INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS FINAL
EXAM QUESTIONS AND ESSAYS
WITH 100% CORRECT ANSWERS
Alliance Cohesion - the ease with which the members hold together an alliance; tends to be high
when national interests converge and when cooperation among allies becomes institutionalized
Anarchy - in IR theory, a term that implies not complete chaos but the lack of a central
government that can enforce rules
Arms Race - a reciprocal process in which two or more states build up military capabilities in
response to each other
Balance of Power - the general concept of one or more states' power being used to balance that of
another state or group of states; term can refer to 1) any ratio of power capabilities between states
or alliances, 2) a relatively equal ratio, or 3) coalitions have repeatedly formed to prevent one state
from conquering an entire region
Burden Sharing - the distribution of the costs of an alliance among members; the term also refers
to the conflicts that may arise over such distribution
Civil War - a war between factions within a state trying to create, or prevent, a new
government for the entire state or some territorial part of it
Cold War - the hostile relations--punctuated by occasional periods of improvement, or detente-
-between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1990
Collective Goods Problem - a tangible or intangible good, created by the members of a group, that is
available to all group members regardless of their individual contributions; participants can gain by
lowering their own contribution to the collective good, yet if too many participants do so, the good
cannot be provided
,Collective Security - the formation of a broad alliance of most major actors in an international system for
the purpose of jointly opposing aggression by any actor; sometimes seem as presupposing the existence
of a universal organization to which both the aggressor and its opponents belong
Compellence - the threat of force to make another actor take some action
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - 1996; a treaty that bans all nuclear weapons testing,
thereby broadening the ban on atmospheric testing negotiated in 1963
Conflict - a difference in preferred outcomes in a bargaining situation
Conflict and Cooperation the types of actions that states take toward each other through
- time
Conflict Resolution the development and implementation of peaceful strategies for settling
- conflicts
Constructivism - a movement in IR theory that examines how changing international norms and
actors' identities help shape the content of state interests
Containment - a policy adopted in the late 1940s by which the US sought to halt the global
expansion of the Soviet influence on several levels--military, political, ideological, and economic
Cost-Benefit Analysis - a calculation of of the costs incurred by a possible action and the
benefit it is likely to bring
Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962; a superpower crisis, sparked by the Soviet Union's installation of
medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, that marks the moment when the US and the Soviet
Union came closest to nuclear war
Cycle Theories - an effort to explain tendencies toward war in the international system as
cynical; for example, by linking wars with long waves in the world economy (Kondratieff cycles)
,Dehumanization - stigmatization of enemies as subhuman or nonhuman, leading frequently to
widespread massacres or worse
Democratic Peace - the proposition, strongly supported by empirical evidence, that
democracies almost never fight wars against each other
Dependency Theory - a Marxist-oriented theory that explains the lack of capital accumulation in the
third world as a result of the interplay between domestic class relations and the forces of foreign
capital
Deterrence - the threat to punish another actor if it takes a certain negative action
Difference Feminism - a strand of feminism that believes gender differences are not just
socially constructed and that views women as inherently less warlike than men (on average)
Diversionary Foreign Policy - foreign policies adopted to distract the public from domestic
political problems
Dominance - a principle for solving collective goods problems by imposing solutions
hierarchically
Economic Classes - a categorization of individuals based on economic status
Ethnic Cleansing - euphemism for forced displacement of an ethnic group or groups from a
territory, accompanied by massacres and other human rights violations; has occurred after the
breakup of multinational states, notably in the former Yugoslavia
Ethnic Groups - large groups of people who share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties
and a common identity
Ethnocentrism - the tendency to see one's own group (in-group) in favorable terms and an
out-group in unfavorable terms
Foreign Policy Process - the process by which foreign policies are arrived at and implemented
, International Security a subfield of international relations (IR) that focuses on questions of
- war and peace
International System - the set of relationships among the world's states, as structured by
certain rules and patterns of interaction
Irredentism - a form of nationalism whose goal is to regain territory lost to another state; it can
lead directly to violent interstate conflicts
Islam - a broad and diverse world religion whose divergent populations include Sunni Muslims,
Shi'ite Muslims, and many smaller branches and sects from Nigeria to Indonesia, centered in the
Middle East and South Asia
Islamist - political ideology based on instituting Islamic principles and laws in government; broad
range of groups using diverse methods come under this category
Issue Areas - distinct spheres of international activity, such as global trade negotiations, within
which policy makes of various states face conflicts and sometimes achieve cooperation
League of Nations - an organization established after WWI and a forerunner of today's UN;
achieved humanitarian and other successes but was weakened by the absence of US
membership and by its own lack of effectiveness in ensuring collective security
Liberal Feminism - a strand of feminism that emphasizes gender equality and views the
"essential" differences in men's and women's abilities or perspectives as trivial or nonexistent
Limited War - military actions that seek objectives short of the surrender and occupation of the
enemy
Marxism - a branch of socialism that emphasizes exploitation and class struggle and includes both
