| anarchical political system | An anarchical system is one in which there is no central authority to make rules, to enforce rules, or to resolve disputes about the actors in the political system. Many people believe that a system without central authority is inevitably one either of chaos or one in which the powerful prey on the weak. There is, however, an anarchist political philosophy that contends that the natural tendency of people to cooperate has been corrupted by artificial political, economic, or social institutions. Therefore, anarchists believe that the end of these institutions will lead to a cooperative society. Marxism, insofar as it foresees the collapse of the state once capitalism is destroyed and workers live in proletariat harmony, has elements of anarchism.
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| balance-of-power politics | The notion that countries seek to conserve and amass power, that some countries seek to become powerful enough to dominate their region or even the international system, and that other countries will seek to counter a hegemonic drive by further increasing their own power or cooperating with other powers in preventing any country or bloc from achieving dominance.
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| bipolar system | A type of international system with two roughly equal actors or coalitions of actors that divide the international system into two poles.
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| containment doctrine | U.S. policy that sought to contain communism during the cold war.
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| East-West axis | A term used to describe the ideological division between hemispheres following World War II. The East was associated with communism, and the West was associated with democracy.
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| economically developed countries (EDCs) | An industrialized country mainly found in the Northern Hemisphere.
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| ethnonational groups | An ethnic group in which a significant percentage of its members favor national self-determination and the establishment of a nation-state dominated by the group.
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| globalization | A multifaceted concept that represents the increasing integration of economics, communications, and culture across national boundaries.
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| hegemonic power | A single country or alliance that is so dominant in the international system that it plays the key role in determining the rules and norms by which the system operates. As the dominant power in the system, it has a central position in both making and enforcing the norms and modes of behavior. Hegemon is a synonym for a hegemonic power.
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| industrial revolution | The development of mechanical and industrial production of goods that began in Great Britain in the mid-1700s and then spread through Europe and North America.
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| less developed countries (LDCs) | Countries, located mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with economies that rely heavily on the production of agriculture and raw materials and whose per capita GDP and standard of living are substantially below Western standards.
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| limited unipolar system | A configuration of the international system in which there is one power center that plays something less than a fully dominant role because of a range of external and/or internal restraints on its power.
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| McWorld | This concept describes the merging of states into an integrated world. Benjamin Barber coined this term to describe how states are becoming more globalized, especially with the growth of economic interdependence.
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| multipolar system | A world political system in which power is primarily held by four or more international actors.
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| newly industrializing countries (NICs) | Less developed countries whose economies and whose trade now include significant amounts of manufactured products. As a result, these countries have a per capita GDP significantly higher than the average per capita GDP for less developed countries.
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| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | An alliance of 26 member-countries, established in 1949 by Canada, the United States, and most of the countries of Western Europe to defend its members from outside, presumably Soviet-led, attack. In the era after the cold war, NATO has begun to admit members from Eastern Europe and has also expanded its mission to include peacekeeping.
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| popular sovereignty | A political doctrine that holds that sovereign political authority resides with the citizens of a state. According to this doctrine, the citizenry grant a certain amount of authority to the state, its government, and, especially, its specific political leaders (such as monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers), but do not surrender ultimate sovereignty.
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| Protestant Reformation | The religious movement initiated by Martin Luther in Germany in 1517 that rejected the Catholic Church as the necessary intermediary between people and God.
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| purchasing power parity | A measure of the relative purchasing power of different currencies. It is measured by the price of the same goods in different countries, translated by the exchange rate of that country's currency against a base currency, usually the U.S. dollar.
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| sustainable development | The ability to continue to improve the quality of life of those in the industrialized countries and, particularly, those in the less developed countries while simultaneously protecting Earth's biosphere.
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| Third World | A term once commonly used to designate the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere that were economically less developed. The phrase is attributed to French analyst Alfred Sauvy, who in 1952 used tiers monde to describe neutral countries in the cold war. By inference, the U.S.-led Western bloc and the Soviet-led Eastern bloc were the other two worlds. But since most of the neutral countries were also relatively poor, the phrase had a double meaning. Sauvy used the older tiers, instead of the more modern troisième, to allude to the pre-Revolutionary (1789) tiers état ( third estate ), that is, the underprivileged class, the commoners. The nobility and the clergy were the first and estates. Based on this meaning, Third World came most commonly to designate the less developed countries of the world, whatever their political orientation. The phrase is less often used since the end of the cold war, although some analysts continue to employ it to designate the less developed countries.
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| Treaty of Westphalia | The treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The treaty signals the birth of the modern state system and the end of the theoretical subordination of the monarchies of Europe, especially those that had adopted Protestantism, to the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. While the date of 1648 marked an important change, the state as a sovereign entity had begun to emerge earlier and continues to evolve.
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| weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) | Generally deemed to be nuclear weapons with a tremendous capability to destroy a population and the planet, but also include some exceptionally devastating conventional arms, such as fuel-air explosives, as well as biological and chemical weapons. Weapons of mass destruction warfare refers to the application of force between countries using biological, chemical, and/or nuclear weapons.
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| Westernization of the international system | A number of factors, including scientific and technological advances, contributed to the domination of the West over the international system that was essentially created by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
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