Lecture Notes – State, Power, Nationalism, Democracy (Video)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture notes on state, power, domination, nationalism, and democracy.

State

A political association that uses force to maintain its authority; holds a monopoly on legitimate physical force within a defined territory.

Monopoly on legitimate force

The state's exclusive right to use or authorize force within its territory.

Politics as a vocation

The idea that politics is about striving for power and leadership within a state, not merely about current policies.

Traditional domination

Obedience based on long-standing customs and traditions.

Charismatic domination

Obedience driven by belief in a leader’s personal qualities and devotion of followers.

Legal domination

Obedience grounded in laws and rules recognized as valid by the state.

Charismatic leadership

Power gained through followers’ belief that the leader is called to lead, often due to exceptional qualities.

Maintaining political power

Keeping power by controlling administrative staff and material resources, either directly or via loyal delegates.

Estate-based organizations

Power structures that rely on aristocratic or noble support, as in feudal systems.

Bureaucratic states

Modern states where administrators are separated from the material means of power and resources are controlled by the state.

The modern state

A centralized power system that monopolizes force, expropriates administrative resources, and often employs professional politicians to run state machinery.

Professional politicians

Politicians who manage the state as functionaries, originally servants of rulers, later central to state administration.

Legibility

The state’s project to simplify society into readable, recordable, and controllable forms.

Cadastral surveys

Land registry surveys used to map and codify land ownership and taxation.

Permanent surnames

Standardized, enduring family names used for reliable record-keeping.

Standard weights and measures

Uniform units used to quantify and regulate trade, taxation, and administration.

Population registers

Lists recording who lives where, used for governance and taxation.

Freehold land tenure

A legal arrangement where land ownership is held outright by individuals and recognized by law.

Planned cities

Urban designs created to promote orderly administration and control.

Ujamaa villages

Tanzania’s planned villagization policy aimed at collective farming and state control.

Strategic hamlets

Vietnamese program to isolate rural populations to prevent rebellion and improve state control.

Beekeeping analogy

Statecraft likened to beekeeping: creating orderly, legible, extractive systems for administrative convenience.

Great Leap Forward

China’s legibility-driven campaign with catastrophic consequences for agriculture and society.

Collectivization

Soviet policy to consolidate land and labor into collective farms, often causing famine and disruption.

War and the state

The idea that war drives state-building and vice versa; external threats push state strength and capacity.

Ratchet effect

During war, taxes and state reach tend to rise and do not fully revert after conflict ends.

Sokoto Caliphate

A historical example where ongoing warfare strengthened political authority and resource mobilization.

South Korea

An example of a state shaped by constant external threats, leading to highly extractive and efficient governance.

Taiwan

Another example of threat-driven state development similar to South Korea.

Imagined community

Benedict Anderson’s concept that a nation is a socially constructed, imagined political community.

Limited

Nations have finite boundaries and do not include all humanity.

Sovereign

Emergence of the modern nation-state through Enlightenment and Revolution, grounded in political freedom.

Community (in nationalism)

A deep, horizontal sense of comradeship within a nation, despite inequalities.

Nationalism

A socially constructed loyalty to a nation that can inspire strong devotion and sacrifice.

Democracy

A system of governance based on competition and participation, with regular free and fair elections, civil liberties, rule of law, and constitutionalism.

What democracy is not

Not merely majority rule without constraints, not guaranteed economic equality or policy outcomes, not absence of conflict, and not direct rule by the people.

Schmitter & Karl (1991) concept

Democracy as a regime with contestation, inclusion, elections, civil liberties, rule of law, not just majority rule.