Chapter 2: The Evolution of Global Politics

Question 1

anarchy

Answer 1

A system operating in the absence of any central government. It does not imply chaos but, in realist theory, the absence of political authority.

Question 2

appeasement
-whats an example of an appeasement?

Answer 2

the policy of making compromises to the dictatorial powers in order to avoid conflict, such as the Munich agreement before WWII

Question 3

armistice

Answer 3

A cease-fire agreement between enemies in wartime.
- a truce or end of war

Question 4

arms race (basically an actual race)

Answer 4

A central concept in realist thought
- As states build up their military to address real or perceived threats to their national security, they may create insecurity in other states. These states in turn develop their military capacities and thus begin an arms race.
- never-ending pursuit of security creates a security dilemma.

Question 5

balance of power

Answer 5

parity and stability among competing powers—was formally incorporated in the Peace of Utrecht

Question 6

blitzkrieg

Answer 6

The German term for “lightning war.” This was an offensive strategy that used mechanized forces like tanks—and aircraft as mobile artillery to exploit breaches in an enemy’s front line.

Question 7

concert of europe

Answer 7

An informal institution created in 1815 by the five great powers of Europe which…
- controlled revolutionary powers
- managed the balance of power
- accepted interventions to keep current leaders in power
This system kept the peace in Europe from 1815 until World War I.
- goal was for everyone to work together to stop fighting eachother

Question 8

congress of vienna

Answer 8

A meeting of major European leaders that redrew the political map of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars.
-an attempt to restore a conservative political order in the continent.

Question 9

containment

Answer 9

An American political strategy for resisting perceived Soviet expansion.

Question 10

detente
- example?

Answer 10

The relaxation of tension between East and West; Soviet-American détente lasted from the late 1960s to the late 1970s and was characterized by negotiations and nuclear arms control agreements.

Question 11

fourteen points

Answer 11

President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of international society,
- principle of self-determination,
- the conduct of diplomacy on an open (not secret) basis
- the establishment of an association of nation-states to provide guarantees of independence and territorial integrity (League of Nations).

Question 12

genocide

Answer 12

The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic, national, tribal, or religious group.

Question 13

glasnost

Answer 13

A policy of greater openness involving more toleration of internal dissent and criticism.

Question 14

hegemony view

Answer 14

A structural theory of realism that views states as security maximizers—more concerned with absolute power as opposed to relative power. According to this view, it is unwise for states to try to maximize their share of power and seek hegemony.

Question 15

holocaust

Answer 15

The attempts by the Nazis to murder the Jewish population of Europe. Some 6 million Jewish people were killed in concentration camps, along with a further million that included Soviet prisoners, Roma, Poles, communists, homosexuals, and the physically or mentally disabled.

Question 16

hyperpower

Answer 16

The situation of the United States after the Cold War ended. With the Soviet Union’s military might greatly diminished and China having primarily only regional power-projecting capability, the United States was unchallenged in the world.

Question 17

intercontinental ballistic missiles

Answer 17

really bad dangerous missiles

Question 18

liberal democracy

Answer 18

• state with a democratic government and capitalist economy; promotes multilateralism and free trade.
• Domestic interests, values, and institutions shape foreign policy.
  -champion freedom of the individual, constitutional civil and political rights, and laissez-faire economic arrangements.

Question 19

marshall plan

Answer 19

Officially known as the European Recovery Program, it was a program of financial and other economic aid for Europe after World War II.

Question 20

Munich agreement of 1938

Answer 20

An agreement was negotiated after a conference held in Munich between Germany and the United Kingdom and other major powers. It permitted Nazi Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, an area along the Czech border that was inhabited primarily by ethnic Germans.

Question 21

national self-determination

Answer 21

The right or desire of distinct national groups to become states and to rule themselves.

Question 22

north atlantic treat organization (NATO)

Answer 22

Organization established by treaty in April 1949 including twelve (later sixteen) countries from Western Europe and North America. The most important aspect of the NATO alliance was the US commitment to defend Western Europe. Today NATO has twenty-eight member states.

Question 23

Oligarchs

Answer 23

a small group that controls a state.

