| Absolute power | An element of power, such as nuclear weapons, that indisputably exists and can be potentially used irrespective of other considerations.
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| Adjudication | The legal process of deciding an issue through the courts.
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| African Union | The continent's leading intergovernmental organization; all of Africa's countries but Morocco are members. The successor to the Organization of African Unity.
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| Anarchical international system | The traditional structure of world politics in which there is no central authority to set and enforce rules and resolve disputes.
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| 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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| Arms control | A variety of approaches to the limitation of weapons. Arms control ranges from restricting the future growth in the number, types, or deployment of weapons; through the reduction of weapons; to the elimination of some types of (or even all) weapons on a global or regional basis.
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| Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) | A regional trade organization founded in 1989 that now includes 21 countries.
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| Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) | A regional organization that emphasizes trade relations, established in 1967; now includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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| Asymmetrical warfare | A strategy by which a national military or other armed force, including a terrorist organization, that is relatively small and lightly equipped attacks a militarily stronger opponent by using unconventional means, such as terrorism, or with limited unconventional weapons, such as nuclear explosives and material, biological agents, or chemical agents.
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| Authoritarian government | A political system that allows little or no participation in decision making by individuals and groups outside the upper reaches of the government.
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| Authoritarianism | A type of restrictive governmental system where people are under the rule of an individual, such as a dictator or king, or a group, such as a party or military junta.
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| Balance of power | A concept that describes the degree of equilibrium (balance) or disequilibrium (imbalance) of power in the global or regional system.
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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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| Beijing + 5 Conference | A meeting held at the UN in New York City in 2000 to review the progress made since the fourth World Conference on Women held in 1995.
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| Bilateral diplomacy | Negotiations between two countries.
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| Bilateral trade agreement (BTA) | A free trade agreement between two countries or between a regional trade agreement and any other non-member-country.
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| Biopolitics | This theory examines the relationship between the physical nature and political behavior of humans.
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| Biosphere | Earth's ecological system (ecosystem) that supports life—its land, water, air, and upper atmosphere—and the living organisms, including humans, that inhabit it.
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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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| Capitalism | An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, competition, and profit incentives.
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| Carrying capacity | The number of people that an environment, such as Earth, can feed, provide water for, and otherwise sustain.
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| Cartel | An international agreement among producers of a commodity that attempts to control the production and pricing of that commodity.
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| Civil society | The voluntary and private (not controlled by the government) economic, cultural, and other interactions and associations of individuals.
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| Clash of civilizations | Samuel P. Huntington's thesis (1993, 1996) that the source of future conflict will be cultural.
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| Classic liberalism | A subdivision of liberal thought that is optimistic about human nature and believes that people can achieve more collectively than individually, that people understand this; and, therefore, given the opportunity, people will seek to work together in their common, long-term interests.
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| Classic realism | A subdivision of realist thought that believes the root cause of conflict is the aggressive nature of humans.
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| Codify | To write down a law in formal language.
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| Coercive diplomacy | The use of threats or force as a diplomatic tactic.
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| Cognitive decision making | Making choices within the limits of what you consciously know.
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| Cold war | The confrontation that emerged following World War II between the bipolar superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. Although no direct conflict took place between these countries, it was an era of great tensions and global division.
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| Collective security | The original theory behind UN peacekeeping. It holds that aggression against one state is aggression against every member and should be defeated by the collective action of all.
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| Communism | An ideology that originated in the works of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx; it is essentially an economic theory. As such, it is the idea that an oppressed proletariat class of workers would eventually organize and revolt against those who owned the means of production, the bourgeoisie; a political system of government applied in China, and elsewhere, wherein the state owns the means of production as a system to expedite Engels and Marx's economic theory.
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| Communitarianism | The concept that the welfare of the collective must be valued over any individual rights or liberties.
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| Conditionality | The policy of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and some other international financial agencies to attach conditions to their loans and grants. These conditions may require recipient countries to devalue their currencies, to lift controls on prices, to cut their budgets, and to reduce barriers to trade and capital flows. Such conditions are often politically unpopular, may cause at least short-term economic pain, and are construed by critics as interference in recipient countries' sovereignty.
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| Confederation | A group of states that willingly enter into an alliance to form a political unit for a common purpose, such as economic security or defense; it is highly interdependent but has a weak directorate organization, thus allowing the individual states to maintain a fairly high degree of sovereignty.
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| Constructivism | The view that the course of international relations is an interactive process in which the ideas of and communications among agents (or actors: individuals, groups, and social structures, including states) serve to create structures (treaties, laws, international organizations, and other aspects of the international system), which, in turn influence the ideas and communications of the agents.
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| Containment doctrine | U.S. policy that sought to contain communism during the cold war.
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| Conventional warfare | The application of force by uniformed military units usually against other uniformed military units or other clearly military targets using weapons other than biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.
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| Council of the European Union | The most important decision-making body of the EU. The Council represents the member-states through each member's representatives, which can range from the head of state to specialized ministers (such as agriculture). Formerly known as the Council of Ministers.
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| Court of Auditors | An oversight institution within the EU. It is staffed by one individual from each member country and monitors the implementation of EU budgets and policies.
