PoliSci 369 Final Exam
Ch 14: Rentier State
A state that derives a large percentage of its revenues from the taxation of oil exports (eg. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, etc).
Ch 16: "Tragedy of the Commons"
A term coined by Garrett Hardin to describe situations where human nature, rationality, and political freedoms drive individuals to overuse communal resources. Hardin recommends strong government action to limit population growth to save the earth's resources
Ch 14: Jihadist
A term describing a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim ideology that espouses armed struggle against Western powers and perceived corrupt, un-Islamic governments. Jihadists groups seek to unite the Muslim community and establish government based on "true Islamic" principles.
Ch 11: Microcredit
A way of increasing financial inclusion is by extending microcredit to the poor to give them a chance to participate in the market economy. The idea of microcredit is that development can grow from bottom up.
Ch 16: Kyoto Protocol
Agreed to in 1997, established carbon emissions goals for all industrialized countries. States agreed to achieve these goals by 2012. The US did not ratify it. Protocol officially came into effect in 2005 (nonbinding).
Ch 13: Demonetization
An Indian government program that began in late 2016 that removed high-value currency notes from circulation. By stripping 1,000 and 500-rupee notes of their status as legal tender, the government aimed to crack down on black market wealth and increase tax revenues (under Modi).
Ch 16: Paris Agreement on Climate Change
An agreement reached by 195 countries in 2015 to combat climate change. Among other things, signatories aim to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and reach the peak of global carbon emissions soon followed by rapid reductions. Countries can decide themselves how to implement their emissions reductions.
Ch 13: Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)
An economic integration scheme established by BRICs (namely Russia) in 2015, with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgzstan to "counter the EU's Eastern Partnership and to boost Russia's global stance by making it the leader of a key regional organization.
Ch 16: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
An environmental treaty signed at the 1992 Earth Summit and later modified, resulting in the Kyoto Protocol.
Ch 16: Climate Change
An increase in the temperature of the earth's atmosphere due to human activity. Some contest the scientific evidence of warming.
Ch 16: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
An intergovernmental body established in 1988 by the UN Environmental Programme and he World Meteorological Association with a mandate to assess scientific information on climate change. Its periodic reports, written by scientists from around the world, are influential in shaping policy making and international negotiations on climate change.
Ch 11: Developmental State
An interventionist government that uses financial, fiscal, and investment policies to foster rapid industrialization. It bureaucracy guides private sector investments, supports industries most likely to promote national development, and encourages exports by private companies. The term is usually used to describe four post-WWII Asian states: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Ch 16: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
An organization of nations formed in 1960 to advance the interests of Third World oil exporters. Since 1973, OPEC members have coordinated production levels in order to reach and maintain targeted international oil prices.
Ch 11: Debt Service Ratio
Annual payments of principal plus interest as a percentage of exports. The ratio of a country's annual payments of principal and interest on foreign debt to the country's annual export earnings. Countries with high debt service ratios cannot sustain them for very long and have to reschedule the debt, seek loan forgiveness, or secure new loans to cover payments on previous loans.
Ch 13: BRICS
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa --five emerging market economies with large populations and prospects for becoming major global or regional powers in coming years. The countries, which often coordinate policies in international organizations, established a New Development Bank to fund infrastructure projects in developing countries.
Ch 15: Arbitrage
Buying a product at a lower-price market in order to sell it in a higher-price market. When a state's laws, taxes, and regulations make the price of a good in its country much higher than in neighboring countries, smuggling tends to occur.
Ch 15: Name-and-shame Campaigns
Campaigns by advocacy groups to bring negative international publicity to certain companies and countries to pressure them to change practices that are perceived to be illegal or unethical.
Ch 15: Secrecy Jurisdiction
Countries and territories such as Switzerland, the British Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas with strong banking privacy laws and rules that allow companies to register without declaring their real beneficial owners.
Ch 15: Tax Havens
Countries and territories that have strong banking laws, low corporate tax rates, and relatively light corporate regulations. These sovereign jurisdictions attract tax evaders who wish to hide their earnings from their home govt. or avoid inquiries into the (often illegal) sources of their income.
Ch 17: Asylum Seekers
Displaced people who cannot return to their home country because of fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in particular social group, or political beliefs.
Ch 11: Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)
Economic austerity policies and free-market reforms in less developed countries intended to establish a foundation for future economic growth. The IMF and the World Bank often force developing countries to adopt SAPs as a condition for receiving loans and other financial assistance.
Ch 16: Fracking
Formally called hydraulic fracturing. A process whereby highly pressurized fluids are injected into underground rock formations to fracture the rocks and release natural gas and oil that is then collected at the earth's surface. Widespread use of the process caused US production of natural gas to rise after 2009.
Ch 13: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
In 2015, China spearheaded the establishment of the AIIB, in part because it felt that its power in the World Bank and IMF were not commensurate with its global economic standing.
Ch 13: Demographic Dividend
In India, a large young population. The future accelerated economic growth expected when a country such as India or Turkey transitions to having a population in which the share of healthy working-age individuals is larger than the share of children and the elderly.
