Political Dimensions Flashcards
Popular Sovereignty
The government is based on the consent of the people.
The authority of the government comes from the people.
Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Functions
Executive: Carries out laws. Monarch, PM, Cabinet.
Legislative: Makes laws. Monarch, House of Commons, Senate.
Judicial: Evaluates laws. Supreme Court, Provincial/Territorial Courts.
Representation by Population
A political system in which seats in a legislature are allocated on the basis of population.
Election
Formal and organized choice by a vote of person for a political office or other position.
Suffrage/Enfranchisement
The right to vote in political elections
First Past The Post
Single member plurality.
The highest number (but not necessarily a majority) of votes is elected.
Proportional Representation
The electoral system is in which parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them.
Caucus
People in a political party decide who will run for office or attend a convention.
Adversarial System
Two advocates represent their parties’ case or position before an impartial person or group fo people. Judge or jury.
Responsible Government
Government that depends on the support of an elected assembly rather than a monarch or their representatives.
Exec responsible to the legislative branch.
Majority Rule
The principle that the greater number should exercise greater power.
Parliamentary Democracy
People only vote for members of parliament. The majority party or ruling coalition appoint a Prime Minister.
Presidential (congressional) Democracy
People vote on who should represent them in the legislature as well as a president to rule the country. Congress and the president can be from two different political parties.
Federalism
Mode of government in which powers are divided between regional governments and general government.
Checks and Balances
Principle of government under which separate branches are empowered to prevent actions by other branches and are induced to share power.
Veto
A constitutional right to reject a decision or proposal made by a law-making body.
Fundamental Freedoms
Freedom of conscience, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
Dissent
Expressing a different opinion against someone.
Universal Rights
Rights and freedoms of all human beings declared by the UN.
Special Interests/Lobbying
Form of advocacy with the intention of influencing decisions made by the government by individuals or more usually by lobby groups.
Key Attributes of a Politically Liberal Society
Constitutions
multiple parties
no terror
checks and balances
public officers are not directly appointed by the ruling political group
resistance to government decisions is allowed
decisions are made by the significant involvement of the affected groups
freedom of the press.
Challenges for Democracies
Requires well-informed voters. Focuses solely on the needs of the majority. encourages herd mentality, time inefficient. Elections can be costly.
Authoritarianism
A form of government that vests authority In an elite group that may or may not rule in the interests of the people and strict obedience enforced.
One dude over the government.
Dictatorship
government by a dictator with few to no limitations on them.
Single Party State
A sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government.
Elitism
The advocacy or existence of an elite as a dominating element in a system or society.
Manufactured Crisis
Manufactroversy designed to create public confusion is typically motivated by profit or ideology.
Control of Information
Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Censorship:Suppression or prohibition of any parts of media considered obscene, politically unacceptable or a threat to security.
Indoctrination
Process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
Scapegoat
A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.
Purge
Ridding of unwanted quality, condition, or feeling.
Russian Revolution
Results: No tsar empire, communist government run by Lenin.
Leninism
The political ideology developed by Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Stalinism
The period during which Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union.
Kulaks
Prosperous land-owner/employer/owner of means of production.
Holodomor
Ukrainian famine weaponized by Stalin with a death toll of 7 million.
Gulag
System of concentration/labour camps and prisons used for dissenters of Stalin.
Totalitarianism
Government over people heavily in their lives.
1. Controlled participation.
2. Purges.
3. Propaganda
4. Indoctrination.
5. Secret Police.
6. Scapegoating.
7. Cult of Leadership.
Soviet Liberalization
Gorbachev.
Perestroika: economic restructuring. Small businesses are allowed on free-market principles.
Glasnost: Improved communications with state and society, made people aware of inefficiencies and corruption.
Treaty of Versailles
Negotiated without German participation. Germany was solely responsible for the war and had to pay reparations. 10% of Germany’s land was taken from them also.
Weimar Republic
German government after WWI, democracy - Reichstage elected by universal government.
Fascism
Totalitarianism and authoritarianism together. The extreme right, reaction to communism.
Third Reich
The Nazi term for Germany during 1933 - 1945
Polarization
Segregation of different groups in society with when different factors lead to large income disparities.
Mein Kampf
Hitler’s autobiography. My struggle.
Eugenics
Practice/advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable traits.
Enabling Act
Allowed the National Ministry (Cabinet) to enact laws (even if unconstitutional without the permission of the Reichstag.
Nuremberg Decrees (1935)
German Jews/targeted peoples were identified, concentrated in ghettos, and denied all civil/social rights.
Kristallnacht
A night where Nazis terrorized Jews with murder, rape, and pillaging. Jews were held responsible and forced to pay reparations.
Final Solution (Holocaust)
1942: Nazi policy for the extermination of Jews - Genocide, concentration camps, death toll of 6 million Jewish people. Run by Heinrich Himmler. 11 million people dead total.
Night of the Long Knives
Purging of the SA leaders to eliminate threats of Hitler’s power.
Autarky
Nazi economic policy was based on the want to make germany a self-sufficient economy. Foreign inputs restricted.