Question 24

peace of utrecht

Answer 24

The agreement that ended the War of the Spanish Succession and helped to consolidate the link between sovereign authority and territorial boundaries in Europe.
-This treaty refined the territorial scope of sovereign rights of states.

Question 25

perestroika

Answer 25

• modernize the Soviet political and economic system.

Question 26

protestant reformation

Answer 26

A social and political movement begun in 1517 in reaction to the widespread perception that the Catholic Church had become corrupt and had lost its moral compass.

Question 27

rapproachment

Answer 27

The re-establishment of more friendly relations between China and the United States in the early 1970s.

Question 28

soft power

Answer 28

The influence and authority deriving from the attraction that a country’s political, social, and economic ideas, beliefs, and practices have for people living in other countries.

Question 29

sovereign equality

Answer 29

The idea that all countries have the same rights, including the right of noninterference in their internal affairs.

Question 30

strategic arms reduction treaty (START)

Answer 30

Negotiations between the United States and Soviet Union over limiting nuclear arsenals and then the reduction of nuclear arms rather than just a limit on the growth of these weapons.

Question 31

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Answer 31

A controversial strategic policy advocated by the Reagan administration and nuclear physicists called for a defensive missile shield that would make Soviet offensive missiles ineffective by destroying them in flight.

Question 32

superpowers

Answer 32

An international political order in which a state dominates all others. It is often used to describe the nature of the international system when the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, were dominant powers during the Cold War.

Question 33

thirty years’ war

Answer 33

A series of treaties that ended the Thirty Years’ War and was crucial in delimiting the political rights and authority of European monarchs.

Question 34

treaty of versailles

Answer 34

The agreement that formally ended World War I (1914–1918).

Question 35

trench warfare

Answer 35

Combat in which armies dug elaborate defensive fortifications in the ground, as both sides did in World War I. Because of the power of weapons like machine guns and rapid-fire cannons, trenches often gave the advantage in battle to the defenders.

Question 36

Warsaw Pact

Answer 36

The West German government’s “Eastern Policy” of the mid- to late 1960s, designed to develop relations between West Germany and members of the Warsaw Pact.

Question 37

peace of Westphalia

Answer 37

A series of treaties that ended the Thirty Years’ War and was crucial in delimiting the political rights and authority of European monarchs.

Question 38

society of states

Answer 38

an association of sovereign states based on their common interests, values, and norms

Question 39

bipolar

Answer 39

An international political order in which two states dominate all others. It is often used to describe the nature of the international system when the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, were dominant powers during the Cold War.

Question 40

capitalism

Answer 40

A system of production in which human labor and its products are commodities that are bought and sold in the marketplace.

Question 41

importance of the peace of westphalia

Answer 41

ended the thirty years war and ushered in a contemporary international system by establishing the principle of sovereignty

Question 42

2 key institutions of international society

Answer 42

diplomacy & international law

Question 43

the concert of eruope lead to… (3)

Answer 43

• balance of power
• diplomacy
• international law

Question 44

the league of nations failed because…

Answer 44

some countries could not set aside national interest

Question 45

4 consistencies in world politics

Answer 45

• war
• states
• sovereignty
• global poverty

Question 46

colonialism timeline 15th-19th century

Answer 46

15th- age of discovery by spain and Portugal
16th/17th- informal imperialism
18th/19th- decolonization of Americas
19th- African colonization and new imperialism

Question 47

scramble for africa

Answer 47

significance: many European states racing to gain territory in Africa

Question 48

economic motivations for the scramble for africa

Answer 48

• open markets and trade surplus
• cheap labor and no competition
  -natural resources

Question 49

racial ideologies for the scramble for africa

Answer 49

• belief in racial hierarchy
• use of extreme brutality and force

Question 50

king leopold’s belgian congo

Answer 50

terror regime that left 3 million dead and he explored raw materials through forced labor and ethnic violence and corruption

Question 51

bipolar structure

Answer 51

two rival superpower alliances

Question 52

dimensions of the cold war (4)

Answer 52

1. ideological: democratic capitalism vs authortarian communism
2. geopolitical: bipolar structure and containment
3. strategic: nuclear weapons and deterrence
4. international: no region uninfluenced by war