Glossary

Question 1

Sexual division of labour

Answer 1

Notion of ‘women’s work’, which everywhere includes women’s primary responsibility for childcare and housework, and which designates many public and paid forms of work as women’s or men’s too.

Question 2

Globalization

Answer 2

Historical process involving a fundamental shift in the spatial scale of human organization that links distant communities and expands reach of power relations across regions or continents.

Also describes a single world-economy following the collapse of communism

Growing integration of the international capitalist system in the post-war period

Question 3

Hegemony

Answer 3

System regulated by a dominant leader, or political and economic domination of a region, usually by a superpower.

In realist theory, the influence (leadership, dominance) a Great Power is able to establish on other states in the system.

Control and power exercised by a leading state over other states.

Question 4

Idealism

Answer 4

Holds that ideas have important causal effect on events in international politics, and that ideas can change.

Substantive theory of IR claiming that it is possible to create a world of peace.

As a social theory, claims that the most fundamental feature of society is social consciousness. Ideas shape how we see ourselves and our interests, the knowledge we use to categorize and understand the world, the beliefs we have of others, and the (impossible) solutions to challenges & threats.

Suggests that meanings and consequences of material forces are not given by nature, but rather driven by human interpretations and understandings.

Idealists seek to apply liberal thinking — institutionalize the rule of law. For a new world order (20th c.), need for the belief that progress is possible, and creation of an international organization.

Referred to by realists as utopianism — underestimates logic of power politics.

Question 5

Identity

Answer 5

Understanding of the self in relationship to an ‘other’. Identities are social, formed in relationship to others, meaning they can change.

Constructivists hold that identities shape interests : we cannot know what we want unless we know who we are.

Question 6

Imperialism

Answer 6

Practice of foreign conquest and rule in the context of global relations of hierarchy and subordination. Can lead to the establishment of an empire.

Question 7

Institutions

Answer 7

Persistent and having connected sets of rules and practices that prescribe roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations of actors.

Question 8

Integration

Answer 8

Process of ever closer union between states, in a regional or international context. Often begins with cooperation.

Question 9

Interdependence

Answer 9

Condition where states (or peoples) are affected by decisions taken by others. Can be symmetric or asymmetric depending on the impact on various actors.

Realists believe interdependence = vulnerability.

Question 10

Intergovernmental organizations

Answer 10

International organization in which full legal membership is open solely to states and the decision-making authority lies with representatives from governments.

Question 11

International law

Answer 11

Formal rules of conduct that states acknowledge or contract between themselves.

Question 12

International Monetary Fund

Answer 12

As of 2010, institution with 186 members, providing extensive technical assistance and short-term flows of stabilization finance to any members experiencing temporarily distressed public finances.

Question 13

International non-governmental organizations

Answer 13

International organization in which membership is open to transnational actors.

Question 14

International order

Answer 14

Normative and institutional pattern in the relationship between states.

Question 15

Internationalization

Answer 15

High levels of international interaction and interdependence, most commonly with regard to the world economy.

Distinguished from globalization, as the latter implies that there are no loger distinct national economies.

Question 16

Liberalism

Answer 16

1. Citizens are juridically equal, with equal rights to education, access to a free press, and religious toleration.
2. Legislative assembly of the state possesses only the authority invested in it by the people, whose basic rights it is not permitted to abuse.
3. Liberty of the individual, with the right to own property.
4. Most effective system of exchange is market-driven, not subordinate to bureaucratic regulation and control.

Question 17

Multipolarity

Answer 17

Distribution of power among a number of major powers, ‘poles’.

Question 18

National interest

Answer 18

Invoked by realists and state leaders to signify that which is most important to the state — survival at the top of the list.

Question 19

Nation-state

Answer 19

Political community in which the state claims legitimacy on the grounds that it represents the nation. It would exist if all members of a single nation were organized in a single state, without the presence of any other national communities.

Question 20

Neo-realism

Answer 20

Modification of the realist approach, by recognizing economic resources (on top of military capabilities) as a basis for exercising influence. Makes realism more ‘scientific’ by borrowing economic and behavioural science models to explain international politics.

Shares three common beliefs with neo-liberalism :

1. Structure of international system = Anarchy
2. States are the central actors of the internation system.
3. Rationalist, positivist approach.

However, neo-realism believes in the importance of relative gains.

Question 21

Non-governmental organization

Answer 21

Group of people relating to each other regularly in a formal manner, engaging in collective action, provided that activities are non-commercial, non-violent and not on behalf of a government. Often altruistic, public interest groups.

Question 22

Non-state actors

Answer 22

Any actor that is not a government.

Question 23

Norms

Answer 23

Specific general standards of behaviour, identify the rights and obligations of states. With principles, they define the essential character of a regime, and cannot be changed without transforming the nature of the regime.

‘Life cycle of norms’

1. Diffusion
2. Socialization
3. Internationalization

Question 24

Postcolonial

Answer 24

Contemporary international and transnational relations of race, migration, ethnicity, culture, knowledge, power and identity.

Question 25

Post-colonial

Answer 25

Study of interactions between European states and the societies they colonized in the modern period.

Question 26

Power

Answer 26

Ability of a political actor to achieve its goal.

