Grad schools emailing to request that I apply? I'm an undergraduate major in International Studies applying for grad school programs in Development, Securities, and Global Governance.  I have international experience working in West Africa for World Bank and USAID sponsored NGO research initiatives.

I've recently submitted all of my intended applications for graduate school programs and fellowships.  In the last week, I've received three emails requesting that I apply to graduate school programs which I had not intended to apply for - Cornell, Denver, and Penn.

Does this mean that the programs are particularly interested in me or is this a normal spam-type email to people that have applied to other programs with similar major focus?
Universities are not above collecting and re-selling data.  There are a number of ways you could have gotten on a mailing list which was purchased by the 3 schools you mention.  In math, we have a Putnam competition and most good math majors participate.  Grad schools will buy the list of top 500 or second 250 or whatever finishers and then spam them with invitations to apply.  In your field, you may have done something that got your name on a list of likely candidates, or perhaps it's just that one or more of the schools you applied to stuck your name on a list and sold it to other schools.  

(Yes, companies sell data to their competitors.  I always get a chuckle when DISH TV sends me a solicitation using the misspelling of my name that Time-Warner Cable has.)

The strict answer to your question is "both."  They are particularly interested in you, but it's because your name appeared in a list of potentially good candidates.  (This is my guess,  but perhaps your work in West Africa got noticed and they really are targeting you in particular.  But this doesn't seem likely, because how would they know you are now in the market for a grad school...?)