Core topics: Understanding power and global politics flashcards

Topic 1: Core topics: Understanding power and global politics

What is power in Global Politics?

The guide's starting point: the ability to effect change. Its second view treats power as a feature of relations among people. Capacity view: power is held and can be counted (armies, GDP, votes). Relational view: it depends on how others respond. Resources are not outcomes.

Hard, soft and smart power: what is the difference?

Hard: coercion through threats, force or penalties (sanctions, military intervention). Soft: persuasion and attraction (culture, ideology, aid) — Nye, 1990. Smart: a strategy combining hard and soft tools to fit the aim. How a resource works decides the label, not the resource itself.

Structural versus relational power

Structural: power from a position in rules or institutions, such as a permanent Security Council seat or a blocking share of IMF votes. Relational: power from ties between actors, such as an alliance (NATO's Article 5, AUKUS) or a protest network.

What are Lukes' three dimensions of power?

First: winning open decisions. Second: keeping an issue off the agenda. Third: shaping what people want, so they never raise the issue at all.

Westphalian sovereignty versus sovereignty as responsibility

Westphalian: territorial, supreme authority with no outside actor in domestic affairs; non-intervention (UN Charter Art. 2(7)). Sovereignty as responsibility: the right to non-intervention depends on protecting your own people — the basis of R2P, endorsed at the 2005 World Summit.

Internal versus external sovereignty, and de jure versus de facto

Internal: supreme authority inside the borders. External: independence from outside control and recognition as an equal. De jure: the legal right to rule. De facto: actual control on the ground (Taiwan has strong de facto control but few formal recognitions).

What are the Montevideo Convention (1933) criteria for statehood?

A permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

What is legitimacy, and how does it differ from power and legality?

Legitimacy is broad acceptance of an actor or action as proper. Power is the ability to effect change; coercion can keep power without legitimacy. Legal acts can be seen as illegitimate, and illegal protest as legitimate.

State legitimacy versus government legitimacy

State legitimacy: acceptance of the state's right to exist and rule a territory. Government legitimacy: acceptance of those in office and how they gained and use power. A government can fall while the state stays accepted (Sri Lanka, 2022).

How does a UN Security Council resolution pass?

15 members: 5 permanent (China, France, Russia, UK, USA) and 10 elected for two-year terms. A substantive decision needs 9 votes in favour and no permanent-member veto. An abstention is not a veto. Chapter VII decisions bind all members.

Collective security versus collective defence

Collective security: all members of a system act against any member that commits aggression (the UN model). Collective defence: allies defend each other against an outside attack (NATO's Article 5).

Realism versus liberalism in Global Politics

Realism: states in anarchy pursue power and security; cooperation is hard because of relative gains (Morgenthau, Waltz, Mearsheimer). Liberalism: institutions and interdependence make cooperation likely; states value absolute gains (Keohane and Nye, 1977).

Actor versus stakeholder

An actor is an individual or group with the agency and means to exercise power on an issue. A stakeholder is anyone affected by the issue, whether or not they can act. Every actor involved is a stakeholder; not every stakeholder is an actor.