Unit 1 Flashcards
What is a normative approach to comparing political states?
A normative approach is based on issues that require value judgments. Issues such as good or bad, right or wrong. Normative statements asset a particular norm or a goal that a policy should move toward. For instance, Mexico should model its economy after Great Britain. Whereas empirical statements compare data that can be measured and proven to be true. What normative statements could be made? A normative statement might be, Iran should model its economic policy after Russia. Why is this normative? This is normative because it’s making this assumption that Iran’s goal should be economic growth. And it also assumes that Iran should not be happy with its current average standard of living. This is merely an opinion.
What is am empirical statement?
Whereas empirical statements compare data that can be measured and proven to be true. This is based on statistic and other factual information. Empirical statements simple state facts. Think of empirical as asking what happened or why did that happen? Take a look at this chart. What types of empirical statements can you make using the chart on the screen? We can make an empirical statement about the chart by saying Great Britain has a higher GDP per capita than Iran.
Why is this empirical? Because the measurable data shown on the graph proves that statement to be true.
What is a direct relationship?
A direct relationship occurs when we see that if one variable increases, the other variable also increases. An example of this would be, as education increases, literacy rates also increase.
What is an inverse relationship?
An inverse relations takes place when we see that one variable decreases, the other variable increases. An example of an inverse relationship would be, as education increases the rate of unemployment decreases. So, what is correlation and causation? Comparative government and politics largely involves the use of data when studying and comparing countries.
What are correlation and causation?
Correlation refers to a situation where one set of observed data seems to be related to another set of data.
Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Correlation can indicate possible causation, but additional research and experimentation must be conducted to prove causation. For example, countries with high rates of unemployment are likely to have high rates of illiteracy than countries with low rates of unemployment. This is not causation however because the correlation does not prove that high illiteracy rates cause high rates of unemployment.
It could be possible that globalization and free trade are the cause of high rates of unemployment. It is also possible that there is a third characteristic that causes both high rates of unemployment, and high rates of illiteracy. During this lesson we discussed normative and empirical statements, direct and inverse relationships, and correlation and causation.
What is a state?
Max Weber defines a state as a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, often abbreviated as a monopoly on violence. Why is this true? The answer, states have sovereignty.
What is sovereignty?
Sovereignty allows states to implement a decision or law by force without consequence from a higher authority. You must have power to have sovereignty.
Besides sovereignty and power, what else must a state possess?
Besides sovereignty and power, states must possess 1) a territory with defined boundaries of sovereign rule. 2) A system of government to make political decisions and people.
Our world’s political system is based on the belief that the state is the supreme foundational unit. Not all states are created equal. Our global political system is a host to strong states, as well as weak states.
What the capacity of a state?
Whether the state is a strong or weak state.
What is autonomy?
Autonomy is the ability to carry out a policy without public support. States with high autonomy, such as China, are able to enact policies and make decisions that their people do not support, without fear of consequence.
States with low autonomy, such as Great Britain, greatly depend on public support to successfully implement a policy.
What are the elements of a strong state?
A strong state has 1) the ability to not only enact a policy or law, but it also 2) manages its execution and enforcement.. Something else to consider is whether or not the state 3) possesses autonomy.
What are the characteristics of a weak state?
A weak state lacks the capacity that we see in a strong state. A weak state 1) would not have the guaranteed capacity to enact a policy or a law because 2) it’s often unable to manage it’s execution and enforcement.
Nigeria for example, struggles to provide law enforcement for many of the policies enacted by its government.
What is a failed state?
The most extreme is the failed state. This is a state that not only 1) lacks capacity to implement their policies domestically, 2) they are unable to even provide the basic law and order to their people.
These failed states are a growing concern. Due to their inability to provide law and order, we are seeing violent criminals roaming free, to behave with no fear of legal consequences from their state. Failed states have the potential to act as breeding grounds and safe havens for terrorists and extremists.
What is legitimacy and what determines if a state has legitimacy?
A couple of minutes ago we talked about China having high autonomy over its people, sometimes enacting policies that the people do not support. Did you ever wonder how the citizens allow this to happen? This is through legitimacy.
When people accept the right of a state to rule over them, the state has legitimacy.
Where does legitimacy come from?
States require legitimacy to maintain rule. Legitimacy can come from 1) tradition (traditional legitimacy, ie monarchy), 2) personal charisma of a leader (charismatic legitimacy) or 3) rational legal processes (rational-legal legitimacy).
What is a regime? What are three ways that they can change? What are two ways they can be defined?
Some countries are composed of many different ethnic groups, each with their own language and culture. A regime is defined as, the rules and systems under which the political processes take place. Regimes look different in different states. Some are defined by a constitution or a written law, others are shaped by the person holding the power.
Regimes can change through 1) reform, 2) revolution or 3) through a coup d’etat, which is a sudden decisive action in politics to change the current government by force.
What is a coup d’etat?
A coup d’etat is a sudden decisive action in politics to change the current government by force.
What is a state’s government?
A state’s government consists of individuals currently exercising political power from official positions of authority. An example of this would be the current president and his or her administration.
When discussing States, what is the difference between nations, regimes, and governments?
Nations, regimes and governments are used in everyday conversations when referring to states.
