Political Science Final

Quota

An import quota is a limit on the quantity of a good that can be produced abroad and sold domestically.[1] It is a type of protectionist trade restriction that sets a physical limit on the quantity of a good that can be imported into a country in a given period of time. If a quota is put on a good, less of it is imported. [2] Quotas, like other trade restrictions, are used to benefit the producers of a good in a domestic economy at the expense of all consumers of the good in that economy.

Import Substitution

Import substitution industrialization (ISI) is a trade and economic policy which advocates replacing foreign imports with domestic production.[1] ISI is based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialized products.

BRIC's

In economics, BRIC is a grouping acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development. It is typically rendered as "the BRICs" or "the BRIC countries" or "the BRIC economies" or alternatively as the "Big Four". A related acronym, BRICS, includes South Africa

Gold Standard

A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. Three types may be distinguished: specie, exchange, and bullion.

Tariffs

A tariff is a tax on imports or exports

Economic Liberalism

Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in organizing the economy on individualist lines, meaning that the greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by individuals and not by collective institutions or organizations

Free Trade

Free trade is a policy in international markets in which governments do not restrict imports or exports. Free trade is exemplified by the European Union / European Economic Area and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which have established open markets.

Montreal Protocol

International treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion

Protectionism

Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states (countries) through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow (according to proponents) fair competition between imports and goods and services produced domestically.

Quality Standards

Quality control is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements

Name five of the world's leading oil producers

Saudi Arabia, United States, Russia, China, Canada

1959 Antarctica Treaty

Sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, establishes freedom of scientific investigation and bans military activity on that continent. The treaty was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War. The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat headquarters have been located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since September 2004.

Structural reforms

Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) consist of loans provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to countries that experienced economic crises.[1] The two Bretton Woods Institutions require borrowing countries to implement certain policies in order to obtain new loans (or lower interest rates on existing ones). The conditionality clauses attached to the loans have been criticized because of their effects on the social sector.[1]

Four Tigers

The Asian Tigers or Asian Dragons is a term used in reference to the highly free and developed economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. These nations and areas were notable for maintaining exceptionally high growth rates (in excess of 7 percent a year) and rapid industrialization between the early 1960s and 1990s.

Bretton Woods

The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II

Gatt

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a multilateral agreement regulating international trade. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." It was negotiated during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO) 23 nations

IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., in the United States, of 188 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.[1] Formed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international payment system.

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) man-made CO2 emissions have caused it.

Litani

The Litani is a small river and flows entirely inside Lebanon, therefore it is a „Lebanese River", but the Israelis wanted always to use its water even before the establishment of the state of Israel. The Zionist movement, which recognised the importance of water in the area from the very beginning, included the river in the borders of the "to be established" state of Israel at that time. These borders included also all the main water resources in the area: the complete Jordan River System (including Yarmuk, Dan, Banias, Hasbani rivers, Lake Tiberias, Dead Sea, etc.), Golan Heights, all water resources in Palestine, etc. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978 was called „Litani Operation".

The Nile

The Nile is the longest river in the world. It originates from the central African countries and from Ethiopia and ends in the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt after passing through Sudan. Most of the Nile water comes from Ethiopia, and the current conflict over the river is mainly between Egypt and Sudan on one side with Ethiopia on the other. The Ethiopians want to construct dams on the Nile tributaries inside their country (especially on the Blue Nile, which supplies the Nile with around 60% of the its water). This is seen by Egypt as a dangerous development since the country depends almost entirely on the water of the river.

WTO

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948.

Euro zone

The financial crisis of 2007-08 prompted a number of reforms in the eurozone. One was a u-turn on the eurozone's bailout policy that led to the creation of a specific fund to assist eurozone states in trouble. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM) were created in 2010 to provide, alongside the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a system and fund to bail out members. However the EFSF and EFSM were temporary, small and lacked a basis in the EU treaties. Therefore, it was agreed in 2011 to establish a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) which would be much larger, funded only by eurozone states (not the EU as a whole as the EFSF/EFSM were) and would have a permanent treaty basis. As a result of that its creation involved agreeing an amendment to TEFU Article 136 allowing for the ESM and a new ESM treaty to detail how the ESM would operate. If both are successfully ratified according to schedule, the ESM would be operational by the time the EFSF/EFSM expire in mid-2013.

Resource Curse

The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.

Euphrates and Tigris Rivers

Turkey is in a serious dispute with Syria and Iraq over the two rivers. The Turkish are implementing a huge water project called GAP (South Eastern Anatolian Project), in which 22 dams and 19 power plants are to be built on the two rivers. Many of them are already built and caused substantial reduction in the water quantities flowing to Syria and Iraq. The two countries see that as a serious threat to their water supplies, because the two rivers make 98% of the water resources in Iraq and 90% of Syria's water resources.

Name five of the world's leading oil consumers

United States, Russia, India, Canada, Saudi Arabia

Mercantilism

an economic system developing during the decay of feudalism to unify and increase the power and especially the monetary wealth of a nation by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy usually through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion, a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies

Christina Legrade

the Managing Director (MD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 5 July 2011