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| Court of Justice | The most important court in the European Union.
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| Crisis situation | A circumstance or event that is a surprise to decision makers, that evokes a sense of threat (particularly physical peril), and that must be responded to within a limited amount of time.
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| Cultural imperialism | The attempt to impose your own value system on others, including judging others by how closely they conform to your norms.
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| Current dollars | The value of the dollar in the year for which it is being reported. Sometimes called inflated dollars. Any currency can be expressed in current value. See also Real dollars.
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| Decision-making process | The manner by which humans choose which policy to pursue and which actions to take in support of policy goals. The study of decision making seeks to identify patterns in the way that humans make decisions. This includes gathering information, analyzing information, and making choices. Decision making is a complex process that relates to personality and other human traits, to the sociopolitical setting in which decision makers function, and to the organizational structures involved.
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| Democracy | A system of government that at minimum extends to citizens a range of political rights and a range of civil liberties that are important to free government.
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| Democratic government | The governmental system a country has in terms of free and fair elections and levels of participation.
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| Democratic peace theory | The assertion that as more countries become democratic, the likelihood that they will enter into conflict with one another decreases.
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| Democratized diplomacy | The current trend in diplomacy where diplomats are drawn from a wider segment of society, making them more representative of their nations.
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| Dependency theory | The belief that the industrialized North has created a neocolonial relationship with the South in which the less developed countries are dependent on and disadvantaged by their economic relations with the capitalist industrial countries.
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| Détente | A cold war policy involving the United States, the Soviet Union, and China that sought to open relations among the countries and ease tensions.
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| Deterrence | Persuading an opponent not to attack by having enough forces to disable the attack and/or launch a punishing counterattack.
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| Development capital | Monies and resources needed by less developed countries to increase their economic growth and diversify their economies.
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| Direct democracy | Policy making through a variety of processes, including referendums, by which citizens directly cast ballots on policy issues.
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| Doha Round | The ninth and latest round of GATT negotiations to reduce barriers to international free economic interchange. The round is named after the 2001 WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, where agreement to try to negotiate a new round of reductions in barriers by 2005 was reached.
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| Domestic terrorism | Attacks by local nationals within their country against a purely domestic target for domestic reasons.
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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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| Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) | A regional group of 15 countries founded in 1975. Its mission is to promote economic integration, and it has also taken on some peacekeeping activities through its nonpermanent function called Economic Community's African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).
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| Economic interdependence | See Interdependence.
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| Economic internationalism | The belief that international economic relations should and can be conducted cooperatively because the international economy is a non-zero-sum game in which prosperity is available to all.
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| Economic nationalism | The belief that the state should use its economic strength to further national interests, and that a state should use its power to build its economic strength.
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| Economic sanctions | Economic measures imposed by a country or international governmental organization on one or more countries to change their behavior. These sanctions include such tools as refusing to purchase another country's product, refusing to sell it something that it needs, freezing its accounts in your country, or imposing punitive tariffs and quotas on its products.
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| Economic structuralism | The belief that economic structure determines politics, as the conduct of world politics is based on the way that the world is organized economically. A radical restructuring of the economic system is required to end the uneven distribution of wealth and power.
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| Economically developed country (EDC) | An industrialized country mainly found in the Northern Hemisphere.
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| Environmental optimists | Those analysts who predict that the world population will meet its needs while continuing to grow economically through conservation, population restraints, and technological innovation.
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| Environmental pessimists | Those analysts who predict environmental and ecological problems, based on current trends in ecology and population pressure.
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| Escalation | Increasing the level of fighting.
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| Ethnonational group | 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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| Ethology | The comparison of animal and human behavior.
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| European Commission | A 20-member commission that serves as the bureaucratic organ of the European Union.
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| European Communities (EC) | Established in 1967, the EC was a single unit whose plural name (Communities) reflects the fact that it united the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community under one organizational structure. The EC evolved into the European Union beginning in 1993.
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| European Economic Community (EEC) | The regional trade and economic organization established in Western Europe by the Treaty of Rome in 1958; also known as the Common Market.
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| European Ombudsman | An official of the European Union appointed by the European Parliament to investigate EU citizens' complaints about maladministration in the activities of EU bodies, excluding the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance.
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| European Parliament (EP) | The 626-member legislative branch of the European Union. Representation is determined by population of member-countries and is based on five-year terms.
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| European Union (EU) | The Western European regional organization established in 1993 when the Maastricht Treaty went into effect. The EU encompasses the still legally existing European Communities (EC). When the EC was formed in 1967, it in turn encompassed three still legally existing regional organizations formed in the 1950s: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM).
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| Exceptionalism | The belief of some that their nation or group is better than others.
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| Exchange rate | The values of two currencies relative to each other—for example, how many yen equal a dollar or how many yuans equal a euro.
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| Extreme poverty | A World Bank term for the condition of those living on less than $1 per day.
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| Failed states | Countries in which all or most of the citizens give their primary political loyalty to an ethnic group, a religious group, or some other source of political identity. Such states are so fragmented that no one political group can govern effectively, thus these states are more legal entities than functioning governments.
