Foundations: State, Nation, Sovereignty
A political unit with people, a defined territory, governing institutions, and recognized authority over domestic and foreign policy.
What is a state?
Mutual reliance among actors where actions in one place have consequences elsewhere; its core logic is reciprocity.
What is interdependence?
Assured basic income - this pillar of human security.
What is economic security?
The ability to get others to do what they otherwise would not do.
What is power?
Holding a referendum on independence (like Scotland’s 2014 vote) is an example of this principle in action.
What is self-determination?
For cultivating responsibility and virtue among citizens, Aristotle supports this approach to property.
What is private property?
A community of people linked by shared culture, language, religion, and history.
What is a nation?
This approach keeps states central but adds nonstate actors to explain today’s intertwined world.
What is pluralism (and interdependence)?
Reliable access to an adequate supply of food.
What is food security?
Influence through attraction -culture, values, and policy legitimacy.
What is soft power?
Unlike autonomy within a parent state, this outcome gives full control of foreign policy and international legal recognition.
What is independence (full sovereignty)?
To prevent corruption among rulers, Plato proposes this arrangement regarding property and family for the guardian class.
What are communal property and family arrangements?
Everyday usage often blends the two concepts into this term when people and governing authority align.
What is a nation-state?
Shrinking distances and deepening worldwide connections across economics, politics, culture, environment, and crime.
What is globalization?
Safety from physical violence and threats.
What is personal security?
Dutch advocate of natural law regarded as the father of international law.
Who is Hugo Grotius?
When self-determination results in an internationally recognized state, the group gains this authority over domestic and foreign affairs.
What is sovereignty?
Methodological contrast: unlike Plato’s ideal blueprint, Aristotle begins from observation of real constitutions. He is more this.
What is empirical (practical)?
The exclusive authority of a state to make and enforce rules within its territory and conduct its own external affairs.
What is sovereignty?
Identified as the major driver of recent globalization because it links people and markets instantly across borders.
What is the communications revolution?
Protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.
What is political security?
Organizations not formally part of governments that set agendas, negotiate outcomes, confer legitimacy, and implement solutions.
What are NGOs (nonstate actors)?
A region governing itself within a state without full independence.
What is autonomy?
Aristotle’s ‘best practicable’ constitution, rule of law and the many mixed with virtue.
What is a polity (mixed/constitutional government)?
The form of sovereignty focused on keeping external actors out of a state’s domestic affairs within its territory.
What is Westphalian sovereignty?
A regional project that pooled sovereignty to build peace and a single market but faced eurozone crises and sovereignty concerns.
What is the European Union?
An approach that shifts the focus from borders to people’s daily vulnerabilities across seven categories.
What is human security?
Influence through coercion -military force, threats, or sanctions.
What is hard power?
The right of a people to choose their political status and form of government.
What is self-determination?
In The Republic, this class rules the ideal state after long training in philosophy.
Who are the philosopher-kings (guardians)?