1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Latin America
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Latin America is a group of countries and dependencies in the Americas where Romance languages are predominant. It is therefore broader than the terms Ibero-America or Hispanic America—though it usually excludes French Canada and it has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2, almost 13% of the Earths land surface area. As of 2015, its population was estimated at more than 626 million and in 2014, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of 5,573,397 million USD and a GDP PPP of 7,531,585 million USD. The term Latin America was first used in 1861 in La revue des races Latines, a further investigation of the concept of Latin America is by Michel Gobat in the American Historical Review. The term was first used in Paris in an 1856 conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao and this term was also used in 1861 by French scholars in La revue des races Latines, a magazine dedicated to the Pan-Latinism movement. Latin America is, therefore, defined as all parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish. By this definition, Latin America is coterminous with Ibero-America and this definition emphasizes a similar socioeconomic history of the region, which was characterized by formal or informal colonialism, rather than cultural aspects. As such, some sources avoid this oversimplification by using the phrase Latin America, the distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance-language and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, demographics and it may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Hispanic America, Portuguese America and French America. *, Not a sovereign state The concept of Latin America has been criticized by a number of intellectuals, the earliest known settlement was identified at Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in Southern Chile. Its occupation dates to some 14,000 years ago and there is disputed evidence of even earlier occupation. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continents, by the first millennium CE, South Americas vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed more permanent settlements such as the Chibcha and the Tairona groups and these groups are in the circum Caribbean region. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas and Aymaras of Bolivia, the region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the Aztecs, Toltecs, Maya, and Inca. The Aztec empire was ultimately the most powerful civilization known throughout the Americas, with the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incas and Aztecs, lost power to the heavy European invasion. Hernándo Cortés seized the Aztec elites power with the help of local groups who had favored the Aztec elite, epidemics of diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, wiped out a large portion of the indigenous population. Historians cannot determine the number of natives who died due to European diseases, due to the lack of written records, specific numbers are hard to verify. Many of the survivors were forced to work in European plantations, intermixing between the indigenous peoples and the European colonists was very common, and, by the end of the colonial period, people of mixed ancestry formed majorities in several colonies
3.
Monroe Doctrine
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The Monroe Doctrine was a U. S. policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas beginning in 1823. At the same time, the noted that the U. S. would recognize. President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress, the term Monroe Doctrine itself was coined in 1850. By the end of the 19th century, Monroes declaration was seen as a moment in the foreign policy of the United States. Could exert its own influence undisturbed, the doctrine asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations. After 1898, Latin American lawyers and intellectuals reinterpreted the Monroe doctrine in terms of multilateralism, in 1933, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the U. S. went along with the new reinterpretation, especially in terms of the Organization of American States. The U. S. government feared the victorious European powers that emerged from the Congress of Vienna would revive the monarchical government, France had already agreed to restore the Spanish Monarchy in exchange for Cuba. As the revolutionary Napoleonic Wars ended, Prussia, Austria, in particular, the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon rule over Spain and its colonies, which were establishing their independence. In fact, for years after the Monroe Doctrine took effect, Britain, through the Royal Navy, was the sole nation enforcing it. Allowing Spain to re-establish control of its former colonies would have cut Great Britain off from its trade with the region. For that reason, Canning proposed to the U. S. that they mutually declare, the U. S. resisted a joint statement because of the recent memory of the War of 1812, leading to the Monroe administrations unilateral statement. However, the provocation was the Russian Ukase of 1821 asserting rights to the Northwest. Despite Americas beginnings as an isolationist country, the seeds for the Monroe Doctrine were already being laid even during George Washingtons presidency, morison, as early as 1783, then, the United States adopted the policy of isolation, and announced its intention to keep out of Europe. The supplementary principle of the Monroe Doctrine, that Europe must keep out of America, was still over the horizon. S. Madisons sentiment might have been meaningless because, as was noted before, the second key passage, which contains a fuller statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the allied powers of Europe, it clarifies that the U. S. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered, because the U. S. lacked both a credible navy and army at the time, the doctrine was largely disregarded internationally. The doctrine, however, met with tacit British approval and they enforced it tactically as part of the wider Pax Britannica, which included enforcement of the neutrality of the seas. This was in line with the developing British policy of free trade against mercantilism
4.