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| Fascism | An ideology that advocates extreme nationalism, with a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity.
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| Federation | Also called a federal government, a powersharing governance structure in which the central authority and the member units each have substantial authority.
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| Feminism | The view that women have been suppressed and ignored in both politics and political scholarship and have had to strive to achieve greater equality.
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| Fiscal year (FY) | A budget year, which may or may not be the same as the calendar year. The U.S. fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30 and is referred to by its ending date. Thus, FY2008 ran from October 1, 2007, through September 30, 2008.
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| Foreign direct investment (FDI) | Buying stock, real estate, and other assets in another country with the aim of gaining a controlling interest in foreign economic enterprises. Different from portfolio investment, which involves investment solely to gain capital appreciation through market fluctuations.
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| Foreign policy | The international goals of a country and how it uses its national capabilities to achieve those goals.
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| Foreign policy–making actors | The political actors within a state—including political executives, bureaucracies, legislatures, political opponents, interest groups, and the people—who influence the foreign policy process.
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| Foreign policy process | A concept that includes the influences and activities within a country that cause its government to decide to adopt one or another foreign policy.
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| Foreign portfolio investment (FPI) | Investment in the stocks and the public and private debt instruments (such as bonds) of another country below the level where the stock or bondholder can exercise control over the policies of the stock-issuing company or the bond-issuing debtor.
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| Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) | The tentative name given by the 34 countries that met in December 1994 at the Summit of the Americas to a proposed Western Hemisphere free trade zone.
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| Functional relations | Relations that include interaction in such usually nonpolitical areas as communication, travel, trade, and finances.
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| Functionalism | International cooperation in specific areas such as communications, trade, travel, health, or environmental protection activity. Often symbolized by the specialized agencies, such as the World Health Organization, associated with the United Nations.
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| Fundamentalism | Religious traditionalism and values incorporated into secular political activities.
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| Gender opinion gap | The difference between males and females along any one of a number of dimensions, including foreign policy preferences.
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| General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) | The world's primary organization promoting the expansion of free trade. Established in 1947, it has grown to a membership of over 100.
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| General and complete disarmament (GCD) | The total absence of armaments.
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| Global warming | The increase over time in Earth's average annual temperature and other associated climate changes.
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| Globalism | The view of the world as a whole, a single unit with many commonalities and connections that cut across political borders, national identities, and cultural differences.
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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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| Green accounting | An approach to measuring the comprehensive wealth of countries by calculating human capital (such as education, health, and equality) and natural capital (the quality and quantity of air, land, water, and natural resources), as well as such traditional economic measures as gross national product.
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| Greenhouse effect | The process by which the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other gases in Earth's upper atmosphere arguably cause an increase in temperature by creating a thermal blanket effect; this prevents some of the cooling that occurs at night as Earth radiates heat.
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| Greenhouse gases (GHGs) | Carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and other gases that create a blanket effect by trapping heat and preventing the nightly cooling of Earth.
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| Gross domestic product (GDP) | A measure of income within a country that excludes foreign earnings.
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| Gross national product (GNP) | A measure of the sum of all goods and services produced by a country's nationals, whether they are in the country or abroad.
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| Group of Eight (G-8) | The seven economically largest free market countries: Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States, plus Russia (a member on political issues since 1998).
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| Group of 77 (G-77) | The group of 77 countries of the South that cosponsored the Joint Declaration of Developing Countries in 1963 calling for greater equity in North-South trade. This group has now come to include about 133 members and represents the interests of the less developed countries of the South.
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| Groupthink | How an individual's membership in an organization/decision-making group influences his or her thinking and actions. In particular there are tendencies within a group to think alike, to avoid discordance, and to ignore ideas or information that threaten to disrupt the consensus.
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| Hague system | Name given to the peace conferences held in the Netherlands in 1899 and 1907. They serve as the first example of an international attempt to improve the condition of humanity.
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| Hard power | Assets that can be used negatively as a threat or a sanction, or positively as an inducement by one country to shape the behavior of another country.
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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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| Heuristic devices | A range of psychological strategies that allow individuals to simplify complex decisions. Such devices include evaluating people and events in terms of how well they coincide with your own belief system ("I am anticommunist; therefore all communists are dangerous"), stereotypes ("all Muslims are fanatics"), or analogies ("appeasing Hitler was wrong; therefore all compromise with aggressors is wrong").
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| Holy Roman Empire | The domination and unification of a political territory in Western and Central Europe that lasted from its inception with Charlemagne in 800 to the renunciation of the imperial title by Francis II in 1806.
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| Horizontal authority structure | A system in which authority is fragmented. The international system has a mostly horizontal authority structure.
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| Ideological/theological school of law | A set of related ideas in secular or religious thought, usually founded on identifiable thinkers and their works, that offers a more or less comprehensive picture of reality.
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| Ideology | Interconnected theological or secular ideas that establish values about what is good and what is not, and that indicate a course of action, create perceptual links among adherents, and perceptually distinguish those who adhere to a given ideology from those who do not.