Ch 14: Peshmerga
Iraqi Kurdish forces that have been very effective in fighting against ISIS, but in the process have seized control of more territory in Iraq.
Ch 13: National Champions
Key domestic companies or industries that a government nurtures for long-term development through subsidies, trade protection, and other forms of support. Although some national champions become globally competitive, they tend to reduce competition in their home economy. In Russia, these were: energy, minerals, automotive, aerospace, and defense sectors that Putin nurtured.
Ch 11: HIPC Initiative
Launched by creditors under the direction of the World Bank in 1996 after pressure from the popular movements in both the North and South. The goal was to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries, but in 1999 only four countries had received debt relief, and the rise in interest payments owed on the debt wiped out any gains.
Ch 14: Civil Society
Made up of autonomous social groups such as private businesses, the press, labor, and voluntary associations that historically have been forces for political liberalization.
Ch 14: Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs)
Many Middle East investments come from sovereign wealth funds, which are large investment pools controlled by the governments of resource-rich countries.
Ch 11: Export-Oriented Industrialization (EOI)
Mercantilist-oriented strategy calls for the state to promote exports in selected sectors of the economy.
Ch 14: Remittances
Money transferred by foreign workers to their home countries--also connect people in Europe and the Middle East. Payments made by migrant workers to family or friends in their country of origin. Some experts believe that these transfers of money help alleviate poverty and spur economic growth in developing countries.
Ch 13: Bolsa Familia
Part of President Lula's Zero Hunger program, conditional cash transfer program (family grant), which provides cash assistance to needy families--but only if they meet certain conditions like school attendance, vaccinations, and regular medical and dental care for children. This program sharply reduced absolute poverty and improved health and education for young people.
Ch 17: Migrants
People who are living in a country other than their country of birth. As the term is normally used in the media, it describes poor people who have voluntarily left their country in search of economic opportunities or desperate people who have fled their country seeking safety elsewhere.
Ch 17: Internally Displaced People (IDPs)
People who have been forced from their homes due to violence or natural disaster and who are still living within the borders of their own country.
Ch 17: Displaced People
People who have fled from or been forced out of their homes--often because of war, famine, or natural disaster. They may be displaced to a foreign country or to another area in their own country.
Ch 17: Refugees
People who have fled their country of origin because of natural disaster, fear of persecution, or violence.
Ch 13: Floating Population
Poor peasants from China's rural areas who have migrated to big cities where they often work for relatively low wages in factories and the service sector. Estimated as numbering over 250 million, the migrants are often exploited and denied social welfare benefits because the government has not officially authorized them to reside in urban areas.
Ch 14: Arab Spring
Protests and popular uprisings that started in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and several other Arab countries in 2011, causing regime changes and/or sparking civil war.
Ch 13: Green Revolution
Scientific and economic programs in the 1960s that increased food production in India, introducing hybrid seeds, high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, fertilizers, and modern farming techniques. Played an important role in stimulating investments in irrigation, transportation, and manufacturing of fertilizers and agrochemicals. Shifted India's subsistence agriculture to a more capitalist model of farming.
Ch 14: Petrodollar Recycling
Since 1973, the system whereby oil exporters recirculate their oil revenues through the global financial system by importing goods, purchasing foreign financial assets, or parking revenues in foreign banks (which then lend money to governments and private borrowers).
Ch 13: Glasnost
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev responded to declining productivity and sluggish technological innovation with policies of glasnost or openness meant to reform communism, but regimes in Eastern Europe began to collapse in 1989 and by 1991 the Soviet Union had broken up into 15 separate countries.
Ch 13: Perestroika
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev responded to declining productivity and sluggish technological innovation with policies of perestroika or restructuring meant to reform communism, but regimes in Eastern Europe began to collapse in 1989 and by 1991 the Soviet Union had broken up into 15 separate countries.
Ch. 11: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Spearheaded by the G-77 in 1964, holds a major conference every 4 years and is a mechanism for negotiations between the LDCs and the developed countries. Despite developed countries' resistance to UNCTAD initiatives, LDCs were gradually able to secure concessions and preferential tariffs for their exports.
Ch 16: Earth Summit
The 1992 meeting in Rio de Janeiro that focused on ways to sustain economic development while preserving the environment. At the meeting, 153 states signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, an agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions that resulted in the Kyoto Protocol in 1996.
Ch 16: Peak Oil
The controversial idea that the world's production of oil will reach a max level, after which it will gradually decline to zero. Experts disagree on when the impacts on oil prices and society will be when global production starts to go down.
Ch 11: Capital Mobility
The free movement of funds into and out of a country. These investment funds come primarily from foreign direct investment, commercial bank loans, and purchases of stocks and bonds.
Ch 14: Islamic State (ISIS)
The jihadist group that seized control of parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and declared a caliphate (was eventually forced out by the end of 2017).
Ch 11: Grameen Bank
The most famous example of microcredit, founded in Bangladesh by Professor Muhammad Yunus in 1976.
