International Politics Key Terms Ch 1-3

Front 1

Globalization

Back 1

multiple processes by which people in one society become culturally, economically, politically, strategically, and ecologically closer to people in geographically distant societies

Front 2

Global Capitalism

Back 2

A particular form of social and economic relations connecting national economies

Front 3

Autarky

Back 3

Self sufficiency

Front 4

Zero-Sum Game

Back 4

A situation in where ones gain translates into another's loss

Front 5

Liberalism

Back 5

Economic interaction based upon voluntary exchange in a market setting

Front 6

Atlantic Economy

Back 6

The political economies of Western and Southern Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan

Front 7

Positive vs Normative Theory

Back 7

The IS vs the OUGHT

Front 8

Validity

Back 8

How accurately the model reflects the actual relationship

Front 9

Scarcity

Back 9

generates the conditions for competition, cooperation, and conflict over the distribution of resources and opportunity - one of the three main assumptions

Front 10

Political Survival

Back 10

Political actors and government actors want to survive to stay in office, or power and will act in order to do so. They do have their own views and opinions but will often compromise them to survive - one of the three main assumptions

Front 11

Rationality

Back 11

People behave and make choices AS IF they were rational - one of the three main assumptions

Front 12

Methodological Individualism

Back 12

The claim that individuals, not large units of aggregation like nations, make choices

Front 13

Completeness

Back 13

Establishes that two alternatives are comparable and can be placed in a hierarchy

Front 14

Indifference

Back 14

An individual is indifferent between alternatives

Front 15

Transitivity

Back 15

Establishes that more than two alternatives are comparable and can be placed in a hierarchy

Front 16

Dominant Strategy

Back 16

One she would select regardless of what the other player does

Front 17

Stable Equilibrium

Back 17

Neither player can improve her pay off by unilaterally selecting another choice

Front 18

Equilibrium

Back 18

A situation in which activity has stopped; no more switching of strategies

Front 19

Game Theory

Back 19

The systematic study of rational choice in strategic settings

Front 20

Backwards Induction

Back 20

If we assume people operate rationally, we can look at a decision situation and work backward to try and understand the rational calculations that could lead to the decision under examination.

Front 21

Characteristics of a State

Back 21

-Legal entity which can undertake and accept legal commitments such as treaties via representative authority or government
-has a defined geographic territory
-has a population that inhibits its geographic territory
-has a government to represent some component of the people who inhibit its territory

Front 22

Functional Equality

Back 22

Governments and their societies do not take advantage of specialization in the international arena in terms of the activities of government

Front 23

Economies of Scale

Back 23

Occur with the concentration of resources in that production - producing more of a commodity may be more efficient due to the aggregation of activities and resources that are required to produce it

Front 24

Economies of Knowledge

Back 24

Occur with gains from learning about how to produce a product - the more we do something, the better and more efficient we be become at doing it

Front 25

Efficiency

Back 25

A statement about how much is produced for a fixed amount of labor

Front 26

Interdependence

Back 26

Connections across nations

Front 27

National Policy Autonomy

Back 27

Production of political commodities for local consupmtion

Front 28

Characteristics of a Nation

Back 28

- A form of collective identity or community identification based on some common or shared knowledge
- A nation is a grouping but not all groupings are nations
- Most people self identify their attachment to a group called nation
- Individuals may have hierarchy's of group identification making it possible to rank our group associations in terms of their importance of our individual identities
- nation is one of the few identities that large numbers of people are willing to kill and die for
- not necessarily tied to physical geography
- states can exist without nations

Front 29

Origins of the State System

Back 29

Empire and Fragmentation

Front 30

Empire

Back 30

Encompasses far more territory under a single political entity than does a state

Front 31

Treaty of Westphalia

Back 31

Ended the 30 Years War; established who had authority to determine the religion of a territory which was the King of Sovereign leader

Front 32

Westphalian State System

Back 32

Principle of each states sovereignty within its territorial boundaries

Front 33

Sovereignty

Back 33

Principle that the government of a state, and by definition of a territory, is the supreme, legitimate authority within its territorial boundaries. No State can exercise legitimate authority within another states boundaries.

Front 34

Anarchy

Back 34

Condition of a state where life is solitary, poor, brutish, and short in the absence of of a ruling body. International affairs can be described as in anarchy because of the lack of an international government of hierarchy

Front 35

Self-Help System

Back 35

Governments must rely on their own capabilities and tools to obtain their preferred ends

Front 36

Realpolitik / Realism

Back 36

Reliance of government on their own means rather than on international treaties and law. This is a self-help strategy for constructing public policies to address a world of what is, not a world of what ought to be