Absolute gains all states seek to gain more power and influence in the system to secure their national interests This is absolute gain Offensive neo realists are also concerned with increasing power relative to other states One must have enough power to secure interests and more power than any other state in the system friend or foe Abuse states justify self interested wars by reference to humanitarian principles Agent structure problem the problem is how to think about the relationship between agents and structures One view is that agents are born with already formed identities and interests and then treat other actors and the broad structure that their interactions produce as a constraint on their interests But this suggests that actors are pre social to the extent that there is little interest in their identities or possibility that they might change their interests through their interactions with others Another view is to treat the structure not as a constraint but rather as constituting the actors themselves Yet this might treat agents as cultural dupes because they are nothing more than artefacts of that structure The proposed solution to the agent structure problem is to try and find a way to understand how agents and structures constitute each other Anarchic system the ordering principle of international politics according to Realism and that which defines its structure Anarchy a system operating in the absence of any central government Does not imply chaos but in Realist theory the absence of political authority Anti foundationalist positions argue that there are never neutral grounds for asserting what is true in any given time or space Our theories of world define what counts as the facts and so there is no neutral position available to determine between rival claims Apartheid system of racial segregation introduced in South Africa in 1948 designed to ensure white minority domination Appeasement a policy of making concessions to a revanchist or otherwise territorially acquisitive state in the hope that settlement of more modest claims will assuage that state s expansionist appetites Appeasement remains most in famously associated with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain s acquiescence to Hitler s incursions into Austria and then Czechoslovakia culminating in the Munich Agreement of September 1938 Since then appeasement has generally been seen as synonymous with a craven collapse before the demands of dictators encouraging not disarming their aggressive designs ASEAN a geopolitical and economic organization of several countries located in South East Asia Initially formed as a display of solidarity against Communism its aims now have been redefined and broadened to include the acceleration of economic growth and the promotion of regional peace By 2005 the ASEAN countries had a combined GDP of about 884 billion Asymmetrical globalization describes the way in which contemporary globalization is unequally experienced across the world and among different social groups in such a way that it produces a distinctive geography of inclusion in and exclusion from the global system Axis of evil phrase deliberately used by George W Bush in January 2001 to characterize Iran North Korea and Iraq Balance of power in Realist theory refers to an equilibrium between states historical Realists regard it as the product of diplomacy contrived balance whereas structural Realists regard the system as having a tendency towards a natural equilibrium fortuitous balance 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 Bank for International Settlements established in 1930 with headquarters in Basle Membership 2004 of 55 shareholding central banks although many other public financial institutions also use BIS facilities Promotes cooperation among central banks and provides various services for global financial operations For example the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision formed through the BIS in 1974 has spearheaded efforts at multilateral regulation of global banking See further www bis org Battle of the sexes a scenario in game theory illustrating the need for a coordination strategy Battlespace in the era of aircraft and satellites the traditional battlefield has given way to the three dimensional battlespace Bipolarity term employed by scholars of International Relations to describe the post war order before the USSR fell apart in 1991 leaving the United States as the sole superpower Bond a contractual obligation of a corporation association or governance agency to make payments of interest and repayments of principal on borrowed funds at certain fixed times Breadwinner a traditionally masculine role of working in the public sphere for wages and providing for the economic needs of the family Brezhnev doctrine declaration by Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in November 1968 that members of the Warsaw Pact would enjoy only limited sovereignty in their political development It was associated with the idea of limited sovereignty for Soviet bloc nations which was used to justify the crushing of the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968 Capabilities the resources that are under an actor s direct control such as population and size of territory resources economic strength military capability and competence Waltz 1979 131 Capacity building providing the funds and technical training to allow developing countries to participate in global environmental governance Capitalism a system of production in which human labour and its products are commodities that are bought and sold in the marketplace In Marxist analysis the capitalist mode of production involved a specific set of social relations that were particular to a specific historical period For Marx there were three main characteristics of capitalism 1 Everything involved in production e g raw materials machines labour involved in the creation of commodities and the commodities themselves is given an exchange value and all can be exchanged one for the other In essence under capitalism everything has its price including people s working time 2 Everything that is needed to undertake production i e the factories and the raw materials is owned by one class the capitalists 3 Workers are free but in order to survive must sell their labour to the capitalist class in order to survive and because the capitalist class own the means of production and control