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Comparative Government vocabulary and definitions.

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Question
Answer
Normative Questions   Questions that deal with how the world should be  
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Empirical Questions   Questions that deal with how the world is  
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State   Organizations that exert a monopoly of violence or force over a territory  
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Unitary State   A state where the political power is concentrated in the national capital!  
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Federal State   A state where political power is divided between the national capital (central state) and regions/localities  
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Rentier   A state which derives a substantial portion of its national resources from renting indigenous resources to external clients  
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Nation   A human community with shared culture, history, psychological sense of identity; based on culture, geographic, linguistic ties  
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Country   state, government, regime and people within a political system  
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Regime   norms and rules regulating individual freedoms and collective equality  
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Society   Group of people who share a distractive cultural and economic organization, as well as set of values and norms  
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Government   The leadership that administers the state  
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Institutions   Legislative, executive, judiciary, and bureaucracy  
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Politics   The struggle for power that gives winners the ability to make decisions affecting others; who gets what, when, and how  
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Political Culture   patterns of basic norms relating to politics; includes history, values, beliefs, traditions; influences political behavior  
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Legitimacy   extent to which a state’s authority is considered right or proper  
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Traditional Legitimacy   legitimacy derived from a long-standing tradition of being obeyed  
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Charismatic Legitimacy   legitimacy derived from the peoples’ identification with the magnetic appeal of the leader  
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Rational-legal Legitimacy   legitimacy derived from a system of laws or procedures that have become highly institutionalized  
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Sovereignty   a state’s ability to carry out actions independently  
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Legislature   branch of government formally charged with making laws  
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Bicameral   A legislature with two chambers  
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Unicameral   A single chamber legislature  
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Executive   Branch of government formally charged with making laws  
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Head of government   leader who deals with everyday tasks of running the state  
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Head of state   Leader who symbolizes and represents the people nationally and internationally, embodying and articulating the goals of the regime  
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Revolution   A major revision or overthrow of basic institutions  
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Correlation   Apparent association between certain factors or variables  
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Causation   When a change in one variable causes a change in another  
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Political Cleavage   Factors that separate groups  
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Crosscutting Cleavages   A division that includes people with differences, strengthening society  
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Coinciding Cleavages   A division that strengthens feelings of difference and discrepancy, weakening society  
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Democracy   System of government where the people choose policymakers in free, fair, and competitive elections  
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Liberal Democracy   A democracy with political competition, economic freedom, civil rights and liberties  
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Illiberal Democracy   A democracy where some personal liberties and democratic rights are limited  
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Social Democracy   A hybrid of liberalism and communism; values on both equality and individual freedoms; mixed welfare state  
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Communism   A system of government that emphasizes economic equality rather than individual political and economic freedoms; includes collective property (state ownership) and a dominant state  
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Authoritarian   regimes that limit the role of the public in decision making and deny citizens’ basic rights and restrict their freedoms  
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Corporatism   Citizen participation is channeled through state-sanctioned groups. When business, labor, and the government work close in policymaking  
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Cooptation   System used by non-democratic regimes where members of the public are brought into a beneficial relationship with the state and government  
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Theocracy   A system of government where the leader claims to rule on behalf of God  
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Political Ideology   Universal sets of political values regarding the fundamental goals of politics; ideal balance between freedom and equality  
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Liberalism (as a political ideology)   A political ideology that places a high priority on individual political and economic freedoms; favors economic equality, private property, capitalism, and protection  
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Libertarian   ideology favoring little government interference in the economy and personal freedoms  
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Political Attitude   Views regarding the status quo in a society; desired pace and method of political change  
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Liberalism (as an attitude)   A political attitude that supports evolutionary change within a system  
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Reactionary   A political attitude that promotes rapid change to restore political, social, and economic institutions that once existed  
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Radicalism   A political attitude that supports rapid, extensive, revolutionary change  
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Conservatism   Supports the status quo and views change as risky  
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Nationalism   The pride in one’s country or culture  
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Fascism   political attitude hostile to the idea of individual freedom and rejects notion of equality  
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Proportional Representation   in multimember districts, more than one legislative seat is contested in each electoral district. Voters vote for a list of party candidates instead of for a single representative and the percentage of votes a party receives determines how many of the di  
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First Past the Post/Single Member District   System where there is only one representative for each constituency and in each district the candidate with the greatest number of votes wins the seat.  
