6.11: Key Terms

Words to Know

• Anarchy: In International Relations, the absence of a supreme political authority above sovereign states; it does not necessarily mean chaos.
• Autocratization: A process through which democratic institutions, rights, or political competition decline and authoritarian characteristics increase.
• Balance of power: A distribution of capabilities among states intended, deliberately or indirectly, to prevent one actor from becoming overwhelmingly dominant.
• Collective security: An arrangement in which states treat aggression against one member as a concern for the wider international community.
• Complex interdependence: The idea that states and societies are linked through multiple economic, political, social, environmental, and institutional relationships that cannot be reduced to military affairs.
• Constructivism: A theoretical approach emphasizing how identities, norms, ideas, social relationships, and shared meanings help construct political interests and behavior.
• Cosmopolitanism: The ethical or political idea that obligations toward human beings extend beyond national borders and citizenship.
• Critical political economy: An approach examining how political authority interacts with capitalism, class, markets, colonial histories, production, finance, and unequal economic structures.
• Democratic backsliding: The gradual weakening of democratic institutions, rights, electoral competition, accountability, or constraints on political power.
• Deterrence: An attempt to prevent another actor from taking an action by convincing it that the costs will outweigh the benefits.
• Global governance: The overlapping institutions, rules, norms, networks, and practices through which governments and nonstate actors attempt to manage transnational problems without a single world government.
• Global International Relations (Global IR): An approach seeking to broaden International Relations beyond predominantly Western histories and concepts by recognizing diverse regions, civilizations, actors, and intellectual traditions.
• Hard power: Influence exercised through coercive military or economic capabilities or material incentives.
• Human security: An approach emphasizing the security of individuals and communities, including protection from threats involving violence, poverty, hunger, disease, repression, and environmental disruption.
• Interdependence: A relationship in which actors depend upon one another, although the degree of dependence may be highly unequal.
• Liberal democracy: A political system combining meaningful political participation and competitive elections with rule of law, civil liberties, legal equality, and institutional constraints on government power.
• Liberalism: In International Relations, a broad theoretical tradition emphasizing cooperation, institutions, interdependence, domestic politics, and the possibility that international rules can shape state behavior.
• Middle power: A state possessing significant diplomatic, economic, strategic, or regional influence without dominating the international system as a great power.
• Multipolarity: An international distribution of power in which several major actors possess significant capabilities rather than power being concentrated in one or two states.
• Nation: A community whose members understand themselves as connected through shared identity, history, culture, political experience, territory, or other forms of collective belonging.
• Nationalism: A political idea or movement connecting national identity to claims involving political authority, self-determination, sovereignty, territory, or belonging.
• Populism: A political worldview commonly framing politics as a struggle between a morally authentic “people” and a corrupt or self-serving elite.
• Realism: An International Relations tradition emphasizing anarchy, state survival, military and strategic power, uncertainty, and competition among states.
• Securitization: The political process through which an issue is framed as an existential security threat that may justify extraordinary measures.
• Security dilemma: A situation in which one state’s attempt to increase its security makes another state feel less secure, potentially producing escalating competition.
• Soft power: The ability to influence others through attraction, legitimacy, culture, values, diplomacy, or reputation rather than direct coercion.
• Sovereignty: The principle that a state possesses supreme political authority within its territory and legal independence within the international system; practical autonomy may nevertheless be constrained by interdependence.
• Structural power: The ability to shape the systems, institutions, markets, or rules within which other actors must make choices.
• Weaponized interdependence: The use of advantageous positions within global economic or informational networks to exert coercive political pressure.