Terms Flashcards
Legitimacy
- the acceptance of authority
- power needs to be legitimized in order for its exercise to be stable
Power
-application of force (imposition of will) upon someone else with or without their consent
Authority
- the exercise of power that is considered legitimate by those who are subject to that power
- power is rendered legitimate through its conversion into authority
Charismatic Authority
-authority which is legitimated by virtue of the personal characteristics of the leader
Traditional Authority
-authority which is legitimated through traditional procedures for selecting leaders
Rational-Legal Authority
- authority of governmental authorities is based on law
- most stable basis for establishing legitimacy and power
Ideal Type
- analytical tool where one attempts to identify the key defining elements of something as away of classifying it
- developed by Max Weber
State of Nature
- no law, no religion, and every person is out for themselves
- by Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
- 17th century writer
- believed that a state with no exercising of raw power is “nasty, poor, brutish, and short”
The State
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Sovereignty
-supreme power or authority
Nationalism
-patriotic feelings, principles, or efforts
The Harm Principle
- actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm of other individuals
- John Stuart Mill
Negative Freedom
- absence of psychical and legal restraints on our activities
- Ex. The Harm Principle
Positive Freedom
-freedom must also involve a positive power or capacity to do something worth while
Equality
-the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities
Equality of Opportunity
- giving everyone an equal chance to get ahead in life, regardless of background of the person
- This is the key element to liberal political thought
Equality of Outcome
-consists of trying to reduce or eliminate differences in distribution of wealth, income, power, and other goods
- assistance to the less advantaged
- ex. Free health care and education
Athenian Democracy
-system of direct democracy through which all citizens meet in an assembly 10 times per year
- officials chosen by lottery for limited terms
- citizenship excluded women, slaves, and foreign born
Direct Democracy
-all citizens entitled to meet and discuss and make governing decisions
- impractical unless living in a small geographic location
- ex. New England Town and Swiss cantons
Liberal-Representative Democracy
- free competition of candidates and political parties to elect representatives to legislature
- elected officials represent the people and are accountable to them
-most commonly used form of democracy
Plebiscitary Democracy
- uses referendums, initiatives, and recall elections to give citizens greater control
- attempts to give citizens a more direct way of participating in decision-making
-ex. Switzerland, Italy, and most states
Referendum
- citizens vote on particular issue or proposed law
- ex. Charlotte Town Accord
Recall
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Initiatives
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Deliberative Democracy
- decisions made through discussion by free and equal citizens
- people involved through discussion rather than voting
Ideology
-more or less a consistent set of beliefs about the nature of the society in which individuals live and the proper role of the state in establishing or maintaining that society
Classical Liberalism
- ideology of the individual, was the reaction to the organic state of the Middle Ages
- emphasis on freedom and autonomy
-achieved through limited state
Utilitarianism
- if we want to maximize well-being of society as whole, we have to maximize the opportunities of every individual to maximize their well-being (laissez-faire)
- form of liberalism
Conservatism
-try to reclaim something that is past, or preserve something from change
- evolved from classical liberalism
- means “to conserve”
Toryism
- ideology of community
- emphasis on importance of aristocracy and nobility
- opposed to equality of liberalism
- emphasis on hierarchy of social place
Scientific Socialism
- theories are held to an empirical standard, observations are essential to its development, and these can result in changes and/or falsification of elements of the theory
- Karl Marx
Historial Materialism
-history moves forward according to certain dialectical rules
Dialectics
- the art of discussing or investigating the truth of opinions
- thesis > anti thesis > synthesis
Thesis
-state or theory put forward as a premise to be maintained
Antithesis
-a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else
Synthesis
-combination or composition
Social Democracy
-transition to socialism
Revolutionary Socialism
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Post-War Consensus/ Keynesianism
-post-war consensus was the emergence of Reform Liberalism
Neo-Liberalism
- emphasis on economic sphere and role of the state
- less concern about social conservative and morality issues – these are seen as beyond the interests of the state
Neo-Conservatism
-linked to social conservatism around issues of morality and religion
Political Culture
-encompasses many elements concerning intellectual dispositions that people have about politics
Political Efficacy
-attitude that individuals can have an impact on political decisions and that government is responsive to what people want
Electoral System
-mechanism for transforming preferences of citizens (voters) into allocation of offices at stake
Single-Member-Plurality Electoral System
-each constituency returns one individual who is the person with the most votes and doesn’t have to be a majority of votes
- simplest electoral system, most popular form
- ex. Canada, US, Britain
District Magnitude
-how many candidates are elected per con
Effective Threshold
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First-Past-The-Post Electoral System
each constituency returns one individual who is the person with the most votes and doesn’t have to be a majority of votes
Preferential Ballot/ Alternative Vote System
- voters rank all candidates in order of preferences – if no candidates wins a majority based on first preferences votes, then candidate with least number of first preferences votes is eliminated and their ballots are redistributed among remaining candidates
- this system is in Australia
Single Member Majority System
- combined single-meber constituencies with elements that ensure majority outcomes
- France and Australia use this kind of model
Proportional Representation
-percentage of seats won should correspond with percent of votes received
List System
- candidates for each party are presented to a voter on a list
- voters can vote for a “party” or a “list”
Mixed-Member-Proportional System
- attempts to combine the virtues of proportional representation systems with the advantages of constituency representation
- becoming more and more popular
Constitutional Conventions
- practices, traditions, and customs about how the state operates
- conventions are part of constitution, but not “enforceable”
Fusion of Powers
- executive and legislative functions are not formally separated but integrated through overlapping memberships
- West Minister System - parliamentary system
Separation of Powers
- executive is entirely separate from the legislature
- Madisionian system
Checks and Balances
- safeguards intended to ensure that no one branch is able to become too powerful
- this is the relationship between the 3 branches
Federalism
-the division of the state
- state is segmented and operates across a number of different levels
- the levels are institutional and jurisdictional
Common Law System
- the part of English law that is derived from custom and judicial precedent rather than statutes
- used by federal government and all provinces (minis Quebec)
Civil Law System
- the system of law concerned with private relations between members of a community rather than criminal, military, or religious affairs
- used by Quebec for private law (family, contracts, etc.)
Rule of Law
-the rulers (government officials) must follow the law
Public Law
- rules that govern relationships and disputes with a public dimension
- administrative, criminal, constitutional
Private Law
- rules that govern relationships and disputes between individuals/business
- tort, family, contract, property
Administrative Law
- provides legal standards to govern actions of governmental officials and provide remedies to those aggrieved by an improper, illegal, or unauthorized act by the government or on of its agencies
- ex. Ontario Liquor License Act
Supreme Court of Canada
-sec. 101 court that holds the most power of all the courts
Appeal Court
-primarily hears appeals from federal administrative tribunals
Trial Court
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Mass Party
- parties that depend on large membership, which remains active between elections
- most parties display mix of mass and cadre parties
Cadre Party
- parties controlled by parliamentary representatives
- the party exists to carry out the leadership
-Liberals and Conservatives are cadre parties
Brokerage Party
- seek to build support from all different sources within society, also called “catch-all parties”
- a product of FPP system
Representative Function (parties)
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Legislative Branch
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Executive Branch
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Interest Group
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Social Movement
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Policy Community
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Sub-Government
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Attentive Public
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Social Movement Organization
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