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