In the realist approach, it is assumed that possession of capabilities will result in influence.

Question 27

Realism

Answer 27

Theoretical approach that analyzes IR as the relation of states engaged in the pursuit of power. State-centric approach.

Question 28

Security community

Answer 28

A group of people which has become integrated.

Question 29

Sovereignty

Answer 29

Within its territorial boundaries the state is the supreme political authority, and that outside those boundaries the state recognizes no higher political authority.

A sovereign state must have a government, recognition, territory and population.

Question 30

State

Answer 30

International law : Entity recognized to exist when a government is in control of a population residing within a defined territory. Seen as possessing sovereignty that is recognized.

International politics : A country, community of people who interact in the same political system.

Philosophy and sociology : Apparatus of government, covering the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the administration, the armed forces, the police. For Weber, the monopoly over the legitimate use of force.

Question 31

Terrorism

Answer 31

Use of illegitimate violence by sub-state groups to inspire fear, by attacking civilians and/or symbolic targets in order to draw widespread attention to a grievance, provoke a severe response, wear down opponent’s moral resolve or affect political change.

What is illegitimate and what is legitimate? What constitutes terrorism?

Question 32

Transnational actor

Answer 32

Any civil society actor from one country that has relations with any actor from another country / international organization.

Question 33

Treaties of Westphalia (1648)

Answer 33

End to the Thirty Years War, crucial in delimiting the political rights and authority of European monarchs. Concept of sovereign territoriality developed.

Question 34

Unipolarity

Answer 34

Distribution of power internationally in which there is clearly only one dominant power or ‘pole’.

Some analysts argue that the international system became unipolar in the 1990s since there was no rival to American hegemony.

Question 35

World Trade Organization

Answer 35

Permanent institution covering services, intellectual property, investment issues, pure merchandise trade ; has a disputes settlement mechanism to enforce its free trade agenda.

Question 36

Anarchy

Answer 36

System operating in the absence of any central government.

In realist theory, the absence of political authority.

Question 37

Asymmetrical globalization

Answer 37

Way in which contemporary globalization is unequally experienced across the world and among different social groups.

Produces a distinctive geography of inclusion and exclusion from global system.

Question 38

Balance of power

Answer 38

In realist theory, equilibrium between states. Doctrine and arrangement whereby the power of one state is checked by the countervailing power of other states.

Question 39

Capitalism

Answer 39

System of production in which human labour and its products are commodities that are bought and sold in the market-place.

Question 40

Civil society

Answer 40

1. Totality of all individuals and groups in a society who are not acting as participants in any government institutions.
2. All individuals and groups who are neither participants in government nor acting in interest of commercial companies.

Question 41

Collective security / Common humanity

Answer 41

Each state accepts that the security of one is the concern of all. Agrees to join a collective response to aggression.

Common humanity : Every individual holds human rights and it is the duty of others to assure they are respected.

Question 42

Constructivism

Answer 42

Theory concerning itself with the centrality of ideas and human consciousness ; stresses a holistic and idealist view of structures.

Interest in how the structure constructs the actors’ identities and interests, how their interactions are organized and constrained by that structure, and how their interaction reproduces / transforms that structure.

Question 43

Cosmopolitanism

Answer 43

Identification with a community, culture, or idea that transcends borders or particular societies. Implies freedom.

21st century : Dominant cosmopolitanism is global capitalism, promoting culture informed by market economics, universal human rights and a liberal social culture.

Question 44

Democratic peace theory

Answer 44

Associated with Kant and the liberal internationalist thought, claims that liberal polities (democracies) don’t make war with other liberal polities.

Question 45

Deterritorialization

Answer 45

Process in which the organization of social activities is less constrained by geographical proximity and national territorial boundaries. Permits the expansion of global civil society.

Question 46

Development

Answer 46

Orthodox view : Possibility of unlimited economic growth in a free-market system. Economies reach a ‘take-off’ point, and from then, wealth trickles down. Superiority of the Western model.

Alternative view : Sufficiency. Inherent (essential) value of nature, cultural diversity, global commons. Human activity in balance with nature. Democratic inclusion and participation.

Question 47

Empire

Answer 47

Distinct type of political entity, which may or may not be a state, possession both a home territory and foreign territories.

Question 48

Failed state

Answer 48

State that has collapsed and cannot provide for its citizens without substantial external support, and where the government of the state has ceased to exist inside the territorial borders of the state.

Question 49

Feminism

Answer 49

Political project to understand and change women’s inequality or oppression.

Question 50

Gender

Answer 50

What it means to be male or female in a particular place or time ; social construction of sexual difference.

Question 51

Disaggregated state

Answer 51

Strategic cooperation on critical issues requiring the ceding of sovereignty from several sovereign entities to new institutions without creating a centralized government.

De facto situation of global governance.

Question 52

Rational actor model

Answer 52

Uses the state as the primary unit of analysis. Sees the state as an actor capable of making decisions based on preference ranking and value maximization.

Question 53

Third World

Answer 53

Political project aiming to create ‘real’ independence from the West.

Question 54

Power diffusion

Answer 54

Shift in the balance or the distribution of power between and among states.

Complex, broad process by which different groups across the world become economically more important and politically more mobilized.