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AP Comp Gov
Chapter 1: Introduction
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| regime | the type of political system; tyrannies, 2-party democracies, parliamentary, etc |
| communication | constant; creates interdependent economies; good and bad go across boarders |
| How we study politics? | describe, explain, predict; need "conceptual frameworks" in order to understand |
| hypothesis | NOT a definition (tautology); usually based on normative analysis; must be testable and changable |
| large "n" studies | statistical studies; sufficient and variety of cases available, certainty |
| small "n" studies | case studies; dive deeply into one or a few cases (this is what comp gov uses) |
| political system | set of institutions and agencies concerned with formulating and implementing collective goals of the society or group within it |
| governments | act as the policymakers of the poli system; decisions backed by legitimate coercion |
| structures | specialized agencies used to carry out various roles of the government, such as formulating, implementing, eforcing policies; parliaments, courts, bureaucracies; policies reflect goals, agencies provide means |
| process functions | distinctive activities necessary for policy to be made and implemented in any kind of poli system; interest articulation, interest aggrigation, policy making, policy implementation, adjudication |
| system functions | determine if system will maintain or change; socialization, recruitment of eliete, communication; fundamental importance to poli system |
| political socialization | families, schools, churches; structures that develop, reinforce, transform poli attitudes |
| political communication | flow of info through society and thru various structures that make up the poli system |
| policy functions | substative impacts on society, economy, culture thru outputs in implementation of poli process; includes regulation, extraction (taxes), distribution of benefits/services (wellfare, social security); outcomes result in new imputs - cyclical system |
| modern era | began in 1989; fall of Berlin Wall, collapse marked beginning of the implosion of soviet satelite governments in eastern Europe |
| Potemkin village | appearance of being something, but really isn't |
| comparative government: what and why? | analyzing and seeking to explain how and why gov functions in domestic and intl environments; gives us global perspective, less ethnocentric, understand patterns |
| empirical analysis | basis of scientific observation; statistical, numerical |
| normative analysis | based on value judgements; more common in comp gov, people are unpredictable, hard to quantify |
| social clevages | fault lines where people divide; class, gender, ethnicity, religion |
| systems anaylsis | gov as core of poli system; role is the political outputs, ie making, implementing, adjudicating policy |
| support | public support determines capacity of gov to function effectively; the greater the support the more a gov can do; known as imputs |
| structural-function analysis | poli systems can be compared in terms of how well they perform functions essential to stability; those that make, implement, adjudicate rules most effectively = more stable |
| typology analysis | classifying / analyzing a political system based on its structure and regime |
| democratic political systems | "reconciliation systems," tries to accomidate as many as possible; ability to max public expression; rapid decisions hard |
| authoritarian political system | keeps power in hands of one person or small group of people; very efficient; masses have little say; no checks/balances if dictator loses sight of original goals |
| historical analysis | change tends to be incremental because people value stability; look for patterns, historical context |
| politics | policies that help organize people, resolve disputes, maintain order, extract resources from people (winners/losers) |
| comparative politics | systematic study of political outcomes through comparing different cases; what level? how many? form of data? |
| quantitative vs qualitative | quantitative: emperical qualitative: normative |
| internal validity | in context of that one case, it is correct |
| external validity | proven through different cases that it is correct (draws from multiple sources) |
| deviant case study | a case that exhibits characteristics that differ from a well-known pattern; ex: economically developed = democracy (India is deviant cs) |
| critical case study | selected because provides a tough test of central hypothesis; if hypo true in this case, valid for all |
| comparative method | examining smaller number of cases (like 3-8), comp method seeks to understand causes of dependent variable; in absence of large n quantitative, uses most similar or most different approach; measure, explain sim&diff among nations |
| most similar approach | examine cases that share a number of common characteristics |
| most different approach | opposite of most similar |
| causal theories | involve independent (X) and dependent (Y) variables; if X, then Y |
| rational choice theory | individual will act strategically/rationally to achieve goals & max interests; explain outcomes by looking at individual actors and their decisions; not used much, leaders aren't really rational, also ignores poli history |
| middle level theory | most preferred comp method; focuses on specific features of the poli world, such as institutions, policies, classes of similar events (revolutions, elections) |
