Comparative Government and Politics - Intro Concepts + Vocab

Comparative analysis (understand differences + similarities)

• Can help us make sense of confusing global system – better understanding of forces that bring political change,significance and impact of change

• Can help us understand ourselves – better understanding of the character, origins, strengths & weaknesses of our own system

• Can broaden our options – how similar problems are approached by different governments & perhaps offer ideas that might help improve the way we do things or avoid mistakes

• Can broaden our horizons – avoid ethnocentrism & appreciate variety

• Can help us draw up rules about politics – the study of different

  political systems can help us develop and test explanations of the trends & underlying principles of politics

• Can help us develop a more sophisticated understanding of politics in general including the nature of democracy and nondemocratic gov’t, the relationships between gov’t and people, & other concepts & processes

• Can help us understand the linkages between domestic & international affairs

• Can assist explanations – why are some countries stable democracies and not others? Why do many democracies have prime ministers instead of presidents?

Political scientists

• Job is inductive and work is deductive 

• Falsify information - find one example for why a theory isn’t true 

• Goal - reach general conclusions about political world

government

• Particular set of institutions & people authorized by formal documents to pass laws, regulations, provide protection, etc.

• Exercises state power but rarely holds all the power

• Limited by the existing regime

constitution

to pass laws, issue regulations, control the police, etc

State

• A broad concept that includes all the public institutions & individuals that exercise power

• A monopoly of force over a specific geographic territory

• Sovereign

3 way classification system (outdated) for states

• Industrialized democracy - greatest potential for creating/sustaining powerful states 

• Current + former communist regime - extremely strong, government control on everything, very powerful

• Global South - everyone else 

  • Originally termed less developed countries 

• New division - newly industrialized countries (South Korea, Singapore)

Strong state

take on more responsibilities and generally carry them out, wealthy, widespread popular support, governments work well together

weak state

poverty, internal division, other factors, dissatisfaction w the government

governance

exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society’s problems and affairs

regime

• Sets of rules and institutions that control access to, and the exercise of, political power

• These endure from government to government or administration to

  administration (in American terms)

• Regime change occurs when these rules & institutions have been replaced

system

• group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole-in comparative politics, inputs, decision making, outputs, feedback, and the environment win a state

• Ex - when Soviet Union collapsed, the system collapsed

nation

• A psychological concept

• Cultural, linguistic and other identities that can tie people together

• Can use the word “ethnic” here

Political culture

• reflects core values of people

• Revolves around the people’s identity - how they define themselves in racial, linguistic, ethnic, or religious terms

Imperialism

policy of colonizing other countries - establishing empires

Totalitarianism

• Government is involved in every aspect of individuals’ lives

• Group has complete control of both public and private lives

• Ex. Nazi Germany; China; Stalin in the USSR

Globalization

• rapid shrinking of social, economic, environmental, and political life

• Easier to work w and against each other 

• Beneficial or harmful? 

system theory

• allows to see how state’s components interact over time and how nonpolitical and international focus shape what can and cannot be accomplished

• inputs, decision making, output, feedback, environment

inputs

• how citizens engage in political life 

• Support → political parties (bring interests together) 

• Demand → interest groups (limited range of issues), protests 

• Subcultures in countries present

decision making

way governments make policies

output

• public policy

public policy

decisions made by a state that define what it will do → regulate behavior, redistribute resources, can be symbolic

feedback

• process through which people find out about public policy and the ways their reactions shape politics 

• Learn through mass media 

• Times when people don’t find out about policies

environment

• everything outside political systems 

• impact of history

• limits imposed by conditions 

• global forces outside countries borders

4 factors affecting state development

• Historical vs. contemporary 

  • Imperialism most important (poor, western values) 

• International vs. domestic 

  • International politics affect domestic politics 

  • International policy economy - describe trade and other interactions that take place between countries

Inverse relations

for the power of one to increase, the power of the other must be reduced

Democracy

• Government ruled by the people themselves

• Ex. Gilmore Girls town → possible only within smaller groups

rights

guarantee basic individual freedoms of press, religion, association, and speech

Competitive elections

• requirement that the government is chosen through regular, free, and fair elections

  • More than 2 parties can have impact at national level 

  • Different electoral systems - way of counting votes and allocating seats 

  • Single-member districts - easy for major-party candidates to win, discourage formation of “third” parties

  • Proportional representation - parties win roughly same share of parliamentary seats as received at polls

The Rule of Law

people are governed by clear and fair rules rather than by arbitrary, personal exercise of power

Civil Society and Civic Culture

psychologically bind people to their states and make it hard for “anti system” protests to take root, thus helping make democracies resistant to sweeping change

Capitalism and Affluence

• rise of capitalism, establishment of democracy 

  • Industrialized democracies richest countries in the world

  • Democracy can only exist alongside an affluent economy based in large part on private ownership of the means of production

most westner european countries

are democracies

Laissez-faire

calls on government to stay out of economic life bc “invisible hand” of market allocated resources for better

John Locke

notion that state’s role was to protect “life, liberty and property”

Capitalist added 2 key ideas to democratic thought

• State should be limited

• State shouldn’t prescribe what people should do in all areas of life 

• Job is to protect society

suffrage

right to vote

Building Democracies

Creation of nation/state → role of religion in society/government → development of pressures for democracy → industrial revolution

