Key Terms Flashcards
Extrajudicial
not legally authorized; outside the law
Identity
person’s defining characteristics
Identity Politics
any politics based on shared characteristics that organizes groups
and motivates their actions. The practice of identity politics is typically understood to be an explicit and conscientious choice, but it can be situated on spectrums of explicit and implicit choice and more or less conscious decision making.
Institutions
the rules, formal or informal, that structure how decisions are made
Intersectionality
the analytical framework, pioneered by Black women, to illuminate how racial, gendered, and other kinds of disadvantage reinforce each other. The concept is that our many identities can be sources of multiple and overlapping
oppressions (or privileges).
Knowledge Production
the process by which researchers produce empirically
grounded (scientific) knowledge
Marginalized
the treatment of a person or persons as incidental, or peripheral. The
terms underrepresented, non-normative, and marginal are synonyms of this idea.
Political Institutions
sets of written and unwritten rules that structure politics and
shape the behavior of political actors
State
a territorial entity; also called a country (not to be confused with the state,
which is the full political apparatus with a monopoly over the legitimate use of vio- lence in a given territory)
Affective Polarization
people’s increasing hostility toward their ideological opponents
Canon
the foundational texts of a given academic discipline
Civil Society
all social and political organizations that exist outside the control of the
state
Cognitive Dissonance
emotional discomfort/mental stress caused by the clash be-
tween our beliefs and new information
Collective Action
when groups of people work together to achieve a goal that an individual could not achieve alone
Critical Political Theory
seeks to expose, explain, and remedy the social systems that contribute to oppression in all of its many forms
Democratic Deficit
the gap between people’s idea of how democracy should func- tion and their satisfaction with how it does function
Home Truths
unpleasant truths – usually pointed out to us by someone else – that make us examine who we are, our faults, and our behavior
Legitimacy
people’s voluntary acceptance of government
Misogyny
ingrained dislike of/disdain for and prejudice against women
Politics
who gets what, when, and how
Racism
discrimination against persons of another race based on the presumption
that one race is superior to another
Social Identity
a person’s sense of self based on the groups (ethnic/racial, linguistic,
religious, ideological, etc.) with which they identify
Classical Liberal
an individual who promotes values such as individual liberty, freedom of speech, religious freedom, economic self-interest, and limited or “small” government
Good Life
vision or understanding of what ideal human relations look like
LGBTQ+
an acronym used to describe the gender identities and/or sexual orientation of individuals who define themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer; the + represents all the other orientations/identities encompassed within the community
Marxist
an individual who believes that capitalist economies always pay workers less than the price of the products and services they produce with the result that a wealthy few own and profit from the labor of the many
Suffrage
the right to vote; universal suffrage is the right of all adult citizens to vote, regardless of gender, wealth, property ownership, education, or any other restriction
Suffragist
a person who advocates for individuals’, especially women’s, right to vote
Western
people, practices, and ideas associated with Canada, the United States, New
Zealand, Australia, and Europe
Ideology
“an explicit, consciously held belief system”1 that consists of “a set of idea-elements that are bound together, that belong to one another in a non-random fashion.”2 More specifically, it is a set of values and beliefs that structures how people think their broader societies and political institutions should be organized.
