final exam Flashcards
What is politics?
Who gets what goods, where, when, how, and why
Exercise of power, distribution of goods
What is a political act?
Example: distribution of water
Everyone needs, society must decide who gets and who decides
What is soverignty?
Absolute power, monarch believes they have power because of natural right
What is legislative power?
Making laws (creating rules)
What is executive power?
Executing the laws
What is judicial power?
Protection of the laws
What is state?
Highest authority in a given society within a territory
They are the people who can choose when to use force (power)
What are the two factors of state?
Level of state intervention into the economy
Level of accountability with its citizens
What are the qualities of a nightwatchman state?
Minimal state intervention in the economy
State is only responsible for security of the people
Ruled by market
What are the qualities of a developmental state?
State intervention in everything
Partners with private sector
restriction of liberties
What is a liberal democracy?
promote free elections
universal suffrage,
personal liberties, individual rights, human rights (more accountable to its citizens)
What is an illiberal democracy?
elections with little protections about rights and liberties,
They will claim its fair, but it isn’t
What is an authoritarian state?
Unfair elections
no accountability of citizens concentration of political power in fewer bodies
leaders not accountable (they may claim)
What is a totalitarian state?
Complete control by state
No respect for individual freedom
What are state theories?
How a state believes political power should function
What is pluralism?
focus of the study of multiple groups in society
fragmented power
state moves around different interest groups
What is elitism?
Societies are led by unified self conscious elite
What is socialism?
Society is ruled by the elite that owns the means of production
What is the new right?
Privatization and minimal state intervention
arbiter of economic power
market decides
What is power?
Dominance, force, coercion, consent
What is authority?
Right to exert power
What is legtimacy?
The reasons one has authority, the idea why one has the right
What is the tragedy of the commons?
Optimizing for oneself over the good of the population
What are the classifications of state power?
Traditional authority
Legal-rational
Charismatic
What is traditional authority classification of state power?
Belief of natural right, nobility
What is charismatic classification of state power?
Comes from personality of leaders, not authority of constitution
Sometimes a challenge of previous authority
What is legal rational classification of state power?
Right to exert power based on previously constituted legal rules
What is democracy?
Political power distributed and rests in the hands of the people
What is are examples of contemporary democracy?
Deliberative: citizens have right to vote, spaces for reflection and debate about political choices
Cosmopolitan: relates to globalization, citizenship is not just linked to states but international institutions have to be accountable to citizens
What is freedom?
Absence of externally imposed coercion (physical, structure, legal, etc)
What is the difference between negative and positive freedom?
Negative: freedom from
Positive: freedom to
What is Justice?
How we distribute and how we punish that didn’t meet society’s rules
What are qualities of liberalism?
Defend negative liberties
Free markets
Private property
Trickle down economics
Individual over state
Constitutions
Rule of Law
Power seperation
What is classic liberalism?
State has no say, should not be involved in economy
Market should decide all
—> Market is ruled by invisible hand (supply and demand)
What is Keynesianism
Classic liberalism, but state should interfere in times of crisis of the economy
What is neoliberalism
deregulation, privatization, liberalism invisible hand, caused 1% of population to be extreme billionaires with lots of more of the population less off, modern classical liberalism except it is in a global context
What are tickle down economics?
Putting money into the hands of the rich and eventually it will make it’s way down to the poor
What is socialism?
Focuses on real equality (in opportunities and freedoms)
Inequality shouldn’t exist
Community over individual
Working class
What is conservatism?
Law and order
Respect for authority
Resistant to progressive ideas
What is fascism?
Extreme form of nationalism
State (leader ) over individual and community
Racial and gender discrimination
“Cleansing”
Extreme targeting to groups
What is anarchism?
Total rejection of the state
Has not been implemented in real life
Collective decision making
What is Post modernism?
