International Relations Goldstein Tenth Edition Chapters 1-6

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International Relations

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The relationships among the world's state governments and the connection of those relationships with other actors (such as the UN, multinational corporations, and individuals), with other social relationships (including economics, culture, and domestic politics), and with geographical and historical influences.

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Collective Goods Problem

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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.

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Dominance

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A principle for solving collective goods problems by imposing solutions hierarchically.

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Reciprocity

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A response in kind to another's actions; strategy of reciprocity uses positive forms of leverage to promise rewards and negative forms of leverage to threaten punishment.

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Identity

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

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Issue Areas

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

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Conflict and Cooperation

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The types of actions that states take toward each other though time.

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International Security

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

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International Political Economy

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The study of politics of trade, monetary, and other economics relations among nations, and their connection to other transnational forces.

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State

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An inhabited territorial entity controlled by government that exercises sovereignty on its territory.

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International System

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

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Nation-States

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States whose populations share a sense of national identity, usually including a language and culture.

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Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

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The size of the state's total annual economic activity.

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Nonstate Actors

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

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Intergovernmental Organization (IGO)

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An organization (such as the UN and its agencies) whose members are state governments.

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Nongovernmental Organization (NGO)

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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 IGOs.

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Globalization

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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.

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North-South Gap

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

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League of Nations

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An organization established after WWI and a forerunner of today's UN; 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

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Munich Agreement

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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 German aspirations, it was followed by further German expansions, which triggered WWII.

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Cold War

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The hostile relations- punctuated by occasional periods of improvement or detente -between the two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, from 1945-1990.

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Containment

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

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Sino-Soviet split

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A rift in the 1960's between the communist powers of the Soviet Union and China, fueled by China's opposition to Soviet moves toward peaceful coexistence with the US.

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Summit Meeting

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A meeting between heads of state, often referring to leaders of great powers, as in the Cold War superpower summits between the US and the Soviet Union or today's meetings of the Group of Eight on economic coordination.

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Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

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A superpower crisis, sparked by the Soviet Union's installation of medium range nuclear missiles in Cuba, that marks the moment when the US and the Soviet Union came closest to nuclear war.

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Proxy Wars

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Wars on the third world- often civil wars -in which the US and the Soviet Union jockeyed for position by supplying and advising opposing factions.

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Realism

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A broad intellectual tradition that explains international relations mainly in terms of power

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Idealism

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An approach that emphasizes international law, morality, and international organization, rather than power alone, as a key influence on ir.

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Power

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The ability or potential to influence others' behavior, as measured by the possession of certain tangible and intangible characteristics.

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Geopolitics

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The use of geography as an element of power, and the ideas about it held by political leaders and scholars.

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Anarchy

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In IR theory, a term that implies not complete chaos but the lack of central leaders or scholars

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Norms

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The shared expectations about what behavior is considered proper.

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Sovereignty

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A state's right, at least in principle, to do whatever it wants within its own territory; traditionally, sovereignty is the most important international norm.

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Security Dilemma

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A situation in which actions states take to ensure their own security (such as deploying military forces) are perceived as threats to the security of other states

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Balance of Power

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The general concept of one or more states' power being used to balance that or another state or group of states. The term can refer to 1) any ratio of power capabilities between alliances 2) a relatively equal ratio, or 3) the process by which counterbalancing coalitions have repeatably formed to prevent one state from conquering an entire region.

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Great Powers

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Generally, the half-dozen or so most powerful states; the great power club was exclusively European until the 20th century.

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Middle Powers

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States that rank somewhat below the great powers in terms of their influence on world affairs (for example, Brazil and India).

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Neorealism

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A version of the realist theory that emphasizes the influence on state behavior of the system's structure, especially the international distribution of power.

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Multipolar System

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An international system with typically five or six centers of power that are not grouped into alliances

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Power Transition Theory

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A theory that the largest wars result from challenges to the top position in the status hierarchy, when rising power is surpassing (or threatening to surpass) the most powerful state.

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Hegemony

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The holding by one state of a preponderance of power in the international system, so that it can single-handedly dominate the rules and arrangements by which international political and economic relations are conducted.

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Hegemonic Stability Theory

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The argument that regimes are most effective when power in the international system is most concentrated

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Alliance Cohesion

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The ease with which the members hold together an alliance; it tends to be high when national interests converge and when cooperation among allies becomes institutionalized

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Burden Sharing

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The distribution o the costs of an alliance among members; the term also refers to the conflicts that may arise over such a distribution.

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

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A US led military alliance, formed in 1949 with mainly West European members, to oppose and deter Soviet power in Europe. It is currently expanding into the former Soviet bloc.

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Warsaw Pact

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A Soviet led Eastern European military alliance, founded in 1955 and disbanded in 1991. It opposed the NATO alliance

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US Japanese Security Treaty

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A bilateral alliance between the US and Japan, created in 1951 against the potential Soviet threat to the Japan. The US maintains troops in Japan and is committed to defend Japan if attacked, and Japan pays the US to offset about half the cost of maintaining troops.

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Nonaligned Movement

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A movement of third world states, led by India and Yugoslavia, that attempted to stand apart from the US-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War.

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Deterrence

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The threat to punish anothe actor if it takes a certain negative action (especially attacking one's own state or one's allies).

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Compellence

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The threat of force to make another actor take action (rather than, as in deterrence, refrain from taking an action).

