Government and Politics

Question 1

The state?

Answer 1

A human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force or violence within a given territory (Max Weber), see this through war, prison industrial system complex, criminal justice system

Question 2

Nation?

Answer 2

A people defined by collective belonging to an extensive community, usually defined in relation to a specific territory, a sense of social solidarity across a place

Question 3

Nation-state?

Answer 3

A political unit whose boundaries are co-extensive with a society, Canada is one

Question 4

Politics?

Answer 4

Striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state

Question 5

What is the birth of nations?

Answer 5

Idea of a nation emerged, 18th century with:
Development of transportation technologies
Print capitalism
EX, Canada railway being finished, creation of news outlets
Offered both:
Empowerment and democracy
Restrictions and tyranny of the state
Nations were much bigger than other human communities and nation states because they have become so large they can have excessive power over people (tyrannical and oppressive)

Question 6

What is direct democracy?

Answer 6

All members of society actively involved in decision making, usually in smaller nations

Question 7

What is democracy?

Answer 7

Rule by the people

Question 8

What is representative democracy?

Answer 8

Elected officials stand-in as representatives for sections of the population, usually in bigger nations like Canada

Question 9

What is war?

Answer 9

A form of organized group violence between politically distinct groups

Question 10

state of exceptions?

Answer 10

When the law or constitution is temporarily suspended during a time of crisis so that the executive leader can claim emergency powers, collective will as represented can be ignored if a pressing crisis requires

Question 11

What is terrorism?

Answer 11

Terrorism and war are felt in similar ways (main difference are key actors (non-state for terrorism)

Challenges the state’s monopoly on legitimate use of violence

Question 12

What is anarchism?

Answer 12

the political principles and practice of social organization without formal or state leadership

Question 13

First Past the Post System?

Answer 13

The candidate that has the most votes, no matter the percentage, is the candidate that gets that seat in parliament
First person to get majority, gets the seat
Breeds citisism and disengagement because people think their votes are wasted

Question 14

What is proportional representation?

Answer 14

Based on percentages of votes
National representatives represent percentages of votes in riding
Better reflection of the will of people (advantage)

Question 15

What is empire?

Answer 15

empire (1) refers to a geographically widespread organization of individual states, nations, and people that is ruled by a centralized government, like the Roman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Empire (2) today refers to a supra‐national, global form of sovereignty whose territory is the entire globe and whose organization forms around the nodes of a network form of power.

Diff countries getting together to try to achieve common goals that each of these countries have.

Question 16

Liberal feminism and the state?

Answer 16

Capitalism is fine and democracy is good but there should be more women
The Persons Case of 1929, fought for by women, made it possible for women to be elected into the senate federal enfranchisement in 1918
Right to vote for Indigenous women in 1960
1970 Royal commission on the Status of Women

Question 17

What is Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan?

Answer 17

Hobbes argued that social order, or what we would call today “society” (“peaceable, sociable and comfortable living” (Hobbes 1651, p.146), depended on an unspoken contract between the citizens and the “sovereign” or ruler. In this contract, individuals give up their natural rights to use violence to protect themselves and further their interests and cede them to a sovereign. In exchange, the sovereign provides law and security for all (i.e., for the “commonwealth”). For Hobbes, there could be no society in the absence of a sovereign power that stands above individuals to “over-awe them all” (1651, p. 112)

Question 18

Discuss Volunteers Unleashed

Answer 18

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