Nau - Introduction and Chapter 1
Bargaining
Negotiating to distribute gains that are zero-sum (that is, what one side gains, the other loses).
Ethics and morality
Standards of good conduct for human behavior.
Process tracing
A method of connecting events to identify cause and effect.
Agent-oreinted constructivism
An identity perspective that allows for greater influence on the part of independent actors in shaping identities.
Geopolitics
A focus on a country's location and geography as the basis of its national interests.
Prisoner's dilemma
A game in which two prisoners rationally choose not to cooperate in order to avoid even worse outcomes.
Counterfactual reasoning
A method of testing claims for casualty by asking what might have happened if one event had not occurred.
International regime
A network of international institutions or groups not under the authority of a single organizations.
Constructivism
A perspective that emphasizes ideas, such as the content of language and social discourse, over institutions or power.
Liberal perspective
A perspective that emphasizes repetitive relationships and negotiations, establishing patterns or institutions for resolving international conflicts.
Identity perspective
A perspective that emphasizes the casual importance of the ideas and identities of actors, which motivate their use of power and negotiations.
Critical theory perspective
A perspective that focuses on deeply embedded forces from all perspectives and levels of analysis.
Realist perspective
A perspective that sees the world largely in terms of struggle for relative power in which strong actors seek to dominate and weak actors seek to resist.
Relativism
A portion that holds that truth and morality are relative to each individual or culture and that one should "live and let live". The quote suggests that you should tolerate the opinions and behaviour of others so that they will similarly tolerate your own.
Universalism
A position that holds that truth and morality are universal and cannot be adjusted to specific circumstances.
Path dependence
A process emphasized by liberal perspectives in which decisions in a particular direction affect later decisions, accumulating advantages or disadvantages along a certain path.
Power balancing
A school of realism that sees hegemony as destabilizing and war as most likely when a dominant power emerges to threaten the equilibrium of power among other states.
Power transition
A school of realism that sees hegemony as stabilizing and war as most likely when a rising power challenges a previously dominant one and the balance of power approaches the equilibrium.
Compellence
A set of actions or positions that force an opponent to take some action desired by the initial actor. It is the opposite of deterrence, in which the actions are intended to prevent an opponent from taking some action.
Hegemony
A situation in which one country is more powerful than all the others.
Correlation
A situation in which one fact or events occurs in the same context as another fact or event but is not necessarily linked to or caused by it.
Multicollinearity
A statistical situtation in which multiple variables are all highly correlated with one another.
Perspective
A statement or a hypothesis that explains the primary cause of what is happening - for example, a struggle for power causes conflict and sometimes war.
Unilateralism / Minilateralism
Action by one or several states but not by all states.
Communicative action
An exchange of ideas free of material and institutional influence to establish validity claims.
Social constructivism
An identity perspective in which states and other actors acquire their identities from intersubjective discourses in which they know who they are only by reference to others.
Casual arrow
An indicator of which perspective or level of analysis influences the other perspectives and levels of analysis more than the reverse.
Exogenous variables
Autonomous factors that come from outside a theoretical model or system and that cannot be explained by the system.
Collective goods
Benefits such as clean air, that are indivisible (they exist for all or for none) and cannot be appropriated (their consumption by one party does not diminish their consumption by another). Some examples include public safety and clean air.
Endogenous variables
Casual variables that are included n a theoretical model or framework.
Epistemic communities
Communities of individuals or countries that share a broad base of common knowledge and trust.
Diplomacy
Discussions and negotiations among states as emphasized by the liberal perspective.
Causation
Explaining events in terms of one another rather than just describing them.
Alliances
Formal defense arrangements wherein states align against a greater power to prevent dominance.
International institutions
Formal international organizations and informal regimes that establish common rules to regularize international contacts and communications.
IGOs
Formal international organizations by governments. Examples include the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Criminal Court.
Beliefs
Ideas about how the world works as emphasized by identity perspectives.
Belief system
Ideas about how the world works that influence the behavior of policy makers.
Values
Ideas that express deep moral convictions.