Political culture

democracies thrive if the people who disagree with each other can find a way to cooperate

Political parties

organizations responsible for contesting elections and forming governments afterward

Left-right spectrum

• Left - communist parties, social democratic (socialist) parties 

  • Support nationalization of industry + greater equality 

• Center - liberals/radicals 

  • Stand for fundamental change - separation of church + state, market economy, democracy

• Right - secular conservatives 

  • Have not traditionally opposed state intervention in economy

Catch-all parties

try to appeal to all voters

Realignment

shift in political system

Dealignment

sever psychological ties that bind them to what they traditionally supported

Interest groups

promote point of views (trade unions + business groups)

Political protest

industrialized democracies experience protests (organized + unorganized) usually peaceful/nonviolent

Presidential systems

separate powers (executive, legislative, judicial) is a system of checks and balances (US)

Parliamentary systems

• fuse legislative and executive powers (Britain + France)

  • Members of parliament

  • Cabinet responsibility - government stays in office until next election if it retina support of majority on all major pieces of legislation

  • Votes of confidence - explicitly asked to affirm its support for government 

  • Elections produce single party or coalition of parties (close enough ideologically to stick together)

rest of state

• senior civil servants contribute expertise to highly technical issues within government

  • Supposed to be done in a completely objective manner, may be biased within their policy decisions

Bureaucracy

system of government where decisions are made by non-elected officials (formal rules, procedures, and a hierarchical structure)

Integrated elite

small, interconnected group of leaders who dominate decision-making and maintain power within society

Interventionist state

offer social services (basic health care + education, subsidized/free education, unemployment compensation, pensions for seniors)

media

plays a role in democracies by informing wider audience about current politics

Authoritarian

• Those in charge have more control/fewer limits on power

• Often use force to maintain power

• Singular purpose for propaganda

  • It’s in support of this one government + that there are no other choices

• Dictatorship + Totalitarianism

Dictatorship

• Single ruler has absolute power

• Ex. North Korea (could go back and forth → communist party); Cuba + Fidel Castro; Syria; Equatorial Guinea; Kagame in Rwanda; Putin in the USSR

Republic

• People choose representatives to rule in their stead

• Ex. United States

Anarchy

• No organized government in place

• Ex. Somalia at a point in time (90s)

Theocracy

• Ruled by religious heads → people in power have some sort of religious authority (not just a political philosophy)

• Ex. Vatican City & Iran

Monarchy

• Family rules through bloodline inheritance

• Absolute + Constitutional

Absolute Monarchy

• Have complete rule in power → no limits

• Ex. Saudi Arabia

Constitutional Monarchy

• Limited by document or other political body 

• Ex. UK (limited by the Parliament)

Purpose of a (good government)

1. Keep order - control behavior

2. Protection of natural rights

3. Security - physical protection

4. Represent/fulfill the needs of people

5. Ensure the economic well-being of citizens 

6. Maintain diplomatic relations with other countries

7. Provide equitable opportunities

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Dealt with key notions of popular sovereignty and the general will

• Government is not to be confused with sovereignty of the people or with social order

• Government is the only intermediary set up between people and the state

  • The state → the political institutions that make the political decisions within the government, including incorporating some of the political values within their decisions

• Government is created by citizens through collective action

• Purpose: to serve the people by seeing to it that laws are actually executed

• Government is the servant of the people, not the master → serving people

• When the state was no longer representative of the will of the people or failed in its duty to ensure laws, the delegation of power to gov’t was revocable

• State had to be all-inclusive – every citizen should know every other citizen

  • Input of all citizens should be a part of the state

Thomas Hobbes

• Men are addicted to power b/c its acquisition is the only guarantee of living well

  • The competition drives their behavior in a way that makes them violent/aggressive

  • Men as “animals” (opposite of the idea of being “intellectual beings naturally”) (government controls the animalistic behaviors of humans)

• Therefore, men live in a “perpetual state of war” driven by competition & desire for the same limited resources

• Natural rights & liberty limited by necessity to seek self-preservation by any means

• No value above that of self-interest b/c where there is no common, coercive power there is no law & no justice 

• Men may surrender their individual will & transfer their individual rights to the state

• Only a constituted civil power commands sufficient force to compel everyone to fulfill the compact whereby men exchange liberty for security

• The sovereign power is absolute and not subject to laws and obligations of citizens

• Obedience is compulsory so long as sovereign fulfills social compact by protecting rights of the individual

Karl Marx

• “Dictatorship of the proletariat” – workers would assume power in order eliminate class differences through re-education

• This gov’t would eventually give way to communal society operating as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his

  need”

Normative Political Theory

• purpose is to get us to think coherently about the ultimate

  aims of politics & to think through possible consequences of alternative courses of political action

• It often asks us to make value judgments

  • What is the best form of government?

  • What ought to be the main goals of political action?

  • How do we define these goals in practical circumstances?

empirical analysis

• centered on facts

• Seeks to discover, describe, and explain facts and factual relationships, to the extent that the facts are knowable

• Probes the “what”, the “how”, and the “why” of politics

• tends to be a value-free political science

• Requires us to keep our investigations of political reality free from our own particular values and biases, no matter how well-intentioned our convictions are