Global Governance Exam #1, Key Terms

Strategic Interdependence

Situations in which the outcome of a situation depends on the joint behavior of multiple actors.

States

A collection of political officials responsible for governing individuals and groups residing within a set of legally defined territorial borders.

Non-state actors

Politically significant actors in the international system that do not represent, or officially act on behalf of, a government or state. 

• EX: labor unions, humanitarian activists 

National Interests

Broad political, economic, and social goals that motivate the policies pursued by the government relative to all other actors in the international system.

Anarchy

The absence of a supranational organization that possesses authority over states.

Sovereignty

The legal and political capacity to the rules governing people and orgs residing within their borders.

Self-enforcing agreements

Agreements or contracts that do not need a third-party enforcement mechanism to ensure all parties will comply.

Independent Variable

Causal factors—such as relative power, economic interdependence, regime type, or leader personality—that influence or determine international outcomes.

Dependent Variable

These are the phenomena being studied, predicted, or explained—the result of the independent variables.

EX: conflict/war, foreign policy, cooperation

Actor

Individuals of groups of people that share a common purpose/collective identity and whose behavior is purposive 

• Can include: states, firms, internal orgs, and non-state actors like transnational activists or political parties 

Structure

Set of properties, arrangements, principles, rules, roles, and constraints that connect and order the actors in the larger system.

• Includes formal laws, informal norms, and the disruption of capabilities among actors 

Capabilities

The ability of an actors in the international system to realize its political goals of interests.

International Organizations (IOs)

Formal intergovernmental bodies that regulate international trade, coordinate joint military missions, deter military aggression, promote important principles, and help settle disputes.

• EX: United States, European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

Multinational Corporations (MNCs)

Large economic enterprises that operate in many countries and shape political and economic outcomes throughout the world 

• EX: JPMorgan Chase 

Transnational Activists

Nonstate groups that pressure governments and MNCs to respect human rights, coordinate and provide aid in the midst of natural disasters, etc. 

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Groups of citizens who work together, independent from govt's, to pursue a goal driven by normative or moral imperatives 

• EX: Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundational, Greenpeace, Oxfam 

Material and Ideational Aspects of Structure

Material capabilities (military, economic resources) and ideational factors (norms, ideas, identities) that shape state behavior, with debates focusing on which aspect is primary. While realism emphasizes material distribution, constructivism highlights that ideational factors define the meaning of material power.

Norms

Standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations. 

Prisoner’s Dilemma

Two-player game of strategic interaction defined by the distribution of actor preferences over four possible outcomes. The equilibrium expectation is that the players will fail to reach a cooperative agreements that leaves both in a better situation. 

Theory

Specifies and explains a relationship between two or more types of things.

• Explain important international outcomes 

• Sort, organize, and evaluate the millions of pieces of potentially relevant information 

Causal theory

Explains how some outcome or event comes into existence. 

• Specifies the nature of any relationship between at least two concepts, and provides an explanation for why these concepts are related 

Causal mechanisms

Set of processes or links in a chain of events that connect some cause to its purported effect. 

Constitutive Theory

Answers "what" compromises or makes up some concept or variable.  

• Might examine what defines a sovereign state or identify components of a collective identity that binds people together into an ethnic group  

Democratic peace theory

A prominent theory in the study of IR arguing that rates of military conflict should be lower among democratic states than among group of states that include some autocracies.

Collective identity

Norms, purposes, and cognitive beliefs that connect an individual to some group and that holds the group together. 

Normative identity

Use values and ethical principles to offer guidance on how to construct a political, social, or economic order and to criticize other theories. 

Treaties

Documents that create legal obligations for states.

Externalities

Costs or benefits that accrue to parties not directly involved, such as wars, trade disputes, financial/refugee crises.

Distributional claims or stakes

The degree to which an actor has a stake in a cooperative outcomes.

Transaction costs

Costs associated with negotiating and establishing an agreement.

Public goods

Nonexcludable, items that individuals benefit from simply being part of the group to which they are provided.

Collective action

When everyone agrees about the benefits of a common goal, but there are few incentives for an individual actor to pay the costs of achieving that goal. 

Free-rider problem

Tendency for actors to benefit from others' effort to provide a public good w/o contributing.

Noncompliance

State not following through on one's obligations. 

Enforcement

Act of responding to and punishing noncompliance. 

Hegemonic stability theory

Refers to the idea that global order is most stable when a powerful state is willing and able to provide certain public goods. 

Self-enforcement

Idea that an agreement structures incentives so that no part has a reason to cheat.

Diffuse enforcement

Enforcement provided by members of the system, rather than by a central authority. 

Coordination problems

Occur when actors agree that it would be best for them to cooperate, but they disagree what form the cooperation will take. 

Nondiscrimination

The like treatment of products regardless of national origin.

Recipocity

The expectation that actors will replicate the strategic moves of a negotiating partner.

Principal agent relationship

States (principals) delegate to an agent (organization) to accomplish a task.  

Delegation

The degree to which states delegate the responsibility and authority to interpret and implement the law, often done through the creation of international judicial institutions.

Agent drift

The degree to which an agent in a principal-agent relationship deviates from its assigned task.

Shirking

The tendency of an agent to exert less than optimal effort to a task that it has been delegated.

Legalization

The process through which the international system has become increasingly governed by legal rules.

Customary International Law

Principles that states are generally expected to abide by and which rise to level of legal obligation, even if not codified in specific agreement.

Soft law

Formal law, normally embodied in written agreements, but not considered binding.

Obligation

The character and scale of expectations laid out in an instrument of international law.  

Precision

The clarity and specificity of obligations.

Shallow cooperation

Little behavioral change.

Deep cooperation

Considerable behavioral change beyond what governments would ordinarily do. 

Legitimacy

Belief that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed, regardless of whether obeying the rule is in an actor's immediate self-interest.

Reputation

Suggests that states can develop a reputation for being a compliant or noncompliant actor.

Procedural fairness

When rules and procedures treat actors the same regardless of their country of origin or their identity.

Legal consistency

The idea that legal principles are applied in the same manner across different cases. 

Logic of consequences

Actors act according to cost-benefit considerations.

• Traditions that view state behavior as driven by concerns about power, survival, or security 

Logic of appropriateness

When actors (states) choose to behave in ways that conform to what is expect of members of the social community (international system).

• Traditions that view state behavior as driven by concerns for higher principles 

Taboo

Deeply held prohibition against something.

Norm entrepreneurs

Agents such as NGOS and activists who advocate for non-use.

Human rights

Principles stating certain fundamental values about the rights all people are entitled to. 

Physical integrity rights

Individuals have a right to live w/o being attacked or tortured or otherwise have their bodily person compromised.

Naming and shaming

Actors report on and criticize govt's for their human rights records.

Climate change/Global warming

The gradual increase in the Earth's temperature over the past several hundred years. 

Greenhouse gases

Gasses such as CO2, CH4, N2O that trap solar energy within the Earth's atmosphere. 

Carbon sinks

Large areas of forest or oceans capable of absorbing carbon emissions.

Temperature change

How much the temperature fluctuates around the average.

“signal-to-noise” ratio

Measures the strength of long-term climate trends (signal) against natural, short-term, or random variability (noise).

common pool resources

A good that is nonexcludable but rivalrous.

“Tragedy of the commons”

Tendency for common pool resources to be depleted when unregulated.

carbon caps

Limits on the amount of carbon emissions produced.

cap and trade

System that allows actors to sell surplus carbon emissions credits to countries that produce more emissions than allowed.

policy diffusion

The emulation or imitation of a successful policy, causing countries to gradually adopt similar policies.