The Basics
A group of people who identify themselves as belonging together because of cultural, geographic, or linguistic ties.
Nation
Leader who is chiefly responsible for the day-to-day operations of government.
Increasing interconnectedness and interdependence of people, cultures, economies, and states facilitated by technology, trade, and cultural diffusion.
Globalization
Authoritarian regimes often allow elections to take place in order to increase this.
Legitimacy
Organizations outside of government, which provide avenues of public participation in society.
Civil society
The degree to which a state controls its own territory and independently makes and carries out policy.
Sovereignty
The power of courts to modify or nullify the actions of legislatures, executives, and lower courts.
Judicial review
An electoral system in which voters select parties rather than individual candidates and parties are represented in legislatures depending on the shares of votes they win.
Proportional representation
The total value of goods and services produced by an economy.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Political scientists look at these societal divisions to assess stability within a society.
Cleavages
Identify 2 types of legitimacy.
Traditional, charismatic or rational-legal
A system of government in which the head of government is chosen by and serves at the pleasure of the legislature.
Parliamentary
An electoral system in which election winners are those who receive the largest number of votes.
Plurality/FPTP/Single-member districts
Measurement of income inequality and distribution.
Gini Index
Protections granted by the government to prevent discrimination against groups.
civil rights
The ability of citizens to see and know what the government is doing.
Transparency
State in which political power is largely concentrated in the central government, as opposed to the states.
Unitary
The spread of representative government to more countries and the process of making government more representative.
Democratization
System of governance based on coercion rather than political legitimacy.
Authoritarianism
Organizations and institutions that connect people to the state and vice versa.
Linkage institutions
A government system that includes free and fair elections, an open media, and free speech for all
Advanced or liberal democracy
A government with limited democratic institutions.
Illiberal democracy
When a state has thrown out its old constitution with the intention of writing a new one that more closely reflects its needs
Regime change
This concept describes a system in which all citizens are subject to the same policies, rules and law.
Rule of law
Process in a unitary system of delegating some decision-making power to local public bodies.
Devolution