Sovereignty
A very central concept: Sovereignty is the effect of a political constitution; in global politics the basic nexus for grasping relations between entities hence considered a primary institution.
Grasping what sovereignty is all about, gives one a great advantage in analyzing global politics. When sovereignty is established, a polity is able to strive for monopolization of violence by developing its political form: A state that can deter its population from breaking the law exercise full sovereignty. As an institution in regulation between states, sovereignty acts as the posture of a polity vis a vis other polities: polities may consider each other to be sovereign on a designated territory hence count on or even demand, that the polity monopolize violations on this territory. When sovereignty is weak, polity struggles with policing the realm and violations may be out of reach for polity to mediate and this may lead to intra-state conflict and polity fragmentation. Often, one sees the reference to what Stephen D. Kranser names International Legal Sovereignty, where sovereignty is sought institutionalized to the degree of being a place for distribution of rights in a legal system, like through the United Nations Charter, where sovereignty is inscribed through article 2; in section 4 the right to distribute force on a designated territory is granted. This degree of institutionalization is difficult for the global polity to master; as a primary institution, sovereignty functions as the de facto distribution of power and the reference for the idea, that diplomatic delegations are part of the territorial integrity of a polity, even when it is acting as an embassy on foreign grounds. Violating sovereignty will often lead to war.