Political Values
beliefs about how to rank priorities for who should get what, when, and how
Social Structure
the “most basic, enduring, and determinative patterns in social life”;3 the arrangement of individuals and groups according to their relative power
The State
the full political apparatus with a monopoly over the legitimate use of vio- lence in a given territory (not to be confused with a state, which is a territorial entity, [i.e., a country], as noted in the Introduction to this book)
Agency
the capacity to act
Cisgender
person whose internal sense of gender identity corresponds with the
sex assigned to them at birth
Collective Identity
shared sense of group belonging
Frame Resonance
collective action frames that resonate, or appeal, to a target audience
Framing
the process by which social movements construct social meanings
Majority Group
groups who have significant power, regardless of and sometimes irrelevant to their numerical size
Master Frame
generic frame that connects big, widely shared ideas to specific policy prescriptions
New Social Movements
the supposition that contemporary social movements prioritize identities, values, and expressive goals over concrete material needs
Political Opportunity Structure
events or broad socioeconomic processes that impact the organization of major power structures
Positionality
the way in which racial, class, gender, and other salient identities interact to situate actors in the world; it is informed by both the actor’s internal sense of identity as well as by identification – the way in which the actor is identified by others
Power Asymmetry
an imbalance in power between two sides
Privilege
unearned and often unrecognized rights or advantages
Public Goods
a public benefit or product provided or accessible to all members of a community without exception
Repertoires of Contention
the array of protest tools readily available to a group at specific points in time
Social Movements
organized, collective, non-institutionalized challenges to specific targets seeking to achieve a common goal
Strategy
the specific path or methods movements adopt to reach their goal(s)
Tactics
the specific actions actors take to affect their strategies and reach their goals
Unmarked
the recognition that some people, things, or ideas are designated as standard, and thus taken for granted as normal, in opposition to those people, things, or ideas that are marked by their difference
Dominant-Party Systems
party systems characterized by one very large party with an absolute majority (50 per cent) of votes and seats that dominates over other par- ties for an extended period of time
Duverger’s Law
describes how single-member plurality electoral systems favour two- party systems while proportional representation favours multiparty politics
Electoral System
the system created by the electoral rules in their entirety
Members–Voters Gap
the gap between the social and political profiles of political party members and voters
Multiparty Systems
party systems where multiple political parties have the potential to gain control of government offices, either separately or in coalition
Party Systems
sets of parties that compete and cooperate with each other for office and control of government
Political Party
there is no singular definition of a political party, but most definitions broadly centre on an understanding of a political party as a group of people organized for the purpose of winning governmental power by electoral means
Political Recruitment
the study of how and why people become politicians, focus- ing on the critical stages through which individuals move into political careers
Descriptive Representation
facet of political representation that refers to which social groups are represented in the legislature; also known as mirror representation
District
the territorial area that an elected official represents in the legislature; also called a constituency or riding
District Magnitude
the number of seats available in the electoral district; abbreviated as the letter “m”
Electoral Rules
the laws that set forth how voters choose their elected representatives and how votes are turned into seats in the national legislature
Ethnic Quotas
a quota law that applies to candidates or elected representatives from specific racial, ethnic, linguistic, ethno-linguistic, religious, or ethno-religious groups
Gender Parity
when the gender quota mandates half men and half women
Gender Quotas
a quota law that applies to candidates or elected representatives
who are women
Plurality
referring to the most, not the majority; in single-member districts, candidates win with the most votes
Political Representation
a multifaceted concept describing who is present in a national legislature and what they do
Substantive Representation
a facet of political representation that refers to which
interests are manifested during the lawmaking process as well as the extent to which voters’ policy preferences and interests are promoted by their representatives
Conceptual Stretching
a conceptual problem that arises when a concept is applied to a broad set of cases; the meaning of the concept is “stretched” in an attempt to cover all cases, yet it loses meaning or becomes distorted in the process
Conceptual Traveling
a conceptual challenge faced by comparativists because concepts do not always have the same meaning in different contexts, yet concepts should be able to “travel” to different contexts without losing meaning
Cross-Sectional Research
a research design used to compare different cases at one point in time
Cross-Temporal Research
a research design used to compare one case over a longer period of time
Decolonization
the political and economic processes of removing formal colonial governance by Global North countries of Global South countries (also called decolonialization); often also refers to transformation in the informal and formal knowledge and education systems so that the formal colonial governing power is not merely replaced with neocolonial exercise of economic power
Explanatory Unit
the major relevant entity used to explain patterns of results
Falsification
the scientific process during which existing theories are tested and revised in light of new empirical evidence
Historically Marginalized Groups
groups whose interests, grievances, and voices
risk being overlooked in politics as a result of historical and structural processes of
marginalization
Inequality Regimes
broad set of political practices, processes, actions, and meanings that (re)produce power hierarchies and social inequalities in relation to social class, gender, race, ethnicity, age, and so on
Inference
the process of generalizing characteristics from a set of cases to the entire
population (causal inference means drawing conclusions on the causal link be-
tween characteristics)
Observational Unit
the major relevant entity used in data collection and analysis
Political Culture
sets of beliefs and values people have about politics that are related to how they think about politics, the political values they cherish, whether they believe politicians can be trusted, how they relate to the political system, and how they define and express their political identities
Unit of Analysis
the major relevant entity under study
