Exam #2, chapters 5-7 Flashcards
What is Demokratia?
a Greek word meaning “rule by the common people”
Review from last chapter: what is the state?
an entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory
From a general perspective, what is the government?
the set of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the state at a particular point in time
Review from last chapter: what is a regime?
the set of rules, norms, or institutions that determine how the government is constituted, how it is organized, and how major decisions are made
According to Aristotle, what are the good forms of regime?
monarchy, aristocracy, and politeia
According to Aristotle, what are the bad forms of regime?
tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy
What are abstract concepts?
mental categories that capture the meaning of objects, events, or ideas
What is a measure or indicator?
a quantification of the thing we are interested in
What is operationalization?
the process by which abstract theoretical concepts are translated into concrete and observable measures or indicators
What is a substantive view of democracy?
a classification of political regimes in regard to the outcomes they produce
What is a minimalist or procedural view of democracy?
a classifies of political regimes in regard to their institutions and procedures
What is contestation?
the extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire
What do aspects of contestation include?
freedom to form political parties, freedom of speech, and the extent to which leaders are chosen in free and fair elections
What is inclusion?
who is allowed to participate in the democratic process
What major factor affects inclusion in a country?
who has the right to vote
What was Ronald Dahl’s new proposed name for democracy?
polyarchy
What is the concept of polyarchy?
a political regime with high levels of both inclusion and contestation
What was Ronald Dahl’s reasoning for preferring the term “polyarchy” over “democracy”?
he did not believe that any large country exhibited, or could exhibit, sufficient levels of contestation or inclusion to rightfully be considered a true democracy
What are the three measures of democracy and dictatorship?
the democracy-dictatorship (DD) measure, Polity IV, and Freedom House
What is fact-value distinction?
the distinction between factual evidence and evaluation, divided into the components of contestation and inclusion to measure political participation
How did Aristotle classify regimes?
Divided them into categories based on whether they have one, few, or many rulers, and whether they are “good” or “bad”