Comparative Science Definitions
Quantitative Data Resources and Analysis
Political Organizations
Course Countries
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100
What is "political science"?
The study of this ongoing struggle for power around the world.
100
What does GDP stand for? What does it measure?
Gross Domestic Product. It measures the total amount of wealth produced in a state each year.
100
Vietnam, Korea, and the United States are all examples of what? (Synonym for country)
States
100
Which of the 9 countries we've investigated so far (Vietnam, Korea, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, China, and Mexico) is the largest geographically?
Russia (Over 6.6 million square miles)
100
Name the president, prime minister, or head of government of two of our course countries.
United States: Donald Trump; United Kingdom: Boris Johnson; Russia: Vladamir Putin; China: Xi Jinping; Vietnam: Nguyễn Xuân Phúc; Korea: Moon Jae-in; Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador; Iran: Hassan Rouhani; Nigeria: Muhammadu Buhari
200
"The United States is the best country in the world." Is this an empirical or normative statement?
It is a normative statement.
(Remember: Normative statements are statements of opinion or judgement. Empirical statements are statements of fact, data, or evidence.)
200
China has the second highest GDP of all the world's countries, but its GDP per capita ranking is #79. How is this possible?
China has a huge population of over 1.4 billion people. GDP per capita is found by dividing a country's GDP by its population. So while China's economy produces the second most wealth of all the world's country, when this amount is divided by its large population, the average amount of wealth produced per person in China is about average for all the world's economies.
200
What is government and what are 3 examples of government institutions?
A government is a set of institutions or individuals that are legally empowered to make binding decisions for a state.
Examples of government institutions: legislature (congress, parliament), executive (president, prime minister, and those that work under him/her), judiciary (the courts), military, police, etc.
200
Which of the 9 countries we've investigated so far (Vietnam, Korea, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, China, and Mexico) has the largest GDP?
The United States ($21.44 trillion)
200
Is Scotland a nation or a state?
Scotland is a nation. It is part of the state of Britain (the UK).
Nation = A large group of people who live in specific territory and are connected by history, culture, ethnicity, religion, and/or political identity.
State = A political organization that combine a permanent population of people with government institutions to exercise authority over defined territory with international recognition.
300
What is "quantitative data"?
Quantitative data is information about quantities; that is, information that can be measured and written down with numbers.
300
What is the Gini index? What does it measure?
The Gini index is a measure of the distribution of income across a population. It measures the level of income inequality in a country.
300
Can governments change? If so, when?
Yes, governments change frequently. For example, any time there are elections, new government officials appointed, a new monarch (king or queen) assumes the throne, or a military coup replaces one government with another.
300
Which of the 9 countries we've investigated so far (Vietnam, Korea, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, China, and Mexico) had the largest economic growth (GDP growth as an annual percentage) in 2019?
Vietnam (7.017%) followed closely by China (6.109%)
300
Name 3 places Ms. Devon has lived before moving to Hanoi.
Massachusetts, California (Los Angeles), New York City, Washington DC, Thailand
400
They appear to be correlated. Correlation exists when there is an association between two or more variables.
400
What are the three components that make up the Human Development Index?
Life expectancy (health), years of education (education), and Gross National Income (economic well-being)
400
What is the difference between a government and a regime?
A government is the people and institutions that are empowered to make decisions for a state; a regime is the set of rules under which they operate.
400
Which of the 9 countries we've investigated so far (Vietnam, Korea, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, China, and Mexico) had negative GDP growth in 2019?
Mexico (-.146%)
400
What is a linkage institution? Give 2 examples.
A group that connects people to policy making, especially in democratic societies. Examples include political parties, interest groups, the media, and labor unions.
500
Why is causation difficult to determine with certainty in comparative politics?
Causation is difficult to determine with certainty in comparative politics because there are often many variables that influence political policies, economic outcomes, and/or regime stability, with no way to isolate and demonstrate which is producing the change. Countries are not laboratories!
500
Current political and social turmoil in the United States (growing political polarization and an increase in mass marches and protests) affects which Quantitative Data index that we have examined most significantly? Has it led to an increase or decrease in that index's score?
(Possible Answers: HDI, GDP, GDP per capita, GDP growth rate, Gini Coefficient, Freedom House Index, Corruption Perception Index, Fragile States Index)
Fragile States Index. The current political and social turmoil in the United States has led to a higher FSI index score, indicating an increase in the state's fragility.
500
What is legitimacy and what are 3 sources from which a government may derive (get) its legitimacy?
Legitimacy refers to whether a government's people believe that their government has the right to use power in the way that they do. It can be derived through the democratic process (“Rational-Legal Legitimacy”), from the effectiveness of the government (at growing the economy and meeting citizens' needs, for example), from tradition (ex: monarchy in the UK), or from the charisma and popularity of particular leader ("charismatic legitimacy").
500
Which of the 9 countries we've investigated so far (Vietnam, Korea, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, China, and Mexico) experienced a dramatic regime change in 1979? What happened?
Iran. In 1979 in Iran protesters took in the Iranian Revolution, which resulted in the toppling of the monarchy and led to the establishment of a theocracy (a state ruled by religious law).
500
Name one way Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's speech "The Danger of the Single Story" connects to this class so far.
1.) If you only focus on one economic metric or index when talking about a country (such as GDP, GDP growth, HDI, or Corruption Perception's Index), you get an incomplete picture of what life is like in the country.
2.) Quantitative data doesn't give a complete picture about a country's history or how a country became "rich" or "poor" in the first place. For example, quantitative data doesn't tell us anything about colonialism and how rich countries have historically extracted wealth from poorer countries.
3.) Each of us has our own biases or gaps in our knowledge due to the incomplete stories we have been told about places.