Ch 11: Washington Consensus
The neoliberal viewpoint, often evidenced in the recommendations of the US Treasury Department, the World Bank, and the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s, that less developed countries should adopt policies to reduce inflation, lower government budget deficits, privatize state enterprises, and deregulate markets.
Ch 15: Commercialization of Sovereignty
The process whereby a state sells commercial privileges, diplomatic passports, and other protections to citizens and companies from other states.
Ch 14: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
The six countries of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar--are deeply integrated into the global economy not just through oil exports and SWFs but also via their labor markets.
Ch 15: Socially Responsible Investing
Voluntary efforts by investors to avoid certain types of companies and countries they perceive to be socially or environmentally unethical, such as those involved in land expropriation, human rights abuses, or unsustainable environmental practices.
Ch 15: Profit Paradox
When law enforcement tries to ban an item for which there is high demand (e.g. drugs), the reduction in supply drives up prices in the short term, but this bolsters profits for those willing to illegally supply the item, thus encouraging others to enter the illegal business. Thus, the temporary reduction in supply is reversed as criminals find ways around the ban.
Ch. 11: Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
measures overlapping forms of deprivation related to health, education, and standard of living.
Ch 13: Belt and Road Initiative
A Chinese initiative concerning Asian countries. Announced in 2013, the Belt part involves building transportation and energy infrastructure throughout the Eurasian landmass to connect China to Europe. The Road part involves building new ports and facilities along maritime trade routes to better connect China to Africa and the Middle East.
Ch 14: Muslim Brotherhood
A Sunni Muslim Organization established in Egypt in 1928 and which today has branches in many Arab countries that operate as political parties and offer social services to the poor. The brotherhood is the main political opposition to the govt. in Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestine Authority.
Ch 17: World Health Organization (WHO)
A UN agency established in 1946 that directs and coordinates international public health initiatives, often in partnership with govts., NGOs, and private foundations. Also monitors global health trends and provides expertise to govts. to help achieve national health objectives.
Ch 17: Unites Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
A UN agency with a staff of more than 10,000 that provides emergency assistance and protection to millions of displaced people around the world and helps return them home or resettle in another country.
Ch 14: Oil for Food Program
A UN program imposed on Iraq after the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) that allowed the country to sell some of its oil in international markets in exchange for income to buy imported food and emergency aid supplies. The controversial program was plagued with corruption and blamed for causing many Iraqis to die from malnutrition and disease.
Ch 17: White Helmets
A common name for the Syrian Civil Defense, a large group of volunteer rescue workers who work in rebel-held areas of Syria, saving civilians in buildings that have been bombed and tending to people injured during fighting.
Ch 11: Middle Income Trap
A condition wherein after a period of rapid growth their per-capita GDP gets stuck in the range of $1,000 to $12,000 for many years, if not decades. In order to become a high income country, these countries need to upgrade their industries.
Ch 16: Cap-and-trade
A controversial mechanism introduced in the Kyoto Protocol that permits countries to buy and sell carbon emissions allowances in the international market or swap them with one another. States would not be allowed to go over their carbon emissions cap without purchasing (or trading for) a portion of another state's emissions quota.
Ch 11: Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs)
A designation for some forty of the world's poorest countries-mostly in Africa-whose governments have run up relatively high levels of commercial and multilateral foreign debt.
Ch. 11: New International Economic Order (NIEO)
A failed attempt in 1974 to establish a new international economic order that was designed to accelerate the pace of development. Industrialized nations saw this as trying to undermine the market-oriented global system and redistributed global wealth and power.
Ch 15: Anti-kleptocracy norm
A global norm that obliges states to prevent corrupt money from entering their financial system and to return corrupt money to the countries from which govt. officials stole it.
Ch 16: Cartel
A group of firms or nations that cooperate with on each other to control the production level and price of a commodity that has a limited number of supply sources. OPEC is an example of an oil cartel that in 1973 drove up the price of oil to punish states that supported Israel during its Six-Day War with Arab states.
Ch 11: Import-Substitution Industrialization (ISI)
A nationalistic strategy designed to minimize the adverse effects of dependence on foreign capital and markets (adopted by Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, and Algeria).
Ch 16: Sustainable Development
A pattern of economic development that is consistent with the goal of non-degradation of the environment. To implement this form of development requires politically difficult trade-offs btwn economic growth and environmental protection.
Ch 14: Conspiracism
A political culture widespread in Iran and Arab countries that blames covert Western and Israeli manipulation for regional and national problems. Some scholars worry that this mind-set encourages extremism by engendering permanent suspicion toward the West and Israel.
Ch 15: Restriction-opportunity Dilemma
A situation in which efforts to ban goods in high demand (e.g. drugs or guns) are often counterproductive because they make the black market provision of the goods more profitable.
Ch 13: Oligarchs
A small number of individuals with huge influence in the economy, government, and the media emerged in Russia during the early 1990s. A handful of local investors that bought important sectors of the Russian economy in the early 1990s and who had ties to the government.