Political Science Lecture Notes

Flashcards based on lecture notes about politics, power, and political systems.

What is the definition of Politics?

Actions aimed at gaining, holding, and using power.

What are the main objectives of politics?

Regulating relations, developing laws, managing social processes, and the struggle for power.

What is the object of policy?

Social communities, nations, citizens, and their associations.

What factors determine politics?

Economic factors, social structure, and social stratification.

How does politics influence other spheres of society?

Providing conditions for value creation and appropriation and its regulatory function.

How does law relate to politics?

Regulates political relations associated with the functioning of the political system.

How does religion influence politics?

Strengthening public morality and potentially influencing the authority of political subjects.

How does culture influence politics?

Through criticism, spiritual principles, worldviews, values, and traditions.

How does morality relate to politics?

Morality prevents extreme behavior and resolves contradictions within a community.

What are the basic functions of politics?

Efficiency, regulation, rationalization, political socialization, and humanitarian efforts.

What is the definition of Power?

The possibility of exercising one's will over others.

What are the main approaches to defining power?

Behavioral and sociological approaches.

What are the interpretations of power?

Theological, behaviorist, psychological, systemic, structural-functional, and relationist.

What are the main components of power?

State, political elites, parties; individual, social group, mass; economic, social, legal grounds; authority, force, prestige sources; coercion, violence, persuasion resources.

What are the key functions of power?

Organizational, managerial, security, and control.

What are the distinguishing features of political power?

Supremacy, universality, legality of force, monocentricity, and diversity of resources.

What is Legitimacy?

Consent of the people to the power and recognition of its right to make decisions.

What are the sources of legitimacy?

Personal, sensual-emotional, holistic attitude, and purposeful behavior.

What are the main types of legitimacy?

Traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal.

What is the definition of Political Science?

The science of politics, political systems, and their functioning and development.

What is the object of political science?

Politics, political processes, political power, and the legal system.

What is the subject of political science?

Political power.

What are the stages in the development of political knowledge?

Mythological/philosophical, secularized, and formalization as a discipline.

What are the stages of formation of political science?

Traditional (institutional), behavioralist, and post-behavioralist.

What are the functions of political science?

Cognitive-educational, theoretical, scientific-applied, political forecasting, and ideological.

What are the methods of political science?

Sociological, functional, systems, institutional, behaviorist, anthropological, activity, comparative, historical, value, and psychological.

What is the Political System?

A complex of institutions, norms, and relationships through which power is exercised.

How are systems classified?

Open/closed, simple/complex, static/dynamic, rigid/flexible, mechanical/organic.

How are systems differentiated in terms of controllability?

Uncontrollable, managed, and self-controlled.

How are systems divided according to application?

Economic, political, social, and cultural.

What are the main attributes of a system?

Elements, interconnections, systemic properties, and interaction with the environment.

According to Easton, what is the 'Political System'?

Behavior by which values are authoritatively distributed in society.

What are the two types of impulses in relation to the political system (Easton)?

Demands and support.

According to Parsons, what four subsystems make up society?

Economic, political, social, and spiritual.

According to Almond, what constitutes the political system?

Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of power, Officialdom, Political parties, Other pressure groups.

According to Almond, what functions do parties, legislatures, executive bodies, bureaucracy and courts perform?

Articulation, aggregation, determining political course, policy implementation, and enforcement.

What is Deutsch's communicative model of a political system?

The political system as a process of management and coordination of society's efforts.

What are the subsystems of the political system of society?

Institutional, regulatory, communication, functional, and cultural.

What are the functions of the political system of society?

Political socialization, adaptation, response, extractive, distributive, and regulation.

How are political systems typified?

Open/closed and categorized by socio-economic factors (slave, feudal, bourgeois, socialist).

What is Almond's typology of political systems?

Anglo-American, European continental, pre-industrial, and totalitarian.

How are modernized and traditional political systems different?

Specialized political institutions vs. concentrated functions in a single leader.

What does the political regime reflect?

The level of political freedom.

What is democracy?

Recognizing the people as the source and subject of power.

Who are some of the main theorists behind democracy?

J. Locke, S. Montesquieu, J.J. Rousseau, A. Tocqueville, J. Madison, T. Jefferson

What is Totalitarianism?

Absolute control of the state over all aspects of public and private life.

Who are some main theorists of totalitarianism?

H. Arendt, K. Friedrich, K. Wittfogel, K. Popper, F. von Haake

What is an Authoritarian Regime?

Unlimited power, no political opposition, autonomy in non-political spheres.

Who are some of the main theorists of Authoritarianism?

Douglas McGregor, Herbert

Who are some of the major contributors to theories of political elites?

G. Mosca, V. Pareto, R. Michelson

What is the the major premise behind theories of political elites?

That there is always an elite, a minority, leads the ' incompetent' masses.

What are the main interpretations of elites?

Value and structural-functional.

What is leadership?

Influence, authority, power and control over others.

What theories are used to explain leadership?

Great man, trait, contingency, situational, behaviorist, power/influence, transactional, transformational.

What theorists have come up with typologies of political leadership?

M. Hermann, G. Lassawel, Jean-Louis Kermonne, M. Weber, S. Jibb, J. Blondel, D. Barber

What is leadership style?

A model of behavior of a leading person.

What are the four leadership styles?

Authoritarian, Democrat, Liberal, Inconsistent

What is political culture?

A set of political values and norms of political life activity.

What are the main types of political culture?

Patriarchal, subordinate, and activist.

What is Political Socialization?

The process of assimilating political norms, rules, and laws.

Along ideological lines, how can political organizations be divided?

Communist, liberal, conservative

What are the main objectives of political parties?

Shaping public opinion, Political education ,Expressing opinions Nomination of candidates for election

What are some different types of party systems?

one-party, two-party, two-and-a-half party, multi-party

What is a political party?

an institution that expresses the interests of a particular social group (or groups) and/or ideology and seeks state power for their realization.

Electoral systems can be:

Direct or indirect

What are the types of electoral systems?

Majoritarian ,Proportional ,Mixed ,Preferential

What are interest groups?

Associations of individuals based on common interests that seek to influence political institutions.

What is the articulation of interests?

the process of formulating and expressing demands.

What is aggregation of Interests?

Giving homogeneity to a set of different demands and interests, development of common demands

What are the types of interest groups?

Institutional and non -institutional

What is lobbyism?

a way and a tool of influence of interest groups on power.

What are pressure groups?

influence of interest groups on power

What is lobbying activities?

an active interest in public or corporate advocacy to influence policy decisions

A. Marsh divided political participation into two main forms:

Conventional and unconventional

Political participation is subdivided into these two:

autonomous and mobilization.

What is a type of political participation?

Forced and voluntary

What is Absenteeism?

Avoidance of participation in political life

What is a type of participation of citizens in the political life of society?

Electoral behavior

What are Political institutions:

stable, historically established forms of political activity of people. They include: the state, parties, public organizations

What do international relations comprise?

economic, political, legal, ideological, diplomatic, military, cultural

What is foreign policy?

a policy that regulates relations between states and nations in the international arena.

What characterizes transformation of international processes?

New, favorable opportunities for powerful countries

What is included is the international community?

UN and organizations, organizations of an illegal nature

What does modernization mean?

development processes taking place in developing countries.

What does theory of modernization involve?

liberal and conservative

What is Globalization?

change in all aspects of society under the influence of the worldwide trend towards interdependence and openness.