INR 2002 Midterm study guide 1 Franz Ferdinand Austrian Duke that was assassinated during a parade through Sarajevo He and his wife were killed by Gavrilo Princip who was a part of an organization called the Black Hand 2 Treaty of Westphalia Ended the Thirty Years War in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty Years War between Spain and the Dutch Republic 3 Treaty of Versailles Ended WW I and held Germany accountable for the war 4 World War 1 Fought between the Central Powers Germany Austria Hungary Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria against the Allied Powers U S France Russia and Britain 1914 1918 5 World War II Fought between the Allies U S France Britain and Russia and the Axis Powers Germany Italy and Japan 1939 1945 6 Communism a social political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless moneyless stateless and socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production 7 Capitalism an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism Elements of capitalism include private ownership of the means of production creation of goods or services for profit or income the accumulation of capital competitive markets voluntary exchange and wage labor 8 Fascism a totalitarian single party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline indoctrination physical education and eugenics 9 Appeasement a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to an aggressor 10 Adolf Hitler Supreme Chancellor of Germany in the 1930s and 40s Started WW II by invading Poland 11 The Cold War a continuing state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world led by the United States and its NATO allies and the communist world led by the Soviet Union its satellite states and allies 12 Nuclear Deterrence using the threat of nuclear weapons to compel an adversary to do something or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires 13 Realism political realism prioritizes national interest and security over ideology moral concerns and social reconstructions 14 Security Dilemma anything that a country does to make itself more secure will often make it less secure This is because its actions will make other countries more likely to fear it and want to attack it before it gets too strong 15 Unipolarity vs Bipolarity vs Multipolarity Unipolarity in international politics is a distribution of power in which there is one state with most of the cultural economic and military influence ipolarity is a distribution of power in which two states have the majority of economic military and cultural influence internationally or regionally Multipolarity is a distribution of power in which more than two nation states have nearly equal amounts of military cultural and economic influence 16 Balance of Power a balance of power exists when there is parity or stability between competing forces 17 Balancing Coalition states join each other in alliance to help balance out another state or group of states power 18 Power Transition Theory power transition theory today describes international politics as a hierarchy with 4 degrees of power between states The objective of the theory is to investigate the cyclic condition of wars and how transition of power in terms of machtpolitik affect the occurrence of these wars 19 The Unitary Actor Assumption The assumption that states are unitary actors and not controlled by anything else 20 Liberalism political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics 21 Absolute gains vs Relative gains absolute gain is a term used to describe how primarily states will act in the international community Relative gain describes the actions of states only in respect to power balances and without regard to other factors such as economics 22 Selectorate Theory The theory operates on two fundamental groups the Winning Coalition and the Selectorate both drawn from the overall populace of a state The Winning Coalition is a subset of the Selectorate and the Selectorate is a subset of the overall population The Selectorate is simply those within the state that have a say in policy outcome The Winning Coalition is a portion of the Selectorate sufficient to choose and sustain a leader in office 23 Winning Coalition The Winning Coalition is a portion of the Selectorate sufficient to choose and sustain a leader in office 24 Public goods vs Private goods a public good is a good that is non rival and non excludable A private good is defined in economics as an item that yields positive benefits to people that is excludable 25 Loyalty Norms the assumption that the winning coalition will want to keep the leader in power to reap the benefits by being loyal to the leader 26 The Democratic Peace phenomenon Democracies won t go to war with each other 27 Empirical regularities associated with the Democratic Peace phenomenon Democratic countries have experienced economic growth and development 28 Competing explanations of the Democratic Peace phenomenon a liberal democratic environment makes leaders more accustomed to compromising Another that a belief in human rights may make people in democracies reluctant to go to war especially against other democracies The decline in colonialism also by democracies may be related to a change in perception of non European peoples and their rights 29 Prisoner s dilemma a canonical example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so 30 Nash equilibrium a solution concept of a game involving two or more players in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players and no player has anything to gain by changing only his own strategy unilaterally 31 Backward induction the process of reasoning backwards in time from the end of a problem or situation to determine a sequence of optimal actions 32 Arms races competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons greater armies or superior military technology in a technological escalation 33 Mutually Assured Destruction a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full scale use of high yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete utter and irrevocable
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