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| Idiosyncratic analysis | An individual-level analysis approach to decision making that assumes that individuals make foreign policy decisions and that different individuals are likely to make different decisions.
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| Imperialism | A term synonymous with colonization, meaning domination by Northern Eurowhites over Southern nonwhites as a means to tap resources to further their own development.
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| Individualism | The concept that rights and liberties of the individual are paramount within a society.
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| Individual-level analysis | An analytical approach that emphasizes the role of individuals as either distinct personalities or biological/psychological beings.
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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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| Instrumental theory of government | The notion that the purpose of political units and their governments is to benefit the people who established them and that the continued legitimate existence of these organizations rests on whether and how well they perform their tasks.
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| Interdependence | The close interrelationship and mutual dependence of two or more domestic economies on each other.
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| Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) | International/transnational actors that are composed of member countries.
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| Intermestic | The merger of inter national and do mestic concerns and decisions.
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| Intermestic policy | Foreign policy that has an immediate and obvious domestic effect on Americans.
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| International Conference on Financing for Development (ICFD) | A UN-sponsored conference on development programs for the South that met in Monterrey, Mexico, during March 2002. Fifty heads of state or government, as well as over 200 government cabinet ministers, leaders from NGOs, and leaders from the major IGOs attended the conference.
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| International Court of Justice (ICJ) | The world court, which sits in The Hague, the Netherlands, with 15 judges and is associated with the United Nations.
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| International Criminal Court (ICC) | The permanent criminal court with jurisdiction over genocide and other crimes against humanity. The court, seated in The Hague, the Netherlands, began its operations in 2003.
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| International investment capital | The flow of money in and out of a country to buy companies, stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets.
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| International Monetary Fund (IMF) | The world's primary organization devoted to maintaining monetary stability by helping countries to fund balance-of payment deficits. Established in 1947, it now has 185 members.
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| International political economy (IPE) | An approach to the study of international relations that is concerned with the political determinants of international economic relations and also with the economic determinants of international political relations.
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| International system | An abstract concept that encompasses global actors, the interactions (especially patterns of interaction) among those actors, and the factors that cause those interactions. The international system is the largest of a vast number of overlapping political systems that extend downward in size to micropolitical systems at the local level. See also System-level analysis.
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| International terrorism | Terrorists involved in attacking a foreign target, either within their own country or abroad.
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| Iron triangle | An alliance between interest groups, bureaucracies, and legislators that forms a militaryindustrial-congressional complex.
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| Irredentism | A minority population's demand to join its motherland (often an adjoining state), or when the motherland claims the area in which the minority lives.
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| Issue areas | Substantive categories of policy that must be considered when evaluating national interest.
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| Jus ad bellum | The Western concept meaning "just cause of war," which provides a moral and legal basis governing causes for war.
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| Jus in bello | The Western concept meaning "just conduct of war," which provides a moral and legal basis governing conduct of war.
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| Kyoto Protocol | A supplement to the Global Warming Convention (1992) that requires the economically developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 7% below their 1990 levels by 2012 and encourages, but does not require, less developed countries to reduce emissions.
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| Leader-citizen opinion gap | Differences of opinion between leaders and public, which may have an impact on foreign policy in a democratic country.
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| League | A governmental arrangement in which the centralized government is mostly symbolic and has little or no functional authority.
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| League of Nations | The first, true general international organization. It existed between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II and was the immediate predecessor of the United Nations.
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| Least developed countries (LLDCs) | Those countries in the poorest of economic circumstances. In this book, this includes those countries with a per capita GNP of less than $400 in 1985 dollars.
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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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| Levels of analysis | Different perspectives (system, state, individual) from which international politics can be analyzed.
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| Liberalism | The view that people and the countries that represent them are capable of finding mutual interests and cooperating to achieve them, by forming ties between countries and also by working together for the common good through international organizations and according to international law. See Neoliberalism.
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| Liberals | Analysts who reject power politics and argue that people are capable of finding mutual interests and cooperating to achieve them.
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| Limited membership council | A representative organization body of the UN that grants special status to members who have a greater stake, responsibility, or capacity in a particular area of concern. The UN Security Council is an example.
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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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| Maastricht Treaty | The most significant agreement in the recent history of the European Union (EU). The Maastricht Treaty was signed by leaders of the EU's 12 member-countries in December 1991 and outlined steps toward further political-economic integration.
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| Majority voting | A system used to determine how votes should count. The theory of majoritarianism springs from the concept of sovereign equality and the democratic notion that the will of the majority should prevail. This system has two main components: (1) each member casts one equal vote, and (2) the issue is carried by either a simple majority (half plus one vote) or, in some cases, an extraordinary majority (commonly two-thirds).
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| Manufactured goods | Items that required substantial processing or assembly to become usable. Distinct from primary products, such as agricultural and forestry products, that need little or no processing.
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| Marxist theory | The philosophy of Karl Marx that the economic (material) order determines political and social relationships. Thus, history, the current situation, and the future are determined by the economic struggle, termed dialectical materialism.
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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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| Merchandise trade | The import and export of tangible manufactured goods and raw materials.
