Chapter 1. The Globalization of International Relations

summit meeting

A meeting between heads of state, often referring to leaders of great powers, as in the Cold War superpower summits between the U.S. and the Soviet Union or today's meetings of the Group of Eight on economic coordination.

containment

A policy adopted in the late 1940's by which the U.S. sought to halt the global expansion of Soviet influence on several levels -- military, political, ideological and economic.

dominance

A principle for solving a collective goods problem by imposing solutions hierarchically.

identity

A principle for solving collective goods problems by changing participants' preferences based on their shared sense of belonging to a community.

reciprocity

A response in kind to another's actions; a strategy of reciprocity uses positive forms of leverage to promise rewards and negative forms of leverage to threaten punishment.

Sino-Soviet split

A rift in the 1960s between the communist powers of the Soviet Union and China, fueled by China's opposition to Soviet moves towards peaceful coexistence with the U.S.

international security

A subfield of international relations (IR) that focuses on questions of war and peace.

Cuban missile crisis, 1962

A superpower crisis, sparked by the Soviet Union's installation of medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, that marks the moment when the U.S. and the Soviet Union came closest to nuclear war.

Munich Agreement

A symbol of the failed policy of appeasement, this agreement, signed in 1938, allowed Nazi Germany to occupy part of Czechoslovakia. Rather than appease German aspirations, it was followed by further German expansions, which triggered World War II.

collective goods problem

A tangible or intangible good, created by the members in a group, that is available to all group members regardless of their individual contributions; participants can gain by lowering their own contribution to the collective good, yet if too many participants do so, the good can not be provided.

nongovernmental organization (NGO)

A transnational group or entity (such as the Catholic church, Greenpeace or the International Olympic Committee) that interacts with states, multinational corporations (MNCs), other NGOs and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs).

nonstate actors

Actors other than state governments that operate either below the level of government (that is, within states) or across state borders.

state

An inhabited territorial entity controlled by a government that exercises sovereignty on its own territory.

intergovernmental organization (IGE)

An organization (such as the United Nation and its agencies) whose members are state governments.

League of Nations

An organization established after World War I and a forerunner of today's United Nations; it achieved certain humanitarian and other successes but was weakened by the absence of U.S. membership and by its own lack of effectiveness in ensuring collective security. President Woodrow Wilson led the effort to create.

issue areas

Distinct spheres of international activity (such as international trade negotiation) within which policy makers of various states face conflicts and sometimes achieve cooperation.

nation-states

States whose populations share a sense of national identity, usually including language and culture.

North-South gap

The disparity in resources (income, wealth, power) between the industrialized, relatively rich countries of the West (and former East) and the poorer countries of Africa, the Middle East, much of Asia, and Latin America.

Cold War

The hostile relations--punctuated by occasional periods of improvement--between the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1990.

globalization

The increasing integration of the world in terms of communication, culture and economics; may also refer to changing subjective experiences of space and time accompanying this process.

international relations

The relationships among the world's state governments and the connection of those relationships with other actors (such as the United Nations, multinational corporations and individuals), with other social relationships (including economics, culture and domestic politics), and with geographic and historical influences.

international system

The set of relationships among the world states, structured by certain rules and patterns of interaction.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The size of a state's total annual economic activity.

international political economy (IPE)

The study of politics of trade, monetary and other economic relations among nations, and their connection to other transnational forces.

conflict and cooperation

The types of actions that states take toward each other through time.

proxy wars

Wars in the third world--often civil wars--in which the United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for position by supplying and advising opposing factions.