Criticizes modernism
Pluralism of people
Social categories (race, gender) are social constructions not scientific indicators
The pretension of knowing through science is limiting because it is exclusionary of other beliefs
What is enviromentalism?
Belief that humans should live in harmony with nature (they should not be destroying the environment)
Reconciliation
What is multiculturalism?
Multiplicity of cultures, identities, religion, and beliefs
Acknowledgment and visibility of this multiplicity
→ example: Canada and the US
What is religious fundamnetalism?
Contrary to church and state separations (goes against that belief of liberal democracies)
State power and religious power are combined
Religion isn’t necessarily ideological but politics makes it that way
What is 1st wave feminism?
19th century, women challenged for same work and political rights, achieved rights for white Women (global north)
What is 2nd wave feminism
1960s, emergence of movements for reproductive rights not just political and work rights, predominantly white (global north), 1980s women in global south began movements for rights
What is 3rd wave feminsim?
intersectionality (feminist interpretation that you can not ignore patriarchy in relation to other systems of oppression), women all around the world
What are the 3 theories of just distribution
Justice as equality
Need based
Merit based
What is Colonalism?
Subjugation by physical and psychological force of one culture by another
What are the two forms of Colonalism
Colonialism by settlement: systematic elimination of indigenous peoples (genocide)
Colonialism of rule: not direct elimination of population, but they infiltrate administration of society and start to impose their rule or inequalities that facilitate exploitation of society, exploit resources from the inside
What is Rule of Law?
Everyone in society is expected to obey law and everyone is equal to it
What is a constitution?
Rules and common understandings that regulate relations among institutions, and relations between institutions and people
What is an ideology?
A set of ideas that describe existing political order, vision of what political order should look like, present and ideal
What is the Peace of Westphalia?
Treaty that ended the 30 years war, first diplomatic space that Europeans used in their history
Founding moment of international relations
Set up principles of liberal democracy
What did the liberal revolutions promote?
3 branch power states
having a constitution
rule of law (governed and who are governed are ruled by the same law)
What is the scramble of Africa?
Concert of Europe “split” Africa and distributed between the nations
all of the nations could appropriate their designated territory of Africa
What are laws?
Rule that ensures order and discipline, but unfollowed could lead to punishment
What are the 8 requirements for just laws?
- General
- Public (everyone should have access to info about the law)
- Prospective rather than retroactive (covered by the law in the moment, not future laws)
- Clear
- Consistent
- Relatively constant
- Capable of being obeyed
- Enforced as written
What are some ways to limit laws?
Check and balances within the system
Maximum punishments
International treaties
what are constitutions?
Rules + common understandings that regulate relations among institutions, and relations between institutions and people
compilation of society’s values, regulations, set of guidelines for how a state believes it should operate, supreme rules and common understandings in a country that regulate relations among governing institutions and people of that country
What is Federalism?
Two chamber parliament (senate has representatives of states/provinces, house of representatives/commons represents population at large)
Accommodates countries with large, diverse populations
Power is more fragmented
Autonomy to branches (mostly everything, but federal government does specific tasks)
Rules and systems are delegated to provincial branch, while some are delegated to federal
What are legislatures and legislators?
Parliament, congress or assembly
Pass bills to become laws
Represent society as a whole
As a check on the executive branch
What are functions of legislatures and legislators?
Law making, representation, govermental, procedural
What is legislature represetnation?
Represent cultures, genders, history,
Representation of ideas, interests of each constituency
What is legislature law making?
Making projects come to fruition
Make sure laws align with the constitution, through judicial review or constitutional courts, that look over how it aligns or strays from the constitution
What is governmental legislature function?
Formation of political opinion. To maintain that normative ideals in practice of power
What is procedural legislature function?
Access to information is the key to accountability of the government
What is parliamentary system?
The Head of Government and Head of State are divided
Elect representatives that will occupy seats in parliament
What is presidential system?
Just the President as both the Head of State and Government.
Popular vote through a general election at the end of each term.