communism and other approaches
EXAM QUESTIONS AND ESSAYS
WITH 100% CORRECT ANSWERS
Alliance Cohesion - the ease with which the members hold together an alliance; tends to be high
when national interests converge and when cooperation among allies becomes institutionalized
Anarchy - in IR theory, a term that implies not complete chaos but the lack of a central
government that can enforce rules
Arms Race - a reciprocal process in which two or more states build up military capabilities in
response to each other
Balance of Power - the general concept of one or more states' power being used to balance that of
another state or group of states; term can refer to 1) any ratio of power capabilities between states
or alliances, 2) a relatively equal ratio, or 3) coalitions have repeatedly formed to prevent one state
from conquering an entire region
Burden Sharing - the distribution of the costs of an alliance among members; the term also refers
to the conflicts that may arise over such distribution
Civil War - a war between factions within a state trying to create, or prevent, a new
government for the entire state or some territorial part of it
Cold War - the hostile relations--punctuated by occasional periods of improvement, or detente-
-between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1990
Collective Goods Problem - a tangible or intangible good, created by the members of a group, that is
available to all group members regardless of their individual contributions; participants can gain by
lowering their own contribution to the collective good, yet if too many participants do so, the good
cannot be provided
,Collective Security - the formation of a broad alliance of most major actors in an international system for
the purpose of jointly opposing aggression by any actor; sometimes seem as presupposing the existence
of a universal organization to which both the aggressor and its opponents belong
Compellence - the threat of force to make another actor take some action
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - 1996; a treaty that bans all nuclear weapons testing,
thereby broadening the ban on atmospheric testing negotiated in 1963
Conflict - a difference in preferred outcomes in a bargaining situation
Conflict and Cooperation the types of actions that states take toward each other through
- time
Conflict Resolution the development and implementation of peaceful strategies for settling
- conflicts
Constructivism - a movement in IR theory that examines how changing international norms and
actors' identities help shape the content of state interests
Containment - a policy adopted in the late 1940s by which the US sought to halt the global
expansion of the Soviet influence on several levels--military, political, ideological, and economic
Cost-Benefit Analysis - a calculation of of the costs incurred by a possible action and the
benefit it is likely to bring
Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962; a superpower crisis, sparked by the Soviet Union's installation of
medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, that marks the moment when the US and the Soviet
Union came closest to nuclear war
Cycle Theories - an effort to explain tendencies toward war in the international system as
cynical; for example, by linking wars with long waves in the world economy (Kondratieff cycles)
,Dehumanization - stigmatization of enemies as subhuman or nonhuman, leading frequently to
widespread massacres or worse
Democratic Peace - the proposition, strongly supported by empirical evidence, that
democracies almost never fight wars against each other
Dependency Theory - a Marxist-oriented theory that explains the lack of capital accumulation in the
third world as a result of the interplay between domestic class relations and the forces of foreign
capital
Deterrence - the threat to punish another actor if it takes a certain negative action
Difference Feminism - a strand of feminism that believes gender differences are not just
socially constructed and that views women as inherently less warlike than men (on average)
Diversionary Foreign Policy - foreign policies adopted to distract the public from domestic
political problems
Dominance - a principle for solving collective goods problems by imposing solutions
hierarchically
Economic Classes - a categorization of individuals based on economic status
Ethnic Cleansing - euphemism for forced displacement of an ethnic group or groups from a
territory, accompanied by massacres and other human rights violations; has occurred after the
breakup of multinational states, notably in the former Yugoslavia
Ethnic Groups - large groups of people who share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties
and a common identity
Ethnocentrism - the tendency to see one's own group (in-group) in favorable terms and an
out-group in unfavorable terms
Foreign Policy Process - the process by which foreign policies are arrived at and implemented
, International Security a subfield of international relations (IR) that focuses on questions of
- war and peace
International System - the set of relationships among the world's states, as structured by
certain rules and patterns of interaction
Irredentism - a form of nationalism whose goal is to regain territory lost to another state; it can
lead directly to violent interstate conflicts
Islam - a broad and diverse world religion whose divergent populations include Sunni Muslims,
Shi'ite Muslims, and many smaller branches and sects from Nigeria to Indonesia, centered in the
Middle East and South Asia
Islamist - political ideology based on instituting Islamic principles and laws in government; broad
range of groups using diverse methods come under this category
Issue Areas - distinct spheres of international activity, such as global trade negotiations, within
which policy makes of various states face conflicts and sometimes achieve cooperation
League of Nations - an organization established after WWI and a forerunner of today's UN;
achieved humanitarian and other successes but was weakened by the absence of US
membership and by its own lack of effectiveness in ensuring collective security
Liberal Feminism - a strand of feminism that emphasizes gender equality and views the
"essential" differences in men's and women's abilities or perspectives as trivial or nonexistent
Limited War - military actions that seek objectives short of the surrender and occupation of the
enemy
Marxism - a branch of socialism that emphasizes exploitation and class struggle and includes both
communism and other approaches