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| Microstate | A country with a small population that cannot survive economically without outside aid or that is inherently so militarily weak that it is an inviting target for foreign intervention.
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| Monarchism | A political system that is organized, governed, and defined by the idea of the divine right of kings, or the notion that because a person is born into royalty, he or she is meant to rule.
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| Monetary relations | The entire scope of international money issues, such as exchange rates, interest rates, loan policies, balance of payments, and regulating institutions (for example, the International Monetary Fund).
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| Multilateral diplomacy | Negotiations among three or more countries.
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| Multilateralism | Taking important international actions, especially those using military force, within the framework of a multilateral organization such as the United Nations.
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| Multinational corporations (MNCs) | Private enterprises that have production subsidiaries or branches in more than one country.
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| Multinational states | Countries in which there are two or more significant nationalities.
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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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| Multistate nation | A nation that has substantial numbers of its people living in more than one state.
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| Munich analogy | A belief among post–World War II leaders, particularly Americans, that aggression must always be met firmly and that appeasement will only encourage an aggressor. Named for the concessions made to Hitler by Great Britain and France at Munich during the 1938 Czechoslovakian crisis.
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| Mutual assured destruction (MAD) | A situation in which each nuclear superpower has the capability of launching a devastating nuclear second strike even after an enemy has attacked it. The belief that a MAD capacity prevents nuclear war is the basis of deterrence by punishment theory.
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| Nation | A group of culturally and historically similar people who feel a communal bond and who feel they should govern themselves to at least some degree.
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| National interest | Often loosely applied to mean the interests of a country or its government as defined subjectively by those in power in the country, but which more accurately means the interests of the country's nation, its people.
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| National technical means (NTM) | An arms control verification technique that involves using satellites, seismic measuring devices, and other equipment to identify, locate, and monitor the manufacturing, testing, or deployment of weapons or delivery vehicles, or other aspects of treaty compliance.
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| Nationalism | The belief that the nation is the ultimate basis of political loyalty and that nations should have self-governing states. See also Nation-state.
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| Nation-state | A politically organized territory that recognizes no higher law, and whose population politically identifies with that entity. See also State.
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| Naturalist school of law | Those who believe that law springs from the rights and obligations that humans have by nature.
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| Neocolonialism | The notion that EDCs continue to control and exploit LDCs through indirect means, such as economic dominance and co-opting the local elite.
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| Neofunctionalism | The top-down approach to solving world problems.
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| Neoliberalism | The view that conflict and other ills that result from the anarchical international system can be eased by building global and regional organizations and processes that will allow people, groups, countries, and other international actors to cooperate for their mutual benefit.
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| Neoliberals | Analysts who believe that conflict and other ills resulting from the anarchical international system can be eased by building global and regional organizations and processes that will allow people, groups, countries, and other international actors to cooperate for their mutual benefit.
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| Neorealism | The view that the self-interested struggle for power among countries is caused by the anarchical nature of the international system, which leaves each state solely responsible for its safety and welfare and forces each state to pursue its interests in competition with other states.
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| Neorealists | Analysts who believe that the distribution across and shifting of power among states in the anarchical international system is a causal factor that determines the actions of states and, thus, the dynamics of world politics.
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| New International Economic Order (NIEO) | A term that refers to the goals and demands of the South for basic reforms in the international economic system.
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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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| Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) | International (transnational) organizations with private memberships.
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| Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) | A multilateral treaty concluded in 1968, then renewed and made permanent in 1995. The parties to the treaty agree not to transfer nuclear weapons or in any way to "assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons." Non-nuclear signatories of the NPT also agree not to build or accept nuclear weapons.
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| Nontariff barrier (NTB) | A nonmonetary restriction on trade, such as quotas, technical specifications, or unnecessarily lengthy quarantine and inspection procedures.
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| Non-zero-sum game | A contest in which gains by one or more players can be achieved without offsetting losses for any other player or players. See Zero-sum game.
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| North | The economically developed countries (EDCs) including those of Western Europe, the United States and Canada in North America, Japan in Asia, and Australia and New Zealand in Oceania.
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| North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) | An economic agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States that went into effect on January 1, 1994. It will eliminate most trade barriers by 2009 and will also eliminate or reduce restrictions on foreign investments and other financial transactions among the NAFTA 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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| Nuclear utilization theory (NUT) | The belief that because nuclear war might occur, countries must be ready to fight, survive, and win a nuclear war. NUT advocates believe this posture will limit the damage if nuclear war occurs and also make nuclear war less likely by creating retaliatory options that are more credible than massive retaliation.
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| On-site inspection (OSI) | An arms control verification technique that involves stationing your or a neutral country's personnel in another country to monitor weapons or delivery vehicle manufacturing, testing, deployment, or other aspects of treaty compliance.
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| Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) | An organization that has existed since 1948 (and since 1960 under its present name) to facilitate the exchange of information and otherwise to promote cooperation among the economically developed countries. In recent years, the OECD has started accepting a few newly industrializing and former communist countries in transition as members.
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| Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) | Series of conferences among 34 NATO, former Soviet bloc, and neutral European countries that led to permanent organization. Established by the 1976 Helsinki Accords.