International relations
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International relations is an academic and a public policy field, and so can be positive and normative, because it analyzes and formulates the foreign policy of a given State. As political activity, international relations dates from the time of the Greek historian Thucydides, in practice International Relations and International Affairs forms a separate academic program or field from Political Science, and the courses taught therein are highly interdisciplinary. The history of international relations based on sovereign states is often traced back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, prior to this the European medieval organization of political authority was based on a vaguely hierarchical religious order. Contrary to popular belief, Westphalia still embodied layered systems of sovereignty, the centuries of roughly 1500 to 1789 saw the rise of the independent, sovereign states, the institutionalization of diplomacy and armies. The French Revolution added to this the new idea that not princes or an oligarchy, such a state in which the nation is sovereign would thence be termed a nation-state. The term republic increasingly became its synonym, the same claim to sovereignty was made for both forms of nation-state. The particular European system supposing the sovereign equality of states was exported to the Americas, Africa, and Asia via colonialism, the contemporary international system was finally established through decolonization during the Cold War. While the nation-state system is considered modern, many states have not incorporated the system and are termed pre-modern, further, a handful of states have moved beyond insistence on full sovereignty, and can be considered post-modern. The ability of contemporary IR discourse to explain the relations of different types of states is disputed. What is explicitly recognized as international relations theory was not developed until after World War I, IR theory, however, has a long tradition of drawing on the work of other social sciences. The use of capitalizations of the I and R in international relations aims to distinguish the academic discipline of international relations from the phenomena of international relations. Similarly, liberalism draws upon the work of Kant and Rousseau, in the 20th century, in addition to contemporary theories of liberal internationalism, Marxism has been a foundation of international relations. International relations as a field of study began in Britain. IR emerged as an academic discipline in 1919 with the founding of the first IR professorship. Georgetown Universitys Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is the oldest international relations faculty in the United States and this was rapidly followed by establishment of IR at universities in the US and in Geneva, Switzerland. The creation of the posts of Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at LSE, furthermore, the International History department at LSE developed a focus on the history of IR in the early modern, colonial and Cold War periods. The first university dedicated to the study of IR was the Graduate Institute of International Studies. The Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago was the first to offer a graduate degree, in 2012, Ramon Llull University initiated the first International Relations degree in Barcelona, fully in English
5.
Soft power
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Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than by coercion, using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal, a defining feature of soft power is that it is noncoercive, the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. In 2012, Nye explained that with power, the best propaganda is not propaganda, further explaining that during the Information Age. Joseph Nye coined the term in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead, The Changing Nature of American Power. ”He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power, the term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. And in 2014, Xi announced, We should increase Chinas soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, the top ten is completed by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Netherlands. According to the 2016 Monocle Soft Power Survey, the United States holds the top spot in soft power, the Elcano Global Presence Report scores the European Union highest for soft presence when considered as a whole, and ranks the United States first by sovereign state. It includes China, Russia, Spain and Italy in the top ten, Joseph Nye introduced the concept of soft power in the late 1980s. For Nye, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. There are several ways one can achieve this, you can coerce them with threats, you can induce them with payments, or you can attract and this soft power – getting others to want the outcomes you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them. It can be contrasted with hard power, which is the use of coercion, Soft power can be wielded not just by states but also by all actors in international politics, such as NGOs or international institutions. It is also considered the face of power that indirectly allows you to obtain the outcomes you want. A countrys soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources, its culture, its values, and its foreign policies. In this sense, it is important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes that you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them, Soft power resources are the assets that produce attraction which often leads to acquiescence. Nye asserts that, Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive. Angelo Codevilla observed that an often overlooked aspect of soft power is that different parts of populations are attracted or repelled by different things, ideas, images. Soft power is hampered when policies, culture, or values repel others instead of attracting them, the book identifies three broad categories of soft power, culture, political values, and policies. In The Future of Power, Nye reiterates that soft power is a descriptive, rather than a normative, therefore, soft power can be wielded for nefarious purposes
6.
Superpower
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Superpower is a term used to describe a state with a dominant position, which is characterised by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined-means of technological, cultural, military and economic strength, as well as international relations. Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers, the term was first applied to the British Empire, the United States, and the Soviet Union. At the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, There have been many attempts by historians to apply the term superpower to a variety of past entities. However, since even the most powerful empires of old had little to no means to exert influence over very long distances, no agreed definition of what is a superpower exists, and may differ between sources. This was because the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union had proved themselves to be capable of casting great influence in global politics and military dominance. The term in its current political meaning was coined by Dutch-American geostrategist Nicholas Spykman in a series of lectures in 1943 about the shape of a new post-war world order. A year later, in 1944, William T. R, according to him, there were three states that were superpowers, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. According to Lyman Miller, The basic components of superpower stature may be measured along four axes of power, military, economic, political, although, many modifications may be made to this basic definition. According to Professor June Teufel Dreyer, A superpower must be able to project its power, soft and hard, in his book, Superpower, Three Choices for Americas Role in the World, Dr. There have been attempts by historians to apply the term superpower retrospectively. Recognition by historians of these states as superpowers may focus on various superlative traits exhibited by them. The two countries opposed each other ideologically, politically, militarily, and economically, the Soviet Union promoted the ideology of communism, planned economy and a one-party state, whilst the United States promoted the ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market. This was reflected in the Warsaw Pact and NATO military alliances, respectively and these alliances implied that these two nations were part of an emerging bipolar world, in contrast with a previously multipolar world. Additionally, much of the conflict between the superpowers was fought in wars, which more often than not involved issues more complex than the standard Cold War oppositions. After the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, the term began to be applied to the United States. This term, popularized by French foreign minister Hubert Védrine in the late 1990s, is controversial, one notable opponent to this theory, Samuel P. Huntington, rejects this theory in favor of a multipolar balance of power. In 1999, Samuel P. However, he rejected the claim that the world was unipolar, but that does not mean that the world is unipolar, describing it instead as a strange hybrid, a uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers
7.
Great power
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A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, while some nations are widely considered to be great powers, there is no definitive list of them. Sometimes the status of great powers is formally recognized in such as the Congress of Vienna or the United Nations Security Council. Accordingly, the status of great powers has also been formally and informally recognised in such as the G7. The term great power was first used to represent the most important powers in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era, the Great Powers constituted the Concert of Europe and claimed the right to joint enforcement of the postwar treaties. The formalization of the division between small powers and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814, since then, the international balance of power has shifted numerous times, most dramatically during World War I and World War II. In literature, alternative terms for power are often world power or major power. There are no set or defined characteristics of a great power and these characteristics have often been treated as empirical, self-evident to the assessor. However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity, as a result, there have been attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great power status. Later writers have expanded this test, attempting to define power in terms of military, economic. These expanded criteria can be divided into three heads, power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status, as noted above, for many, power capabilities were the sole criterion. However, even under the more expansive tests, power retains a vital place and this aspect has received mixed treatment, with some confusion as to the degree of power required. Writers have approached the concept of power with differing conceptualizations of the world situation. This differed from earlier writers, notably from Leopold von Ranke and these positions have been the subject of criticism. All states have a scope of interests, actions, or projected power. This is a factor in distinguishing a great power from a regional power. It has been suggested that a power should be possessed of actual influence throughout the scope of the prevailing international system. Arnold J. Toynbee, for example, observes that Great power may be defined as a political force exerting an effect co-extensive with the widest range of the society in which it operates, the Great powers of 1914 were world-powers because Western society had recently become world-wide
8.