The legislative and the executive branches are independent of each other.
More check and balances
What is unicameral system?
Representatives are elected by the people
What is bicameral system?
Having two chambers (upper and lower)
What is a multicameral system
More then two chambers
What is the executive branch?
Leader of the government
Ministerial cabinet
What are government bureaucracies?
government institutions, state agents
→ put into motion the active role of state in executing policy
Structure of offices, tasks, roles, principles, employed by large scale institutions to coordinate the work of their personnel
Enforce, implement and make rules
Settle disputes between citizens public agencies (Judicial role)
Guarantee impartiality
Help administrate public goods and services
What are the types of bureaucracies?
Executive departments, crown/government corps, independent agencies, provincial/state, municipal, regulatory commissions, quasi-governmental agencies, military, judicial, local, public service commissions, advisory boards
What is a majoritarian or first-past-the-post electoral system?
Voting for an individual, majority wins
Pros: visible connection with citizen and elected official
Cons: Ignores the minority, favours two party system,
What is proportional representation electoral system?
Vote for party instead of individual, seats are allocated by percentage of vote that each party receives, more political parties
Pros: Allows for better representation
Cons: Harder time making decisions
What is mixed electoral system?
Elements of PR and FPTP
What is instant runoff electoral system?
Rank candidates in order of preference, multiple rounds of voting by eliminating one candidate each round until one candidate has a majority
Pros: Ensures the preferences of citizens
Cons: Time consuming, expensive
What are political parties?
Organisation that shares common political goals and ideologies
What is the civil society?
Umbrella term that included political activity of non state actors
USUALLY pursue social justice and human rights
what is a social movement?
Usually by the people (grassroots)
Imerge as citizen initiative for social justice or change
What are non-governmental organizations?
Non profit organizations
What are common activities of NGOs?
Documentation and fact finding
Human rights reporting
Monitoring
Advocacy
Capacity building
Humanitarian relief
Legal AId
What are interest groups?
Associations formed to promote specific interests
What are the types of interest groups?
Professional associations
Groups of business, commerce, or industry
Trade Unions
Agricultural organizations
Single-interest groups
Ideological interest groups
Public interest groups
Welfare associations
What is the Media?
Provide information to guarantee access to information for citizens
Check and balance
What is the UN security counsel?
esponsible for maintaining peace and security, 5 perma members (US, UK, Russia, China, France) with veto (they must all agree) power, can authorize military action, impose sanctions, peacekeeping missions
What is NATO?
Promote collective security
Political and military alliance
What is an “old” war?
Interstate war
Fought by special military forces (soldiers)
War based on ideologies (ex. Communist vs capitalist)
What is a “new” war?
Terroism
Terror that goes beyond national borders
Humanitarian crisis (migration)
Wars on the basis of identity (religion, racism)
New “fighting units”
What is human security?
Protection of individual rights?
What is foreign policy?
Strategies and decisions formulated by a country to achieve national objectives in interactions with other countries or international organizations.
What is diplomacy (execution)
Practice of managing international relations through negotiation, dialogue, between representatives of states
What is an international organization?
Organizations with representatives of 3 or more states to perform ongoing tasks with a common purpose
What are the 3 benefits of IOs over treaties?
Stability of IO (compared to temporality of treaty)
Helpful to compliance
Their decisions impact people globally
Legitimacy
How are IOs created?
through: treaties, emanation (pre existing organization creates a more specific group), international meetings (informally)
What are causes of migration?
better quality of life, reuniting of family, job opportunities, safety (environmental, human), education, conflict, development-driven, forced migration caused by human trafficking
What is voluntary migration?
Economic migrants
Documented or undocumented
what is forced migration?
Asylum seekers
Refugees (international, because of persecution must go beyond borders)
People in refugee-like situations
Internal Displaced Persons (still in the nation or borders, but must leave their homes)
What are sustainable developmental goals?
Developing the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future to meet their needs
