Comparative Politics: Key Concepts, Regimes, and Theories

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards detailing core terms, theoretical perspectives, forms of power, state elements, regime classifications, and corrupt practices from comparative politics lecture modules.

Comparative Politics

The systematic study of government and politics in different countries, designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrast and similarities.

Government

The institutions and offices through which societies are governed, also describing the group of people who govern, a specific administration, or the system of rule.

Political System

The interactions and organizations (including but not restricted to government) through which a society reaches and successfully enforces collective decisions.

Governance

The process by which decisions, laws, and policies are made, with or without the input of formal institutions.

Politics

The process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing shared or collective decisions.

Power

The capacity to bring about intended effects; derived from the Latin word "potere" meaning "to be able" or "ability to affect something else."

Force (Power)

A type of power that involves the use of physical means.

Persuasion (Power)

Nonphysical power in which the agent using power makes its use of power clear and known to the agent over whom power is exercised.

Manipulation (Power)

Nonphysical power in which the agent using power conceals the use of power.

Exchange (Power)

The use of power through the provision of incentives.

First Dimension of Power (Lukes)

A dimension of power judged by examining whose views prevail when the actors involved possess conflicting views on what should be done.

Second Dimension of Power (Lukes)

The capacity to keep issues off the political agenda and limit the political debate to safe issues.

Third Dimension of Power (Lukes)

The most efficient form of power, which shapes people's information and preferences to prevent conflicting views or non-decisions from arising.

State

The legal and political authority of a territory containing a population and marked by borders, regarded as both sovereign and legitimate by its citizens and other governments.

Authority

The right to rule, creating its own power so long as people accept that the person in authority has the right to make decisions.

Legitimacy

The state or quality of being legitimate, referring broadly to whether people accept the authority and right to rule of the political system.

Legal-Rational Authority

Authority based on a system of rules, derived from legal-rational norms that provide and limit power.

Traditional Authority

Authority based on the accepted way of doing things, where power passes from one generation to another.

Charismatic Authority

Authority that emanates from the charisma of the leader, inspiring intense personal commitment to the leader and their message.

Ideology

A system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics, economics, and society should be structured.

Typology

A system of classification by which states, institutions, processes, or political cultures are divided into groups or types with a common set of attributes.

Three Worlds System

A political typology that divided the world along ideological lines, labeling states according to the side they took during the Cold War.

Democracy Index

An index maintained by the Economist Intelligence Unit that scores states out of 10 and divides them into full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.

Freedom in the World Index

An index maintained by Freedom House that categorizes states into Free, Partly Free, or Not Free.

Sovereignty

The power of the state to direct its own external affairs without interference or dictation from other states.

Peace of Westphalia

Treaties ending the Thirty Years War that redefined sovereignty and established national secular authority as superior to religious edicts from Rome.

Nation

A cultural and historical concept describing a group of people who identify with one another based on shared history, culture, language, myths, or customs.

Imagined Communities

A concept proposed by Benedict Anderson (1983) describing how shared identities allow individuals to imagine themselves belonging to a unified national community.

Security State

A modern challenge to the state wherein governments broaden powers to monitor communications, limit movement, and impinge on privacy to counter terrorism.

Direct Democracy

A system of government in which all members of the community take part directly in making collective decisions that affect the community.

Ekklesia

The sovereign citizens' assembly of ancient Athens where male citizens gathered to legislate, elect officials, and settle judicial issues.

E-Democracy

A form of democratic expression through which individuals with an interest in an issue express themselves via the internet or social media.

Echo Chamber

A phenomenon where ideas circulate inside a closed system, leading users to seek out only sources that confirm or amplify their existing values.

Representative Democracy

A system of government in which members of the community elect individuals to represent their interests and make governing decisions.

Liberal Democracy

A form of indirect democracy where the scope of democracy is limited by constitutional protections of individual rights and the rule of law.

Waves of Democratization

A concept identified by Samuel Huntington (1991) defining a group of transitions from non-democratic to democratic regimes occurring within a specified time period.

First Wave of Democratization

The democratization period from 1828 to 1926 characterized by a slow, sequential expansion of voting rights from privileged elites to broader populations.

Second Wave of Democratization

The democratization period from 1943 to 1962, sparked by the defeat of Axis powers in World War II and the decolonization of former colonies.

Third Wave of Democratization

The wave lasting from 1974 to 1991, marked by the fall of Southern European dictatorships, Latin American military juntas, and Eastern European communism.

Hybrid Regimes

Political systems that maintain intermediate positions between democracy and authoritarianism, showing democratic appearances while manipulating rules to retain power.

Authoritarian Regimes

Regimes based on submission to authority, characterized by ruling elites, limited political pluralism, centralized control, intolerance of opposition, and human rights abuses.

Corruption

The abuse of public office for private gain.

Influence Peddling

A corrupt practice involving the selling of government influence to deliver benefits to a third party.

Patronage (Corrupt Form)

The corrupt selection of less qualified candidates for government office in exchange for their political support.

Nepotism

Favoring relatives when making appointments to government office or awarding government contracts.

Cronyism

Favoring friends when making appointments to public office or awarding government contracts.

Kickbacks

A corrupt practice where public officials award contracts to a company in return for receiving a percentage of the payment made to that company.

Theory (Political Science)

An abstract or generalized approach to explaining or understanding political phenomena.

Institutionalism

The study of politics and government focused primarily on the structure and dynamics of governing institutions.

Institutions

Formal organizations and practices with a political purpose or effect, marked by durability and internal complexity.

New Institutionalism

The revival of institutional analysis that looks beyond formal written rules to examine how institutions shape decisions and define actor interests.

Logic of Appropriateness

The institutional perspective that human action is driven by internalized institutional norms and duties rather than conscious individual calculation.

Logic of Consequences

The institutional perspective viewing political actors as rational individuals who evaluate choices based on personal values and self-interest.

Behavioralism

The study of politics emphasizing individuals over formal institutions, analyzing attitudes and behaviors to formulate scientific generalizations.

Rational Choice Theory

An approach drawn from economics assuming political behavior reflects decisions made by self-interested, rational actors seeking to maximize benefits and minimize costs.