Lecture 1: The State: What is it?

Question 1

C: The state

Answer 1

• a political association
• establishes sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial borders
• exercises authority through a set of permanent institutions
• institutions are ‘public’, in that they’re responsible for the collective organization of communal life + are funded by the public
• the state embraces various gov’t institutions, but extends to courts, nationalized industries, social security system, etc.
• the entire ‘body politic’

Question 2

D: Idealism

Answer 2

A view of politics that emphasizes the importance of morality and ideals; philosophical idealism implies that ideas are more ‘real’ than the material world.

Question 3

D: Civil society

Answer 3

A private sphere of autonomous groups and associations, independent from state or public authority.

Question 4

C: Sovereignty

Answer 4

• the principle of absolute and unlimited power
• legal sovereignty: supreme legal authority, the ‘right’ to command compliance
• political sovereignty: absolute political power, the ‘ability’ to command compliance
• internal sovereignty: supreme power/authority within the state
• external sovereignty: state’s place in the international order and its capacity to act as an independent and autonomous entity

Question 5

D: Great power

Answer 5

A state deemed to rank amongst the most powerful in a hierarchical state system, reflecting its influence over minor states.

Question 6

D: Nation-state

Answer 6

A sovereign political association within which citizenship and nationality overlap; one nation within a single state.

Question 7

D: Pluralism

Answer 7

A belief in, or commitment to diversity or multiplicity; or the belief that power in modern societies is widely and evenly distributed.

Question 8

D: Divine right

Answer 8

The doctrine that earthly rulers are chosen by God and thus wield unchallengeable authority; a defence for monarchical absolutism.

Question 9

D: Political obligation

Answer 9

The duty of the citizen towards the state; the basis of the state’s right to rule.

Question 10

D: State of nature

Answer 10

A society devoid of political authority and of formal (legal) checks on the individual; usually employed as a theoretical device.

Question 11

D: Anarchy

Answer 11

Literally, ‘without rule’; anarchy is often used pejoratively to suggest instability, or even chaos.

Question 12

C: Neopluralism

Answer 12

• remains faithful to pluralist values, but recognizes the need to revise or update classical pluralism in the light of, e.g. elite, Marxist and New Right theories
• takes account of modernizing trends, e.g. postindustrial society
• although capitalism is preferred to socialism, free-market economic doctrines are usually regarded as obsolete
• Western democracies are seen as ‘deformed polyarchies’, in which major corporations exert disproportionate influence

Question 13

D: Bourgeoisie

Answer 13

A Marxist term, denoting the ruling class of a capitalist society, the owners of productive wealth.

Question 14

C: Neo-Marxism

Answer 14

• attempts to revise/recast the classical ideas of Marx while remaining faithful to certain Marxist principles or aspects of Marxist methodology
• typically refuse to accept that Marxism enjoys a monopoly of the truth
• thus look toward Hegelian philosophy, anarchism, liberalism, feminism, and even rational-choice theory
• although still concerned about social injustice, neo-Marxists reject the primacy of economics over other factors and with it, the notion that history has a predictable character

Question 15

D: Proletariat

Answer 15

A Marxist term, denoting a class that subsists through the sale of its labour power; strictly speaking, the proletariat is not equivalent to the working class.

Question 16

C: Patriarchy

Answer 16

• ‘rule by the father’
• domination of the husband-father within the family, and the subordination of his wife and his children
• term is usually used in the more general sense of ‘rule by men’
• draws attention to the totality of oppression and exploitation to which women are subject
• implies that the system of male power in society at large reflects and stems from the dominance of the father in the family
• key concept in radical feminist analysis, in that it emphasizes that gender inequality is systematic, institutionalized and pervasive