| Word |
Definition |
| Nation | psychological bound to one another |
| State | Institutional or gov. element of a country |
| Soverenignty | Owning your own territory |
| constructed | Deliberatly created but widely accepted as natural |
| multinational | country composed of several peoples with distinct national feelings |
| diplomatic recognition | state announcing official contact with other state |
| failed state | collapse of sovereignty essentially no national governing power |
| reification | taking theory as reality |
| causality | proving one thing causes another |
| electoral franchise | right to vote |
| parliament | national assembly that considers and enacts laws |
| authoritarin | nondemocratic or dictatorial politics |
| pragmatic | without ideological considerations base on praticality |
| Exchequer | Britain'streasury ministry |
| the continent | British term for mainland europe |
| Mixed Monarchy | king balanced by nobles |
| Magna Carta | 1215 agreement to preseve rights of English nobles |
| burghers | town dwellers/middle class |
| commons (Parliament) | lower house of Parliament/ elected important chamber |
| lords (parliament) | upper house of parliament, less impartant than commons, birth right or life |
| commonwealth | a republic |
| rebulican | getting rid of monarchy |
| levellers | radicals during English civil war who argued for equality and one man one vote |
| prime minister | chief of government |
| minister | head of a majr department or government |
| whigs | faction of parliament that became the libral party |
| tories | faction of parliament that became conservative party |
| state of nature | humans before civilization |
| civil society | humans after becoming civilized |
| welfare state | political system that redistributes weatlth from rich to poor standard in west europe |
| statute | ordinary law, usually for specific problem |
| eclectic | drawn from a variety of sources |
| Crown | powers of the british gov |
| MP | ember of Parliament |
| junior minister | MP with executive responsibilities below cabinet rank |
| portfolio | ministers assigned ministry |
| Fusion of Powers | connection of executive and legislative branches in parliamentry systems |
| whip | parliamentry party leader who makes sure members obey party in voting |
| vote of no-confidence | parliamentary vote to oust cabinet |
| by-election | special election for vacant seat in parliament |
| whitehall | main british goverment offices |
| westminster | parliaement building |
| law lords | britians top judges, members of lords |
| anachronism | something from the past that does not fit resent times |
| FPTP | first past the post, single member districsts with plurality win |
| single-member distric | sends one representative to parliament |
| plurality | largest quantity, |
| solidarity | feeling of cohesion within a social class |
| meritocracy | promotion by brains and ablility rather than heredity |
| public school | British private boarding schools |
| old boy | somoene you knew at public school |
| deferential | acepting leadershop of social superiors |
| civility | good manners in politics |
| periphery | nations outlying regions |
| IRA | irish republican army, anti-british terrorist who seek unification of ireland |
| malthusian | view that population grown outstrips food |
| home rule | giv ing region some autonomy to govern itself |
| orangemen | northern irish protestants |
| relative decline | failing to keep up economically with other nations |
| absolute decline | growing weaker economically compared to one's own past |
| deindustrialization | decline of heavy industry |
| pluralistic stagnation | theory that out of control interest groups produce policy log jams |
| deregulation | cutting government rules on industry |
| entitlement | spending programs citizens are automatically entitled to such as social security |
| Good Friday agreement | 1998 pact to share power in northern ireland |
| consociation | sharing of political pwer at the execuative level giving all major parties cabinet positions |
| subject | british citizen |
| devolution | central overnment turns some powers over to regions |
| referendum | vote on an issue rather than for an office |
| unilinear | progressing evenly and always upward |
