing subjective experiences of space and time accompanying this process

north-south gap

the disparity in resources (income, wealth, and power) between the industrialized, relatively rich countries of the West (and former East) and the poorer countries of Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia and Latin America

league of nations

an organization established after WWI and a forerunner of today’s United Nations; it achieved certain humanitarian and other successes but was weakened by the absence of US membership and by its own lack of effectiveness in ensuring collective security

munich agreement

a symbol of the failed policy of appeasement, this agreement, signed in 1938, allowed Nazi Germany to occupy a part of Czechoslovakia. Rather than appease Nazi German aspirations, it was followed by futher German expansions, which triggered WWII

cold war

the hostile relations punctuated by occasional periods of improvement, or détente-between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1990

containment

a policy adopted in the late 1940s by which the US sought to halt the global expansion of Soviet influence on several levels - military, political, ideological, and economic

sino-soviet split

a rift in the 1960s between the communist powers of the soviet union and china, fueled by china’s opposition to soviet moves toward peaceful coexistence with the united states

summit meeting

a meeting between heads of state, often referring to leaders of great powers, as in the cold war superpower summits between the united states and the soviet union or today’s meetings of the Group of Twenty (G20) on economic coordination

cuban missile crisis (1962)

a superpower crisis, sparked by the soviet union’s installation of medium-range nuclear missiles in cuba, that marks the moment when the united states and the soviet union came closest to nuclear war

proxy wars

wars in the third world - often civil wars in which in the united states and the soviet union jockeyed for position by supplying and advising opposing factions