Sodaro Flashcards
Comparative politics
examines political realities in countries all over the world. It looks at the many ways governments operate and the ways people behave in political life.(
Globalization
refers to the growing interconnectedness of governments, non-state actors, and populations throughout the world through a variety of political, economic, technological, cultural, environmental, and other interactions.
NGO’s
typically organizations of concerned citizens and experts who seek to inform the public and influence governments, international institutions, private corporations, or other relevant bodies to take action in addressing particular problems.
Politics
the process by which people pursue collective goals and deal with their conflicts authoritatively by means of government.
Theocracy
A state run by religious authorities
Mixed regimes
the combination of democracy and authoritarianism
Bargaining
the process in which individuals and groups pursue their goals and deal with their conflicts through direct negotiation or indirect forms of exchange. Compromise, deal-making, or other forms of give-and-take.
Coercion
the use of force or the threat to use it. In a coercive political process, A forces B to do something, often against B’s will.
Five main sources of political conflict:
power, resources, identity, ideas and values.
10 identities
Gender, racial, ethnic, generational, religion, occupational, educational, class, regional, national
Political sociology
the study of the relationship between social identity and political behaviour, and how political power is distributed among social groups.
Gini coefficient / Gini index
Measures the ratio of rich people to poor people and is thus a measure of the relative degree of socioeconomic inequality within a particular country. The lower the X index, the greater the degree of socioeconomic equality; the higher the number, the greater the degree of inequality.
Perfect equality equals zero
all individuals (or households) receive the same annual income; there is zero inequality.
Maximux inequality equals 100:
only one individual (or household) monopolizes all (100%) of society’s income while everybody else get
Ethnicity
a form or group identification or distinctiveness often based on a common biological ancestry in the distant past. More accurately, it is typically based on the belief in such a common biological ancestry. it is socially constructed: created or defined by people in the course of their social interactions than being determined by objective criteria like biology.
Cross-cutting cleavages
X occur when the various factors that make up an individual’s social identity tend to pull that person in different political directions.
Polarizing cleavages
X occur when the factors composing one’s social identity tend to pull in the same political direction.
Ideology
A corherent set of ideas and guidelines that defines what the nature and role of the government should be and prescribes the main goals the people should pursue through political action.
Liberal democracy
Emphasizes the freedom of the individual
Social democracy
Emphasizes the collective welfare of society as a whole
Values
Spiritual or moral principles, ideals, or qualities of life that people favour for their own sake.
Game theory
A rational choice theory. derived from economics. Stems from the assumption that human behaviour primarily by material self-interest: they strive to acquire money and other possessions aimed at enhancing their well-being.
Rational choice theory
This theory maintains that individuals behave in politics on the basis of self-interest, seeking to increase their expected gains and minimize their expected costs and risks on the basis of their personal preferences.
Zero-sum game
This si a two-person/two-sided game in which one player’s loss is another player’s gain in equal measure.
Variable-sum game
the outcome can at times be beneficial for all or most of the players.
-is questions
“what is political reality?”. Concentrates on facts and explanations of facts.
Ought-questions
“What ought to be done about political reality?”. Mostly deal with personal preferences and values. Political philosophy and public policy analysis.
Value judgments
Evaluations that we make on the basis of values, standards, or ideals
Political philosophy
Also called normative political theory.
Public policy
Essentially means government policy.
The central purpose of science:
Generalization
A variable
Something that can vary or change. That is, it can take different forms or be a changable characteristic or a phenomenon.
The dependent variable
The variable we are most interested in examining or explaining: the main object of our study. the effect of the outcome that is influenced or caused by another variable or variables. the variable whose value changes in respose to changes in the value of other variables.
The independent variable
The factor or characteristic that influences or causes the other variable. in cause-and-effect relationships, it is the causal or explanatory variable. changes is the value of this variable may produce changes in the value of the dependent variable.
A correlation or association
A relationship in which two or more variables change together. Positively or inversely.
Parsimonious theory
A theory that explains a vast range of phenomena in very succinct terms.
Democratic theory
descriptions of how democracies are supposed to work in principle and how they work in practice, along with various explanations of how democracies emerge or endure.
Elite theory
The theory that describes the role that certain political people play and makes a variety of explanatory generalizations about their social backgrounds, their political perceptions, their relationships with the masses, and so on.
