Midterm 1

Question 1

global politics

Answer 1

the politics of global social relations in which the pursuit of power, interests, order, and justice transcends regions and continents

Question 2

capitalism

Answer 2

a system of production in which human labour and its products are commodities that are bought and sold in the market-place. A part of Marxist theory.

Question 3

non-governmental organization (NGO)

Answer 3

any group of people relating to each other regularly in some formal manner and engaging in collective action, provided that the activities are non-commercial, non-violent and are not on behalf of a government.

Question 4

nation-state

Answer 4

a political community in which the state claims legitimacy in the grounds that it represents the nation. the nation-state would exist if nearly all the members of a single nation were organized in a single state, without any other national communities being present.

Question 5

balance of power

Answer 5

It is a doctrine and an arrangement whereby the power of one state (or group of states) is checked by the countervailing power of other states.

Question 6

time-space compression

Answer 6

the technologically induced erosion of distance and time giving the appearance of a work that is in communication terms shrinking

Question 7

disaggregated state

Answer 7

the tendency for states to become increasingly fragmented actors in global politics as every part of the government machine becomes entangled with its foreign counterparts and others in dealing with global issues through proliferating transgovernmental and globe policy networks.

Question 8

civil society

Answer 8

the totality of all individuals and groups in a society who are not acting as participants in any government institutions

Question 9

market failures

Answer 9

results from the inability of the market to produce goods which require collaborative strategies.

Question 10

anarchy

Answer 10

a system operating in the absence of any central government. Does not imply chaos, but in realist theory the absence of political authority.

Question 11

Treaty of Westphalia 1648

Answer 11

threaty that ended the Thirty Years War and and established main modern political methods: method of peace negotiation, where all participants meet to settle the problems of war and decide the terms of peace; Europe was aknowledged as the group pf independent states. The main points of the Constitution of Westphalia are autonomy, sovereignty and territoriality.

Question 12

collective security

Answer 12

refers to an arrangement where “each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to aggression”.

Question 13

Versailles Peace Treaty

Answer 13

the Treaty of Versailles formally ended the First World War (1914-18). The Treaty established the League of Nations, specified the rights and obligations of victorious and defeated powers (including the notorious regime of reparations on Germany), and created the “Mandatories” system under which “advanced nations” were given legal tutelage over colonial peoples.

Question 14

fourteen points

Answer 14

president Woodrow Wilson’s vision of international society, first articulated in January 1918, included the principle of self-determination, the conduct of diplomacy on an open (not secret) basis, and the establishment of an association of nations to provide guarantees of independence and territorial integrity. Wilson’s ideas exerted an important influence on the Pari Peace Conference, though the principle of self-determination was only selectively pursued when it came to American colonial interests.

Question 15

Enlightenment

Answer 15

associated with rationalist thinkers of the 18th century. Key idea (which some would argue remain mottoes for our age) include: secularism, progress, reason, science, knowledge, and freedom. The motto of the Enlightenment is: “Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding”.

Question 16

clash of civilizations

Answer 16

controversial idea first used by Samuel Huntington in 1993 to describe the main cultural fault-line of international conflict in a world without communism; the notion has become more popular still since 9/11.

Question 17

cold war

Answer 17

extended worldwide conflict between communism and capitalism that is normally taken to have begun in 1947 and concluded in 1989 with the collapse of Soviet power in Europe.

Question 18

superpowers

Answer 18

term used to describe the US and the USSR after 1945, denoting their global political involvements and military capabilities, including in particular their nuclear arsenals.

Question 19

ostpolitik

Answer 19

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

Question 20

global south

Answer 20

an imprecise term that refers both to countries once called Third World and to the movement of peoples in the present time within Third World areas of the world and to advanced industrialized countries

Question 21

weapons of mass destruction

Answer 21

a category defined by the UN in 1948 to include “atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effects to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above”.

Question 22

imperialism

Answer 22

the practice of foreign conquest and rule in the context of global relations of hierarchy and subordination. It can lead to the establishment of an empire.

Question 23

relations of production

Answer 23

in Marxist theory, relations of production link and organize the means of production process. They involve both the technical and institutional relationships necessary to allow the production process to proceed, as well as the broader structures that govern the control of the means of production, and control of the end product(s) of that process. Private property and wage labour are two of the key features of the relations of production in capitalist society.

Question 24

responsibility to protect

Answer 24

states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens, but when they are unable or unwilling to do so this responsibility is transferred to the society of state.

Question 25

means of production

Answer 25

in Marxist theory, these are the elements that combine in the production process. They include labour as well as tools and technology available during any given historical period.