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| Pacificism | A bottom-up approach to avoidance of war based on the belief that it is wrong to kill.
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| Pacta sunt servanda | Translates as "treaties are to be served/carried out" and means that agreements between states are binding.
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| Parliamentary diplomacy | Debate and voting in international organizations to settle diplomatic issues.
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| Peace enforcement | The restoration of peace or the prevention of a breach of the peace by, if necessary, the assertive use of military force to compel one or more of the sides involved in a conflict to cease their violent actions.
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| Peacekeeping | The use of military means by an international organization such as the United Nations to prevent fighting, usually by acting as a buffer between combatants. The international force is neutral between the combatants and must have been invited to be present by at least one of the combatants. See also Collective security.
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| Plenary representative body | An assembly, such as the UN's General Assembly, that consists of all members of the main organization.
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| Poliheuristic theory | A view of decision making that holds it occurs in two stages. During the first stage, nonrational considerations such as how an issue and the response to it will affect a decision maker's political or professional future are applied to narrow the range of choices. During the second stage, decision makers use strategic considerations and other rational criteria to make a final policy choice.
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| Political culture | A concept that refers to a society's general, long-held, and fundamental practices and attitudes. These are based on a country's historical experience and on the values (norms) of its citizens. These attitudes are often an important part of the internal setting in which national leaders make foreign policy.
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| Political identity | The perceived connection between an individual and a political community (a group that has political interest and goals) and among individuals of a political community. Nationalism is the dominant political identity of most people, but others, such as religion, do exist as a primary political identity and are becoming more common.
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| Political theory | An idea or connected set of ideas about why things happen and how events relate to one another.
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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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| Positivist school of law | Those who believe that law reflects society and the way that people want the society to operate.
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| Postmodernism | This theory holds that reality does not exist as such. Rather, reality is created by how we think and our discourse (writing, talking). As applied to world politics, postmodernism is the belief that we have become trapped by stale ways of conceiving of how we organize and conduct ourselves. Postmodernists wish, therefore, to deconstruct discourse.
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| Power | The totality of a country's international capabilities. Power is based on multiple resources, which alone or in concert allow one country to have its interests prevail in the international system. Power is especially important in enabling one state to achieve its goals when it clashes with the goals and wills of other international actors.
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| Power capacity | The sum of a country's power assets that determine its potential for exercising international power.
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| Power elite | A relatively small group of people with similar backgrounds, values, and policy preferences who occupy most of the leadership positions in government, business, media, social, and other societal institutions and move back and forth among leadership positions in those institutions.
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| Power pole | An actor in the international system that has enough military, economic, and/or diplomatic strength to often have an important role in determining the rules and operation of the system. Power poles, or simply poles, have generally been either (1) a single country or empire or (2) a group of countries that constitute an alliance or bloc.
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| Prescriptive rights | Obligations on a society and its government to try to provide a certain qualitative standard of life that, at a minimum, meets basic needs and perhaps does not differ radically from the quality of life enjoyed by others in the society. These rights are usually expressed in such terms as "the government shall…".
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| President of the Commission | Comparable to being president of the European Union (EU), this person is the director of the 25-member European Commission, the policy-making bureaucratic organ of the EU.
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| Primary products | Agricultural products and raw materials, such as minerals.
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| Proscriptive rights | Prohibitions to having something done to an individual or a group. These rights are usually expressed in such terms as "the government may not…".
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| Protectionism | Using tariffs or nontariff barriers such as quotas or subsidies to protect a domestic economic sector from competition from imported goods or services.
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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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| Public diplomacy | A process of creating an overall international image that enhances your ability to achieve diplomatic success.
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| Purchasing power parity (PPP) | 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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| Rally effect | The tendency during a crisis of political and other leaders, legislators, and the public to give strong support to a chief executive and the policy that leader has adopted in response to the crisis.
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| Real dollars | The value of dollars expressed in terms of a base year. This is determined by taking current value and subtracting the amount of inflation between the base year and the year being reported. Sometimes called uninflated dollars. Any currency can be valued in real terms. See also Current dollars.
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| Realism | The view that world politics is driven by competitive self-interest, and, therefore, that the central dynamic of an international system is a struggle for power among countries as each tries to preserve or, preferably, improve its military security and economic welfare in competition with other states. See Classic realism; Neorealism.
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| Realists | Analysts who believe that countries operate in their own self-interests and that politics is a struggle for power.
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| Realpolitik | Operating according to the belief that politics is based on the pursuit, possession, and application of power.
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| Regime | A complex of norms, treaties, international organizations, and transnational activity that orders an area of activity such as the environment or oceans.
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| Regional government | A possible middle level of governance between the prevalent national governments of today and the world government that some people favor. The regional structure that comes closest to (but still well short of ) a regional government is the European Union.
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| Regional trade agreement (RTA) | A broad term used by the World Trade Organization to define bilateral and cross-regional agreements as well as multilateral regional ones.
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| Relative power | Power measured in comparison with the power of other international actors.
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| Relativists | A group of people who subscribe to the belief that human rights are the product of cultures.
