The study of politics
Proximate cause
What is just the catalyst of an event?
State
What is a political unit with a monopoly on the use of legitimate force over a clearly defined territory?
Vassalage
What is people would give their lords his produce and part of their own as well, or perhaps instead a few months or something of military service, in return for protection including getting to flee into the lord's castle?
Good examples of nationalism ending peacefully (at least so far)
What are Belgium and Switzerland, because both nations allow their regions to have broad autonomy and natl government is broadly representative and so resources are shared and they have complex, federal politics, even to the point where street signs are in the local langs for both cultures?
Argument against secession for minority regions/groups
What is the region will lose most or all of the clout it currently has as part of its being part of the bigger/host country?
Underlying cause
What is the main, ultimate, essential cause of an event?
What is the way we make group decisions when people in the group want different things?
Feudalism
What is the thing where the order is king, duke, earl, count, lord, serfs (who were ~90% of people in a society) and had 2 main features which were very decentralized and had lines of unclear authority, both between the pope and the ruler but also between the local ruler, whom they knew better, and the far off but higher up ruler?
Nation
What is a group of people identifying with each other on the basis of a shared language, religion, or culture (often an attachment to a particular piece of land)?
Nationalist movements
What are often fueled by poverty and oppression?
The scary truth
What is sometimes terrible things happen simply because of rational decisions?
Sovereign
What has a monopoly on deciding who can use force; is a supreme, independent authority?
System of Feudalism
What was from ~500-1648?
Nationalism
What is the belief in self-rule according to ethnic, racial or religious identity; the belief that each group should rule itself; an ideology which holds that the boundaries of the state and nation should be congruent?
Legitimacy
What is that amorphous thing that leads us to consider it fair if that entity takes our money?
Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles
What was war became less frequent (because the small, local feudal territories were punished by their own big states because they were violating their monopoly, rather than by the small, local feudal territory of another country)but bigger (because all the small local feudal territories would get involved when the two big sovereign states battled it out)?
Nationalist groups don't always break away
What is why doesn't the host country want to give up the region because it has lots of resources, and why does the majority ethnic group in that region not want to start living suddenly in a state in which they are now the minority?
Different configurations of nations and states
What is there are
How to find the logical explanation for seemingly crazy things
What is
1. Studying polysci as a science (think ecology, meteorology, or medicine; rather than physics, biology, or chemistry)?
2. Seeking to understand the underlying as opposed to proximate causes?
3. And trying to look beyond the role of "Great Men"?
The Treaty of Versailles
What was the proximate cause for the rise of the modern state with its creating the definition of the state as part of its treaty, the underlying causes of the state's rise which were industrialization (such as cannons, muskets, navy-need a king to have the money to build an armada-etc., which were easier to use and harder for a rebel lord to defend against with only a castle), mass production in weapons and uniforms (and more being produced meant needed more taxes to cover costs of production), increasing secularism (clearer lines of authority when allegiance was a tug of war game between the king and pope), better communication (easier to know faster if a subject rebelled and to rally people out to you to quelch him) and transportation (easier and faster to get out to rebel subject's land to punish him)?
Why nationalism can end peacefully also as well in general
What are traditions (trust and reciprocity and expectation that rules will be fairly applied and enforced) and norms and unwritten laws and wealth (the last one in Belgium and Switzerland specifically)?