Political Science Detectives
A political scientist asks whether increasing voter registration opportunities leads to higher turnout. This is an example of this kind of question.
What is an empirical question?
A politician argues that established traditions and institutions should be preserved because rapid change can produce unintended consequences.
What is conservatism?
Citizens obey a monarch because the royal family has ruled for generations. This illustrates this type of legitimacy.
What is traditional legitimacy?
This democratic model emphasizes elections as the primary mechanism through which citizens select their leaders.
What is minimalist (or elitist) democracy?
Citizens feel affection and loyalty toward their country without necessarily demanding political independence or asserting national superiority.
What is patriotism?
A scholar asks whether governments have a moral obligation to provide healthcare. This question belongs primarily to this tradition of political inquiry.
What is the philosophical tradition?
A political movement argues that gender inequalities are embedded within political and social institutions and must be challenged.
What is feminism?
Citizens follow a revolutionary leader because they believe the leader possesses extraordinary personal qualities.
What is charismatic legitimacy?
A citizen wants to participate in politics but cannot afford to take time off work. According to the Civic Voluntarism Model, they lack this.
What are resources, specifically time?
Newspapers, shared languages, schools, and national symbols help create this among people who will never personally meet.
What is a shared national identity, or an imagined community?
A researcher explains voting decisions by examining how individuals weigh expected benefits against costs.
What is rational choice?
A political leader argues that society is divided between ordinary people and a corrupt political establishment.
What is populism?
A new president takes office after an election, but the country's constitution and political institutions remain intact. The country has changed its government but not necessarily this.
What is its regime?
A student becomes politically active after a community organization personally invites them to volunteer. This illustrates this component of the Civic Voluntarism Model.
What is recruitment?
A single sovereign state contains multiple distinct national communities. Political scientists describe it using this term.
What is a multinational state?
A political scientist uses a simplified representation of political behavior to identify its most important features.
What is a model?
A political movement argues that national membership should be based primarily on shared ancestry and inherited cultural identity.
What is ethnic nationalism?
A government can enforce laws through coercion, but citizens do not believe it has the rightful authority to rule. It possesses power but lacks this.
What is legitimacy?
Citizens vote overwhelmingly for a policy, but elected officials consistently ignore their preferences. This raises questions about this characteristic of democracy.
What is democratic responsiveness?
This political ideal holds that the boundaries of the nation and the sovereign state should coincide.
What is the nation-state ideal?
A scholar argues that politics includes power relationships within families, workplaces, and other institutions—not simply government. This illustrates why politics is described as this kind of concept:
A politician combines socialist economic policies with rhetoric about ordinary people fighting a corrupt elite. This demonstrates this characteristic of populism.
What is its ideological flexibility, or its status as a thin ideology?
A state possesses a government, population, and territory, but cannot conduct independent diplomatic relations with other states. It is missing this Montevideo characteristic.
What is the capacity to enter into relations with other states?
A citizen believes their political actions can influence government decisions. This belief is called this.
What is political efficacy?
A nationalist movement defines membership through shared citizenship and democratic institutions but excludes minority groups that reject its preferred political values. This illustrates why even this supposedly inclusive form of nationalism can become exclusionary.
What is civic nationalism?