IR test cards
Terms
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- Hegelian dialectic
- Hegel's dialectic, which he usually presented in a threefold manner, was vulgarized by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. Hegel rarely used these terms himself: this model is not Hegelian but Fichtean. (SEE WIKI)
- Dialectical Materialism
- Dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism as defined by later Communists and their Parties (sometimes called "orthodox" Marxism). As the name signals, it is an outgrowth of both Hegel's dialectics and Ludwig Feuerbach's and Karl Marx's philosophical materialism, and is most directly traced to Marx's fellow thinker, Friedrich Engels. It uses the concepts of thesis, antithesis and synthesis to explain the growth and development of human history. Although Hegel and Marx themselves never used the "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" model to summarize dialectics or dialectical materialism, it is now commonly used to illustrate the essence of the method. (SEE WIKI)
- Constructivism
- a movement in IR that examineshow changing international norms and actors identities help shape the content of state interests.
- Postmodernism
- an apporach that denies the existence of a single fixed reality; and pays special attention t texts and to discourses - that is, to how people talk and write about a subject
- Feminsim (Difference, Liberal, Post Modern)
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Difference - a strand of feminism that believes gender differences are not just socially constructed and that views women as inherently less war-like than men (on average).
Liberal - a stran of feminism that emphasises gender equality and views the "essential" differences in men's and women's abilites or perspectives as trivial or nonexistent.
Post modern - an effort to combine femminist and postmodern perspectives with the aim of uncovering the hidden influences of gender in IR and showing how arbitrary the construcion of gender roles is. - American Liberalism
- American liberalism (also called modern liberalism) is a political current that claims descent from classical liberalism in terms of devotion to individual liberty, but rejects the laissez faire economics of classical liberalism in favor of institutions that promote social and economic equity. The U.S. brand of liberalism emphasizes mutual collaboration and consensus-building to solve political problems. A liberal in the United States is likely to favor institutions and political procedures that protect and empower the weak against aggression by the strong and guarantee individual freedom from restrictive social norms. Liberals encourage progressive taxation, minimum wages laws, anti-discrimination laws, and social programs.
- Hegemonic Stability Theory
- The argument that regimes are most effective when power in the international system in most concentrated
- Epistemology
- Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. Historically, it has been one of the most investigated and most debated of all philosophical subjects. Much of this debate has focused on analysing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief. Much of this discussion concerns the justification of knowledge claims.
- Treaty of Westphalia
- The Peace of Westphalia, also known as the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, refers to the series of treaties that ended the Thirty Years' War and officially recognized the United Provinces and Swiss Confederation. It is often said that the Peace of Westphalia initiated modern diplomacy, as it marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states (or "Westphalian states"). Subsequent European wars were not about issues of religion, but rather revolved around issues of state. This allowed Catholic and Protestant Powers to ally, leading to a number of major realignments.
- Jean Bodin
- Jean Bodin (1530-1596) was a French jurist, member of the Parliament of Paris and professor of Law in Toulouse. He is considered by many to be the father of political science. His most famous book was his 1576 treatise Six Livres de la République, which described the sovereign as a ruler beyond human law and subject only to the divine or natural law
- Balance of Power
- The general concept of one or more states' power being used to balance that of another state or group of states. The term can refer to (1)any ratio of power capabilities between states or alliances, (2) a relatively equal ratio, or (3) the process by which counterbalancing coalitions have repeatedly formed to prevent one state from conquering an entire region.
- Democratic Peace Theory
- The proposition, strongly supported by emperical evidence, that democracies almost never fight wars against each other (although they do fight against authoritatrian states)
- Proliferation (Horizontal, Vertical)
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The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a treaty, opened for signature on July 1, 1968, restricting the possession of nuclear weapons. The vast majority of sovereign states (187) are parties to the treaty. However two out of seven nuclear powers and one possible nuclear power have not ratified the treaty. The treaty was proposed by Ireland, Finland was the first to sign. In New York City, on May 11, 1995, more than 170 countries decided to extend the treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
First pillar: non-proliferation
Second pillar: disarmament
Third pillar: the right to peacefully use nuclear technology - MAD, NPT
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Mutually Assured Destruction - neither side can prevent the other from destroying it. The acronym implies that the strategy is actually "insane" because it could destroy both sides.
- Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty