The international system consists of sovereign states, each looking out for its own interests but operating within a system of bilateral and multilateral relations (such as treaties, accords, and protocols of various kinds), and international organizations designed for specific purposes, such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, etc. These sovereign countries are “nation states,” which consist of communities of citizens bound by a common language and culture, and defined by clearly delineated territorial boundaries and requirements of citizenship. This political entity, as it has evolved in the West, is based on the liberal concept of a democratic constitutional system of government, and has been replicated in various ways around the world—a replication which historian Benedict Anderson attributes in great part to the rise of print languages and mass literacy which made possible the diffusion of Western liberal
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