exam 2 vocabulary

Question 1

state

Answer 1

The government and political system of a country

Question 2

foreign policy

Answer 2

Policy (actions or state- ments intended to change behavior or outcomes) aimed at problems outside of the policy-making state’s borders.

Question 3

State-level theories of Int’l Politics

Answer 3

State-level theories are theories of foreign policy that categorizes states based on shared characteristics

Question 4

dyad

Answer 4

pair of states

Question 5

zone of peace

Answer 5

A group of states that tend not to go to war with each other because they are democratic.

Question 6

rally around the flag

Answer 6

The increase in popular support often gained by leaders of a country in times of war.

Question 7

rational choice theory

Answer 7

A theory that bases explanations of deci- sions on the assumption that decision makers have clear goals, calcu- late the costs of various courses of action, and pick the policy that will best serve their goals.

Question 8

The second, “dyadic” (focusing on pairs) model…

Answer 8

The second, “dyadic” (focusing on pairs) model holds that toward autocracies democracies are just as warlike as autocra- cies, but that democracies do not fight each other.

Question 9

audience cost

Answer 9

The costs in loss of public support paid by leaders of democracies when they renege on a commitment.

Question 10

mainstream effect

Answer 10

The tendency for the public to follow political leaders and the media when those actors have consensus on an issue.

Question 11

expected utility theory

Answer 11

A variant of the rational action model. The theory asserts that leaders evaluate poli- cies by combining their estimation of the utility of potential outcomes with the likelihood that different outcomes will result from the policy in question.

Question 12

ministries

Answer 12

ministries The main institutions of the executive branch of government. In the United States, these institutions are called “departments.”

Question 13

groupthink

Answer 13

agreeing w/ the majority

Question 14

deaths for a war

Answer 14

1000

Question 15

deaths to = a militarized dispute

Answer 15

1-999

Question 16

cognitive dissonance

Answer 16

A theory that holds that individuals tend to con- struct internally consis- tent views of the world and that psychological discomfort, or “cogni- tive dissonance,” results when some new piece of information does not fit with an individual’s existing beliefs.

Question 17

bolstering

Answer 17

The tendency of deci- sion makers facing a difficult decision to increase their certainty once a decision is made

Question 18

causes of war

Answer 18

Liberalism 
Regime Type 
Expected Utility 
Diversionary War 
Capitalism  
Rivalry 
greed
grievances 
territory 
nuc's