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Arms Race

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A reciprocal process in which two or more states build up military capabilities in response to each other.

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Rational Actors

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Actors conceived of as single entities that can "think" about their actions coherently make choices, identify their interests, and rank the interests in terms of priority

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National Interest

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The interests of a state overall (as opposed to particular parties or factions within the state).

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Cost Benefit Analysis

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A calculation of the costs incurred by a possible action and the benefits it is likely to bring

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Game Theory

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A branch of mathematics concerned with predicting bargaining outcomes. Games such as a prisoner's dilemma and Chicken have been used to analyze various sorts of international interactions.

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Zero-Sum Game

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Situations in which one actor's gain is by definition equal to the other's loss, as opposed to a non-zero-sum game, in which it is possible for both actors to gain or lose.

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Prisoner's Dilemma

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A situation modeled by game theory in which rational actors pursuing their individual interests all achieve worse outcomes than they could have by working together.

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Interdependence

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A political and economic situation in which two states are simultaneously dependent on each other for their well-being. The degree of interdependence is sometimes designated in terms of "sensitivity" or "vulnerability"

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Neoliberal

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Shorthand for "neoliberal institutionalism" an approach that stresses the importance of international institutions in reducing the inherent conflict that realists assume in an international system; the reasoning is based on the core liberal idea that seeking long-term mutual gains is often more rational than maximizing individual short term gains

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International Regime

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A set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of actors converge in a certain international issue area (such as oceans or monetary policy)

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Collective Security

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The formation of a broad alliance of most major actors in an international system for the purpose of jointly opposing aggression by any actor; sometimes seen as presupposing the existence of an universal organization (such as UN) to which both the aggressor and its opponents belong.

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Democratic Peace

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The proposition, strongly supported by empirical evidence, that democracies almost never fight wars against each other (although they do fight against authoritarian states).

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Constructivism

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A movement in IR theory that examines how changing international norms and actors' identities help shape the content of state interests.

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Postmodernism

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An approach that denies the existence of a single fixed reality, and pays special attention to text and to discourses-that is, to how people talk and write about a subject

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Subtext

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Meanings that are implicit or hidden in a text rather than explicity stated

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Economic Classes

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A categorization of individuals based on economic status

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Marxism

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A branch of socialism that emphasizes exploitation and class struggle and includes both communism and other approaches.

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Conflict Resolution

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The development and implementation of peaceful strategies for settling conflicts

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Mediation

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The use of a third party (or parties) in conflict

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Militarism

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The glorification of war, military force, and violence.

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Positive Peace

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A peace that resolves the underlying reasons for war; not just a cease fire but a transformation of relationships, including elimination or reduction of economic exploitation and political oppression

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World Government

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A centralized world governing body with strong enforcement powers

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Peace Movements

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Movements against specific wars or against war and militarism in general, usually involving large numbers of people and forms of direct action such as street protests

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Difference Feminism

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A strand of feminism that believes gender differences are not just socially constructed and that views women as inherently less warlike than men (on average).

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Liberal Feminism

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A strand of feminism that emphasizes gender equality and views the "essential" differences in men's and women's abilities or perspectives as trivial or nonexistent.

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Postmodern Feminism

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An effort to combine feminist and postmodernist perspectives with the aim of uncovering the hidden influence of gender in IR and showing how arbitrary the construction of gender roles is.

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Gender gap

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Refers to polls showing women lower than men on average in their support for military actions, as well as for various other issues and candidates.

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Rational Model

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A model in which decision makers calculate the costs and benefits of each possible course of action, then choose the one with the highest benefits and lowest costs.

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Organizational Process Model

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A decision making model in which policy makers or lower level officials rely largely on standardized responses or standard operating procedures

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Government Bargaining Model

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A model that sees foreign policy decisions as flowing from a bargaining process among various government agencies that have somewhat divergent interests in the outcome ("where you stand depends on where you sit"). Also called the "bureaucratic politics model".

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Misperceptions, selective perspections

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The selective or mistaken processing of the available info about a decision; one of several ways-along with affective and cognitive bias-in which individual decision making diverges from the rational model.

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Information Screens

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The subconscious or unconscious filters through which people put the info coming in about the world around them.

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Optimizing

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Picking the very best option; contrasts with satisfying, or finding a satisfactory but less than best solution to a problem. The model of "bounded rationality" postulates that decision makers generally "satisfice" rather than optimize.

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Satificing

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The act of finding a satisfactory or "good enough" solution to a problem.

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Prospect Theory

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A decision making theory that holds that options are assessed by comparison to a reference point, which is often the status quo but might be some past or expected situation. The model also holds that decision makers fear losses more than they value gains.

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Groupthink

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The tendency of groups to validate wrong decisions by becoming overconfident and underestimating risks.

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Interest Groups

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Coalitions of people who share a common interest in the outcome of some political issue and who organize themselves to try to influence the outcome.

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Military-Industrial Complex

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A huge interlocking network of governmental agencies, industrial corporations, and research institutes, all working together to promote and benefit from military spending.

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Public Opinion

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In IR, the range of views on foreign policy issues held by the citizens of a state.

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"Rally 'round the flag" Syndrome

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The public's increased support for government leaders during wartime, at least in the short term.

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Diversionary Foreign Policy

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Foreign policies adopted to distract the public from domestic political problems.

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Foreign Policy Process

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The process by which foreign policies are arrived at and implemented.