| structural approach | explain poli outcomes by looking @ underlying economic, social, poli-institutional setting in a coutry |
| system environment | illustrates interdependence of what happens in and between countries |
| interest articulation | interest expressed by individuals or groups; voting, protests |
| interest aggregation | demands combined into policy alternatives; legislature occurs in different committees; differences in bills go to "conference committees" |
| policy making | occurs in executive branch |
| adjudication | legal response to challenges or violations of policy |
| political recuitment | selection of political elites (ie those who participate directly in government) for political activities and gov offices |
| elite recruitment | political elites, aka people who are political leaders |
| political culture | people's attitudes towards their gov and their role in the poli process; like it, adds to stability; reflects core values of people; revolves around people's identity: racial, linguistic, ethnic, religion |
| legitimacy | country's citizens believe that their gov has the right to govern; 3 types: traditional, charismatic, rational/legal |
| traditional authority | rests on belief that tradition should determine who should rule and how (ex: monarchy) |
| charismatic authority | personality of leader or small group (ex: Napoleon) |
| rational-legal authority | based on well-est. system w/laws and procedures (ex gov based on its constitution) |
| participation | political culture also illustrated by how citizens participate; 3 types: pariticpants, subjects, parochials |
| participants | involved as actual or potential participants in the political porcess |
| subjects | passively obey government officials and the law, but don't vote or actively involve themselves in political life |
| parochials | hardly award of government and politics; could be illiterates, rural people in remote areas, etc |
| political socialization | process by which individuals learn politics and political culture; influenced by agents of socialization |
| agents of socalization | primary = family; others include peer groups, schools, churches, employment, etc |
| consensual political culture | citizens may disagree on some poli processes and policies, tend to agree on how decisions are to be made; accepts legitimacy of regime; usually result of cultural homogeneity |
| conflictional political culture | citizens sharply divided on legitimacy of regime and solutions to major problems; impact gov's ability to rule; often result of cultural homogeneity |
| cultural homogeniety | peoples who share similar beliefs and values (ex: Japan, Korea [esp North]) |
| cultural heterogeniety | presence of multiple identity groups; have beliefs that greatly differ from other identity groups in country; more threatening to social stability than when various beliefs are more spread across population |
| vertical social relations | occur in hierarchical societies when political leaders have the right to impose their decisions on those at the bottom (ex: North Korea) |
| horizontal social relations | emphasize equality and a role for many if not all in society, to help shape political and social decisions (ex: Euro socialist state) |
| individualistic poli culture | discourages gov from implementing policies that protect groups or level the economic playing field |
| collectivistic poli culture | tend to coincide w/gov programs aimed at benefiting large numbers of people |
| group welfare vs interest of individual | individualistic pc vs collectivistic pc |
| relationship between society and authority | vertical vs horizontal social relations |
| potential tradeoff between liberty and security | strong state w/rules that penetrate into society in an effort to maintain order? value freedom from state action, state leaves most decisions to individual |
| legitimacy of poli system and leaders | do citizens accept existing poli regime as having legitimacy? can they be trusted? |
| political community | what poli unit does population identify with most? group vs national identity |
| trends in political culutre | modernization, democratization, marketization, resurgence of ethnicity |
| modernization | major trend, secularization, influences of science and globalization; encourages citizen participation, equality, disrupts traditional way of life; emphasis on post-material values |
| post-material values | social equality, environmental protection, cultrual pluralism, self-expression; have the bread-and-butter basics of society, now want more moralistic stuff |
| resurgence of ethnicity | formally suppressed, now demending equal treatment; clashes can occur, migration threaten life of host country |
| marketization | greater acceptance of a free market economy |
| democratization | reflects long-term response to modernity; gradually delegitimized nondemocratic ideologies |
| nation | cultural element of a country; people psychologically bound to one another |
| state | institutional or government element of a country |
| nation-state | territorial unit controlled by a single state and governed by a single government |
| country | can be synonymous w/nation or state |
| failed states | state has lost ability to govern |
| characteristics of state | STATE HAS MONOPOLY ON THE LEGITIMATE USE OF FORCE WITHIN A SOCIETY |
| 3 major attributes of state | sovereignty, legitimacy, autonomy |
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seniors14
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