6 Weeks Flashcards
Politics
Getting power, using it and Keeping it.
Different Types of Politics
Comparative, International Relations, American, Political theory/political philosophy
Nash Equilibrium
Outcome where both situations reap the greatest benefits.
Comparative Politics
Study of political phenomena that occur within countries
Tragedy of the Commons
Garret and Jane Hardin, someone reaps benefits with little regard to how it will affect the state
State
An entity that possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of force must have territory as well.
Sovereignty
A political concept that refers to dominant power or supreme authority.
Nation
A group of people with a deeply shared set of fundamental identifications.
Nation State
A political unit in which the state has a legitimate centralized political authority that rules over a population within the territory that shares a common identity.
Contractararian theory of state
The state makes a contract with the people
Preadatory theory of the state
The state exploits its citizens by providing a “protection racket”
Political Regime
A regime is simply a political system. However, it is often an authoritarian one.
Democracy
A form of government by the whole population or eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Anarchy
Anarchy is a society without rulers
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is an autocratic government which is characterized by a leader or group of leaders who hold government powers with little to no limitations.
Polyarchy
A political regime with high levels of contestation and inclusion. This is as close as we can get to a true democracy.
Dictators Dilemma
As a dictator has no way of knowing who approves of them, and therefore doesn’t know when an uprising may occur
Hybrid Regime
Competitive Authoritarianism, autocratic and democratic features.
Competitive Authoritarianism
Illiberal democracy, like Democracy with unfair elections
Democratic Backsliding
Occurs when executives weaken checks changes that hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge executive preferences.
Modernization Theory
Created by Seymour Martin Lipset. Societies move from agriculture to industrial and therefore from dictorial to democratic.
Survival Story
Adam Przeworski, theory that as countries develop, they become richer and Democracy is more likely to survive, but not emerge.
Bottom up Transition
People rise up to overthrow a popular regime
Top Down Transition
A regime becomes brittle and a dictatorial elite introduces liberalizing reforms.
Collective Action Problem
When protesting, not everyone will join and contribute to the collective good. There will be preference falsification until the tipping point.
Public Good
Something everyone benefits from, fought for in the collective action problem
Tipping Model
Point at which a revolutionary threshold will be overcome and citizens will join a protest.
Revolutionary Threshold
Point at which a person is willing to participate in a protest.
Political Behavior
Shared patterns of political orientations or belief systems that characterize a large group of people. Includes opinion, communication, psychology and participation.
Belief Systems
Include cognitive orientations, affective orientations and evaluative orientations.
Cognitive orientation
Our knowledge of politics
Affective orientation
How you feel about politics
Evaluative Orientation
synthesis of facts and feelings
Political Culture
Set of attitudes, beliefs and norms held by a population towards poltiics
Primordialism
Belief that a country is built off of original cultural values.
Constructivism
Treats culture as something that is constructed or invented rather than inherited.