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| Renaissance | A period of cultural and intellectual rebirth and reform following the Dark Ages from approximately 1350 to 1650.
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| Rendition | The turning over of prisoners for questioning by other governments that operate without the limits on prisoner treatment that bind American officials.
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| Role | How an individual's position influences his or her thinking and actions.
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| Secretariat | The administrative organ of the United Nations, headed by the secretary-general. Usually, the administrative element of any IGO, headed by a secretary-general.
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| Self-determination | The concept that a people should have the opportunity to map their own destiny.
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| Services trade | Trade based on the purchase (import) from or sale (export) to another country of intangibles such as architectural fees; insurance premiums; royalties on movies, books, patents, and other intellectual properties; shipping services; advertising fees; and educational programs.
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| Social contract | The implicit understanding agreed to by those who merged into a society and created a government. The social contract details the proper functions of and prohibitions on government.
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| Soft power | Traits of a country that attract other countries to emulate it or otherwise follow its lead through the power of example.
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| South | The economically less developed countries (LDCs), primarily located in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
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| Southern Common Market (Mercosur) | A regional organization that emphasizes trade relations, established in 1995 among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela as associate members.
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| Sovereignty | The most essential characteristic of an international state. The term strongly implies political independence from any higher authority and also suggests at least theoretical equality.
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| Special drawing rights (SDRs) | Reserves held by the International Monetary Fund that the central banks of member-countries can draw on to help manage the values of their currencies. SDR value is based on a market-basket of currencies, and SDRs are acceptable in transactions between central banks.
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| Special operations | The overt or covert use of relatively small units of troops or paramilitary forces, which conduct commando/guerrilla operations, gather intelligence, and perform other specialized roles. Special operations forces in the U.S. military include such units as the U.S. Green Berets, Seals, and Delta Force. Others include Great Britain's Special Air Services (SAS) and Russia's Special Purpose Force (SPETSNAZ).
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| State | A political actor that has sovereignty and a number of characteristics, including territory, population, organization, and recognition.
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| State building | The process of creating both a government and other legal structures of a country and the political identification of the inhabitants of the country with the state and their sense of loyalty to it.
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| State of nature | A theoretical time in human history when people lived independently or in family groups and there were no societies of nonrelated individuals or governments.
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| State terrorism | Terrorism carried out directly by, or encouraged and funded by, an established government of a state (country).
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| State-centric system | A system describing the current world system wherein states are the principal actors.
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| State-level analysis | An analytical approach that emphasizes the actions of states and the internal (domestic) causes of their policies.
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| Statecraft | The use of military, economic, diplomatic, and informational policy instruments to achieve the foreign policy goals of countries.
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| Stateless nation | A nation that does not exercise political control over any state.
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| Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I (START I) | A nuclear weapons treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the United States in 1991 and later re-signed with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine that will limit Russia and the United States to 1,600 delivery vehicles and 6,000 strategic explosive nuclear devices each, with the other three countries destroying their nuclear weapons or transferring them to Russia.
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| Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II) | A nuclear weapons treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the United States in 1993, which established nuclear warhead and bomb ceilings of 3,500 for the United States and 2,997 for Russia by the year 2003 and that also eliminated some types of weapons systems. In a largely symbolic move, the Russian parliament ratified the treaty in 2000, but later announced it would no longer be bound by its provisions.
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| Strategic-range delivery vehicle | A missile or bomber capable of delivering weapons at a distance of more than 5,500 kilometers (3,416.8 miles).
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| Supermajority voting | A voting formula that requires a two-thirds vote or some other fraction or combination of fractions for passage of a measure.
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| Superpower | A term used to describe the leader of a system pole in a bipolar system. During the cold war, the Soviet Union and the United States were each leaders of a bipolar system pole.
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| Supranational organization | An organization that is founded and operates, at least in part, on the idea that international organizations can or should have authority higher than individual states and that those states should be subordinate to the supranational organization.
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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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| System-level analysis | An analytical approach that emphasizes the importance of the impact of world conditions (economics, technology, power relationships, and so forth) on the actions of states and other international actors.
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| Tariff | A tax, usually based on a percentage of value, that importers must pay on items purchased abroad; also known as an import tax or import duty.
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| Terrorism | A form of political violence conducted by individuals, groups, or clandestine government agents that attempts to manipulate politics by attacking noncombatants and nonmilitary targets in order to create a climate of fear.
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| Theocracy | A political system that is organized, governed, and defined by spiritual leaders and their religious beliefs.
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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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| Transnational advocacy networks (TANs) | IGOs, NGOs, and national organizations that are based on shared values or common interests and exchange information and services.
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| Transnational terrorism | Terrorism carried out either across national borders or by groups that operate in more than one country.
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| Transnational terrorist groups | Those that operate across borders or that have cells and members in more than one country.
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| Transnationalism | Extension beyond the borders of a single country; applies to a political movement, issue, organization, or other phenomena.
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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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| Tribalism | A term used by scholar Benjamin Barber to describe the internal pressure on countries that can lead to their fragmentation and even to their collapse.