Middle power
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In international relations, a middle power is a sovereign state that is not a superpower nor a great power, but still has large or moderate influence and international recognition. The concept of the middle power dates back to the origins of the European state system, in the late 16th century, Italian political thinker Giovanni Botero divided the world into three types of states – grandissime, mezano and piccoli. According to Botero, a mezano or middle power. has sufficient strength, no agreed standard method defines which states are middle powers. Some researchers use Gross National Product statistics to draw lists of middle powers around the world, economically, middle powers are generally those that are not considered too big or too small, however that is defined. Economics is not always the defining factor, under the original sense of the term, a middle power was one that had some degree of influence globally but did not dominate in any one area. This usage is not universal, and some define middle power to include nations that can be regarded as regional powers, however, emerging and traditional middle powers can be distinguished in terms of their mutually-influencing constitutive and behavioural differences. Constitutively, traditional middle powers are wealthy, stable, egalitarian, social democratic, emerging middle powers by contrast are semi-peripheral, materially inegalitarian and recently democratised states that demonstrate much regional influence and self-association. According to Enrico Fels from the University of Bonn, Firstly, just like great powers, finally, with regards to security and related to the first first point, a middle power must be militarily self-sufficient enough to inflict great costs upon an actively aggressive great power. Under this definition however, nuclear-armed states like India and Pakistan, Middle powers are states who commit their relative affluence, managerial skills, and international prestige to the preservation of the international order and peace. Middle powers perform these internationalist activities because of an idealistic imperative they associate with being a middle power and this imperative was particularly profound during the most intense periods of the Cold War. According to Soeya Yoshihide, Middle Power does not just mean a states size or military or economic power, rather, middle power diplomacy is defined by the issue area where a state invests its resources and knowledge. Middle powers are the force in the process of transnational institutional-building. Characteristics of middle power diplomacy include, Commitment to multilateralism through global institutions, high degree of civil society penetration in the countrys foreign policy. The term first entered Canadian political discourse after World War II, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, for example called Canada a power of the middle rank and helped to lay out the classical definition of Canadian middle power diplomacy. When he was advocating for Canadas election to the United Nations Security Council, in March 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defined his countrys foreign policy as one of middle power diplomacy, along the lines of similar criteria. Australia would influence international decision-makers on issues such as economic, security. The overlaps between the lists of middle powers and great powers show that there is no agreement among authorities. Some academics also believe that Germany and Japan are great powers, lists are often the subject of much debate and tend to place comparatively large countries alongside relatively smaller ones
9.
Unequal treaty
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The term is also applied to treaties imposed during the same time period on late Joseon Korea by the post-Meiji Restoration Empire of Japan. The term unequal treaty first came into use in China in the early 1920s, which reduced her to semicolonial status. It did not wish to be equal, the earliest treaty later referred to as unequal was the 1841 Convention of Chuenpi negotiations during the First Opium War. China and Great Britain signed the first unequal treaties under the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, following Qing Chinas defeat, treaties with Britain opened up five ports to foreign trade, while also allowing foreign missionaries, at least in theory, to reside within China. In addition, foreign residents in the cities were afforded trials by their own consular authorities rather than the Chinese legal system. Under the treaties, the UK and the US established the British Supreme Court for China and Japan, after World War I, patriotic consciousness in China focused on the treaties, which now became widely known as unequal treaties. The Nationalist Party and the Communist Party competed to convince the public that their approach would be more effective, germany was forced to terminate its rights, the Soviet Union surrendered them, and the United States organized the Washington Conference to negotiate them. After Chiang Kai-shek declared a new government in 1927, the western powers quickly offered diplomatic recognition. In the face of Japanese expansion in China, however, ending the system was postponed, most of Chinas unequal treaties were abrogated during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which started in 1937 and merged into the larger context of World War II. The United States Congress ended American extraterritoriality in December 1943, when the American Commodore Matthew Perry reached Japan in 1854, it signed the Convention of Kanagawa. Much more important was the Harris treaty of 1858 negotiated by U. S. envoy Townsend Harris, koreas first unequal treaty was not with the West but with Japan. Taking a page from Western tactics, in 1875 Japan sent Captain Inoue Yoshika and this forced Korea to open its doors to Japan by signing the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876. The unequal treaties ended at times for the countries involved. Japans victories in the 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War convinced many in the West that unequal treaties could no longer be enforced on Japan, koreas unequal treaties with European states became largely null and void in 1910, when it was annexed by Japan. ISBN 978-0-674-01521-0, OCLC56493769 Hsü, Immanuel Chung-yueh, OCLC300287988 Nish, I. H. Japan Reverses the Unequal Treaties, The Anglo-Japanese Commercial Treaty of 1894. Perez, Louis G. Japan Comes of Age, Mutsu Munemitsu & the Revision of the Unequal Treaties, liberal Barbarism, The European Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China. The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern China, Chinas Unequal Treaties, Narrating National History. International law, or, Rules regulating the intercourse of states in peace and war New York, OCLC852699 Korean Mission to the Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington, D. C