Norms
Ideas that govern the procedural or substantive terms of state behavior, such as reciprocity and human rights.
Shared identities
Identities that overlap and fuse baed on norms and images that cannot be traced back to specific identities or their interrelationships.
Relative identities
Identities that positions actors' self-images with respect to one another as similar or dissimilar.
Intrastate wars vs. Interstate wars
Intrastate wars occur within the state. Insterstate wars are much more common. Interstate wars happen between different states.
Rational methods
Methods that disaggregate and explain events sequentially as one event preceding and causing a second event. X causes Y.
Constructive methods
Methods that see events as mutually causing or constituting one another rather than causing one another sequentially. X and Y mutually cause and constitute one another.
NGOs
Nonstate actors such as student, tourist, and professional associations that are not subject to direct government control.
Ideal types
Perspectives or simplified characterizations of theories that emphasize the most important aspects of reality, not all of its intricacies and variations.
Preemptive war vs. Preventive war
Preemptive war is an attack by one country against another that is preparing to attack first. Preventive war is an attack by a country against another that is not preparing to attack it but is growing in power and is likely to attack at some point in the future.
Construction of identities
Process of discourse by which actors define who they are and how they behave toward one another.
3 principal perspectives
Realist perspective claims that a struggle for power is the primary cause of what happens in international affairs. Liberal perspective argues that interactions, interdependence, and institutions exert the primary influence on world events. Identity perspective states that ideas are more important than power or institutions in shaping International outcomes
Transnational relations
Relations among nongovernmental, as opposed to governmental, authorities.
Human rights
Rights concerning the most basic protections against human physical abuse and suffering.
Human security
Security concern that focuses on violence within states and local levels, particularly violence against women and minorities.
Psychological studies
Studies that emphasize ideas that define actor personalities, although the ideas may be conscious but subconscious and sometimes irrational.
Deterrence
The action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.
States
The actors in the contemporary system that have the largest capabilities and right to use military force.
Technological change
The application of science and engineering to increase wealth and alter human society.
Soft power
The attractiveness of values or ideas of a country as distinct from its military and economic power or its negotiating power.
Reciprocity
The behavior of states toward one another based largely on mutual exchanges that entail interdependent benefits or disadvantages.
Judgement
The broader assessment of what makes sense after one accumulates as many facts and tests as many perspectives as possible.
International law
The customary rules and codified treaties under which international organizations operate; covers political, economic, and social rights.
Anarchy
The decentralized distribution power in the International system; no leader or center to monopolize power.
Level of analysis
The direction, or "level", from which the primary cause of events is coming.
Collective security
The establishment of common institutions and rules among states to settle disputes peacefully and to enforce agreements by a preponderance, not a balance, of power.
Methods
The formal rules of reason (rationalist) or appropriateness (constructive) for testing perspectives against facts.
Pragmatism
The idea that morality is proportionate to what is possible and causes the least harm.
External identity
The identity of a country that derives from its unique national self-reflection and memory.
Multilateralism
The inclusion of all states in international diplomacy.
Power
The material capabilities of a country, such as size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, and military strength.
Interdependence
The mutual dependence of states and non state actors in the international system through conferences, trade, tourism, and the like.
Civil society
The nongovernmental sector.
Polarity
The number of states - unipolar (1), bipolar (2), tricolor (3), or multipolar (more than 3) - holding significant power in the international system.
Self-help
The principle of self-defense under anarchy in which states have no one to rely on to defend their security except themselves.
Distribution of identities
The relative relationship of identities among actors in their similarities and differences.
Legitimacy
The right to use power in international affairs.
Security Dilemma
The situation that states face when they arm to defend themselves and in the process threaten other states.
Balance of power
The strategy by which states counterbalance to ensure that no single state dominates the system or an outcome that establishes a rough equilibrium among states.
Global governance
The system of various international institutions and great powers groups that in a loose sense govern the global system.
Modernization
The transformation of human society from self-contained autarchic centers of agrarian society to highly specialized and interdependent units of modern society.
Defense
The use of force to defend a country after an attack.
Cooperation
Working to achieve a better outcome for some that does not hurt others.