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| Two-level game theory | The concept that in order to arrive at satisfactory international agreements, a country's diplomats actually have to deal with (at one level) the other country's negotiators and (at the other level) legislators, interest groups, and other domestic forces at home.
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| UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) | Often called Earth Summit I or the Rio Conference, this gathering in 1992 was the first to bring together most of the world's countries, a majority of which were represented by their head of state or government, to address the range of issues associated with sustainable development.
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| UN Conference on Population and Development (UNCPD) | A UN-sponsored conference that met in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994 and was attended by delegates from more than 170 countries. The conference called for a program of action to include spending $17 billion annually by the year 2000 on international, national, and local programs to foster family planning and to improve the access of women in such areas as education.
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| UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) | A UN organization established in 1964 and currently consisting of all UN members plus the Holy See, Switzerland, and Tonga, which holds quadrennial meetings aimed at promoting international trade and economic development.
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| UN Development Programme (UNDP) | An agency of the UN established in 1965 to provide technical assistance to stimulate economic and social development in the economically less developed countries. The UNDP has 48 members selected on a rotating basis from the world's regions.
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| UN General Assembly (UNGA) | The main representative body of the United Nations, composed of all 192 member-states.
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| UN Security Council (UNSC) | The main peacekeeping organ of the United Nations. The Security Council has 15 members, including 5 permanent members.
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| Unanimity voting | A system used to determine how votes should count. In this system, in order for a vote to be valid, all members must agree to the proposed measure. Abstention from a vote may or may not block an agreement.
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| Unconventional force | The application of force using the techniques of guerrilla warfare, covert operations, and terrorism conducted by military special forces or by paramilitary groups. Such groups frequently rely on external sources for funds and weapons. Unconventional warfare is sometimes waged against nonmilitary targets and may use conventional weapons or weapons of mass destruction.
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| Unilateralism | Occurs when a single country, perhaps leading a small coalition of other countries, takes an important international action, such as using force, without the approval of an IGO.
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| Unipolar system | A type of international system that describes a single country with complete global hegemony.
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| Unitary government | One in which the central government has all or most of the power and the subordinate units have little or no functional authority.
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| United Nations (UN) | An international body created in 1945 with the intention of maintaining peace through the cooperation of its member-states. As part of its mission, it addresses human welfare issues such as the environment, human rights, population, and health. Its headquarters are located in New York City, and it was established following World War II to supersede the League of Nations.
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| Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Adopted by the UN General Assembly, it is the most fundamental internationally proclaimed statement of human rights in existence.
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| Universalists | A group of people who subscribe to the belief that human rights are derived from sources external to society, such as from a theological, ideological, or natural rights basis.
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| Uruguay Round | The eighth round of GATT negotiations to reduce tariffs and nontariff barriers to trade. The eighth round was convened in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1986 and its resulting agreements were signed in Marrakesh, Morocco, in April 1994.
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| Vertical authority structure | A system in which subordinate units answer to higher levels of authority.
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| Veto | A negative vote cast in the UN Security Council by one of the five permanent members; has the effect of defeating the issue being voted on.
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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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| Weighted voting | A system used to determine how votes should count. In this system, particular votes count more or less depending on what criterion is deemed to be most significant. For instance, population or wealth might be the important defining criterion for a particular vote. In the case of population, a country would receive a particular number of votes based on its population, thus a country with a large population would have more votes than a country with a small population.
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| West | Historically, Europe and those countries and regions whose cultures were founded on or converted to European culture. Such countries would include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. The majority of the populations in these countries are also "white," in the European, not the larger Caucasian, sense. After World War II, the term West took on two somewhat different but related meanings. One referred to the countries allied with the United States and opposed to the Soviet Union and its allies, called the East. The West also came to mean the industrial democracies, including Japan.
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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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| Will to power | The willingness of a country to use its power capacity to influence global events.
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| World Bank Group | Four associated agencies that grant loans to LDCs for economic development and other financial needs. Two of the agencies, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), are collectively referred to as the World Bank. The other two agencies are the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
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| World Conference(s) on Women (WCW) | A series of UN-sponsored global conferences on the status of women. Of these, the most recent was the fourth WCW held in Beijing in 1995.
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| World government | The concept of a supranational world authority to which current countries would surrender some or all of their sovereign authority.
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| World Health Organization (WHO) | A UN-affiliated organization created in 1946 to address world health issues.
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| World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) | Often called Earth Summit II, this conference was held in Johannesburg in 2002. It was attended by almost all countries and by some 8,000 NGOs, and it established a series of calls for action and timetables for ameliorating various problems.
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| World systems theory | The view that the world is something of an economic society brought about by the spread of capitalism and characterized by a hierarchy of countries and regions based on a gap in economic circumstance, by a division of labor between capital-intensive activities in wealthy countries and labor-intensive activities in poor countries, and by the domination of lower tier countries and regions by upper tier ones.
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| World Trade Organization (WTO) | The organization that replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) organization as the body that implements GATT, the treaty.
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| Xenophobia | Fear of others, they-groups.
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| Zero-sum game | A contest in which gains by one player can only be achieved by equal losses for other players. See Non-zero-sum game.
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