Nations are a group of people bound together by a shared sense sovereign, political destiny and may share ethnicity, language, religion, and culture. Examples are best provided by thinking about stateless nations like the Kurds, the Scots, and the Basque.
Regimes are the rules and systems under which the political processes take shape. Some are defined by a constitution; others are shaped by the person holding the power.
A government is the individuals currently exercising political power from official positions of authority, such as a president and his or her administration.
What are some ways that power can be distributed in a State?
The distribution of power varies from state to state.
1) Federalism
2) Unitary states
Depending on how a constitution organizes power between the central and subnational governments, a country may be said to possess either a unitary or a federal system (see also federalism).
What is federalism?
In contrast to a unitary state, some states use federalism, where the power is shared between the central government and the regional governments.
In federal systems there is an intermediate level of governmental authority between the central and the local; it usually consists of states or provinces, though other entities (e.g., cantons or republics) may exist in some countries. Aside from the number of levels, the most important distinction between a unitary system and a federal one is that the states or provinces of a federal state have constitutionally protected sovereignty. Within a federal system the state or provincial governments share sovereignty with the central government and have final jurisdiction over a broad range of policy areas.
What is a unitary state?
In contrast to federalist states, unitary states concentrate their power at the central or national level. Sometimes a unitary state makes a variation to this policy called devolution.
In a unitary system the only level of government besides the central is the local or municipal government. Although local governments may enjoy considerable autonomy, their powers are not accorded constitutional status; the central government determines which decisions to “devolve” to the local level and may abolish local governments if it so chooses.
What is devolution?
This is when the central government grants certain powers to the regional governments in order to achieve a policy objective. These given powers are not permanent, and can be easily revoked, differentiating a devolved unitary state from federalism.
What is a super national organization?
In our progression towards globalization we are seeing the emergence of super national organizations.
These are multinational political unions in which sovereign states send representatives to make collective decisions for the group. These members choose to give some of their states power to the organization. The European Union is an example of a super national organization.
What is ethnic identity?
Ethnicity can be described as a common culture that unites people. These binding attributes include religion, language, history, culture and ancestry. Ethnicity, unlike citizenship and nationality is not by nature political. Members of a particular ethnic group can live with members of another ethnic group without the need for their own sovereign state.
What is a nation? What is a stateless nation? What is national identity? What is nationality? What is nationalization?
A nation is a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.
A stateless nation is an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own state and is not the majority population in any nation state. The term “stateless” implies that the group “should have” such a state (country).
Stateless nations are not uncommon. Examples include the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Basque, and the European Jews before they were given land in Israel.
In contrast to ethnic identity is national identity. Nationalism unites people based on their pride and value for their nation. They believe that they can work together to achieve their political destiny.
In contrast to the term nation, nationality refers to the country of citizenship. People can share the same nationality but be of different ethnic groups and people who share an ethnic identity can be of different nationalities. (Jews and Asians living in the US. Kurds in Syria and Kurds in Iraq.)
People physically living in country may not be a citizen, whether they are guest-workers or students with a visa or people who have migrated illegally.
Nationalization means the transfer of a major branch of industry or commerce from private to state ownership or control.
“the nationalization of the railroads”
What is citizenship?
Another term relating to people and the relationship to the state is citizenship. Citizenship is a formal relationship between the individual and the state, and usually comes with certain rights, and privileges. Citizenship differs from national identity, because it’s purely political.
What is a cleavage?
A cleavage can be most easily defined as a split or a sharp division. People are divided against each other due to differing political beliefs and goals. Examples include social cleavages and political cleavages.
Divisions in society based on religion, class, race, gender, and any other difference between people.
What are examples of social cleavages?
Some examples of social cleavages include
1) church versus state,
2) owner versus worker or
3) rich versus poor.
4) rural vs. urban
5) educated vs. uneducated
What are cross-cutting cleavages?
Cross-cutting cleavages divide people into groups with smaller interests. Therefore, not allowing large groups of people on one side of a particular cleavage. Cross-cutting cleavages do not break a society apart. An example of a cross-cutting cleavage would be workers in Great Britain. These workers have many common interests, politically. But when it comes to voting, there are differences that divide them into smaller groups outside of workers.
When it comes to voting, they may be religious-minded or state-minded. Cross-cutting cleavages help to maintain stability in a political system by dividing people into smaller interests instead of uniting them into one large group pitted against another. Cross-cutting cleavages divide people, so that they may find conflict on one issue, but work together on another.
What are coinciding cleavages?
Another type of cleavage is coinciding. Coinciding cleavages are reinforcing cleavages and have the ability to divide a society so deeply that it can no longer find a stable unity. Start by matching all of the lines of the cleavage running parallel with one another, such as all of the workers in favor of union and all of the owners in favor of industrial freedoms.
This leads to the side with the majority to be the ones that constantly shape the political policies leaving the other side to always lose on political issues. Coinciding cleavages can lead to revolutions or separatist movements. Nigeria’s a good example of a state that faces the threat of coinciding cleavages.
There’s a deep division between the northern rural Muslims and the southern urban Christians in Nigeria, which threatens their unity. As we study comparative politics, we will constantly approach the topic of political change. We will look at the history of political change country by country, as well as how political change occurs.
