Exam 3 Chap 8-10 Flashcards
What is Selectorate Theory?
Definition: Characteristics all governments by their location in a two-dimensional institutional space.
Significance: The basic assumptions underpinning selectorate theory is that all political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain office.
What is loyalty Norm?
Definition: The strength of the loyalty norm is determined by W/S -the probability that a member of the selectorate will be winning coalition.
Significance: There is strong loyalty norm in a small W/S systems and a weak loyalty norm in large W/S systems.
What is public Good?
Definition: A public good is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous.
Significance: Examples of a public good is clean air, lighthouse, fire stations, public radio, and national defense.
What is Leninist Party State?
Definition: Comprehensive ideological indoctrination, parallel party organizations, vetting/dossiers.
What is Revolutionary Threshold?
Definition: The size of protest at which an individual is willing to participate.
Significance: The size of a protest grows it becomes harder for the state to identify and punish individuals for participating.
What is Revolutionary Cascade?
Definition: When one person’s participation triggers the participation of another which triggers the participation of another, and so on.
Significance: The revolutionary cascade (society A’) produces the overthrow of the dictatorship.
What is Transition Game Applied to Poland?
Definition: One of the key elements in Poland’s democratic transition was the communist party’s incorrect beliefs about the strength of solidarity.
What is Triangular Data?
Definition: The “triangular” of the data indicates an interesting a symmetry suggesting that although democracies seldom perform poorly in terms of indicators of material wellbeing.
What is Preference Falsification?
Definition: Means not revealing one’s true preference in public.
Significance: One consequence of preference falsification is that individual do not know the true level of opposition in a dictatorship because they all seem to be publicly supporting it.
What is Dictator’s Dilemma?
Definition: He relies on repression to stay in power, but repression creates incentives for everyone to falsify their preferences so that the dictator never knows his true level of societal support.
Significance: A dictator is often confronted by two rather unsatisfactory choices, one he can limit repression and allows free debate. And two he can use repression.
What is Personality Cult?
Definition: It helps to explain why dictators often make out landish claims that strain credulity.
Significance: A personality cults have three benefits from the perspective of the dictator, first they make it hard for opposition groups to organize. Second, they help the dictator gain a better handle on his level. Third, they will persuade some segments of society to become “true believers”.
What Dominant- Party Dictatorship?
Definition: One in which a single party dominants access to political office and control over policy, through other parties may exist and complete in elections.
Significance: Party cadres in a dominant party dictatorship are similar to politician in democracy in that they want to hold office.
What is Personalist Dictatorship?
Definition: One in which the leader, although often supported by a party or the military, retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime personnel.
Significance: A personalist dictator often deliberately undermines institutions so that they cannot act as a power base for a potential rival.
What is Monarchic Culture (as defined by Victor Menaldo)?
Definition: Menaldo argues the monarchic dictatorships have developed a political culture that allows them to solve credible commitment problems with respect to their support coalitions.
What is P.R.I?
Definition: Magaloni provides a description of the types of mobilization techniques that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I) used for many years in Mexico to signal it’s own strength and highlight the weakness of the opposition.
Significance: Describes how the PRI regime in Mexico put in place a series of policies that prevented peasants from rising out of poverty.