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Mixed electoral system   voters are given two votes for a candidate in a party; SMDs are elected based on plurality while other seats are elected from MMDs using PR  
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Political Economy   The study of how politics and economics are related  
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Developed Countries   high level of development based on industrialization, GDP, HDI, etc.  
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Developing Countries   countries with low standards of democratic governments, industrialization, social programs, and human rights guarantees  
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Under-developed Countries   State that has failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government (loss of control of territory, erosion of legitimacy, unreasonable public services, inability to interact as a member of the international community)  
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Neoliberal Economic Reforms   Free markets and free trade. Break down barriers to international trade and investment.  
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GDP   The total market value of goods and services produced in a country in one year, measured in US dollars. Tool for evaluating size of economy.  
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PPP   Purchasing power parity. Mechanism for estimating the real buying power of income in each country using prices in the U.S. as a benchmark.  
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Gini Index   Commonly used measurer of economic inequality; equality = 0 and inequality = 100.  
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HDI   a measure produced by the United Nations to measure standards of living; considers a variety of factors of affluence such as health and education  
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Globalization   Phenomenon where international forces shape politics in the context of a rapidly expanding and intensifying set of links among states, societies, economies  
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Linkage institution   Groups that connect the people to the government, such as political parties, interest groups, print and electronic media  
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Bureaucracy   structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations and government  
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Marxism   Struggle between resources of the elites and proletariats leads to the classless society  
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Marxism-Leninism   vanguard of the proletariat, which is that the people with an understanding of Marxism would help the proletariat revolutionize  
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Command Economy   The government decides, plans, and controls the economy  
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Economic Liberalization   Decreasing involvement of the state in economics  
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Democratization   Transformation process from a nondemocratic regime to a procedural democracy to a substantive democracy  
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Democratic deficit   Idea that the EU is not democratic enough or meaningful enough to most EU citizens  
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Devolution   The handing down of power to regions and localities  
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Civil servants   Branch of government where people work for merit  
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Civil service   Government workers hired on the basis of competitive exams  
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Civil society   Place where political conflict and competition takes place; comprises organizations outside the state that help the people define and advance their own interests  
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Clientelism   states provide benefits to groups of political supporters  
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ISI (Import substitution industrialization)   – an economic development strategy emphasizing growth of domestic industries by using tariff protection  
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Interest group   Group of individuals who share common goals and try to influence public policy to meet these goals  
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NGOs (Nongovernmental organizations)   organizations across many different countries such as Amnesty International and the International Red Cross  
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Judicial review   Mechanism through which the court reviews laws and policies and overturns those seen as violations of the constitution  
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Parliamentary system   a system of government featuring an executive head of government (prime minister) elected from the legislature who is the leader of the largest political party; he and his cabinet are charged with formulating and executing policy  
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Prebendalism   Extreme patron-clientelism; common in Nigeria  
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Presidential system   Combines the roles of head of state and head of government; the president holds most of the government’s executive powers. Has directly  
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Semi-Presidential System   A system of government that includes a prime minister approved by the legislature and a directly elected president; they share executive power  
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Privatization   Selling state-owned company  
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Referendum   Direct vote yes/no policy; examples: Tony Blair for adopting of euro (considered) and Putin for Russia policy  
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Rule of law   A state of order in which events conform to the law; every member of society must obey the law  
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Supranational organization   An organization where decisions are made by international institutions  
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Technocrat   A system where decision makers are selected based on how skilled they are rather than how much political capital they hold  
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Totalitarianism   regime wherein a Communist party controls most aspects of a country’s political and economic system  
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Fusion of powers   the idea in the UK that Parliament is the supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority. Legislative and executive is fused in the cabinet.  
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Socialism   State before classless society gains control  
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Radical   Favors fundamental, drastic, revolutionary changes in society  
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Nationalism   Ideology that focuses on the nation; pride and love of one’s country  
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Market Economy   Interaction between forces and supply and demand that allocate the goods and resources  
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