POLI 201: Comprehensive Political Science Review

Essential political science vocabulary flashcards covering international relations theories, state formation, regimes, comparative methodologies, democracy, ideologies, and theories of justice across all lecture modules.

Liberal International Relations Theory

An IR theoretical tradition based on reason, individualism, and progress that rejects natural hierarchies and holds an optimistic view of human nature, arguing that rational individual actions produce outcomes beneficial to all over time.

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

The post-World War I peace treaty signed in June 1919 that established the League of Nations and imposed severe financial and political reparations on Germany, which took 93 years to pay off (final payment in 2010).

Principle of Self-Determination

The principle asserting the right of states and nationalist groups to freely determine their own government, policies, and practices in pursuit of political autonomy, strengthening the legitimacy of the nation-state model.

Raison d’État

Niccolò Machiavelli's principle that all state actions must be judged strictly against the stability and preservation of the state, serving as the historical precursor to the modern concept of national interest.

Melian Dialogue

A foundational realist debate recorded by Thucydides in 'The Peloponnesian War' where Athenians rejected Melian neutrality, declaring that 'the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.'

Behaviouralism

A post-WWII approach in political science and IR that rejects legal, historical, and normative studies in favor of quantifiable empirical data and the scientific method to generate objective, positive knowledge.

Normative Analysis

An analytical approach concerned with values, ethics, and norms regarding how politics ought to be conducted, rejecting claims of being strictly objective or purely scientific.

The English School

A theoretical tradition developed by scholars such as Martin Wight and Hedley Bull viewing international relations as a 'society of states' and emphasizing historical and normative analysis over American quantitative behaviouralism.

Neorealism (Structural Realism)

A parsimonious theory of IR pioneered by Kenneth Waltz in 'Man, the State and War' (1959) and 'Theory of International Politics' (1979) emphasizing the anarchic structure of the international system and utilizing three images of analysis (individual, state, and system).

The Security Dilemma

A condition in international anarchy where actions taken by one state to increase its own security inadvertently provoke apprehension in other states, resulting in competitive armament that leaves all states feeling less secure.

Prisoner's Dilemma

A game theory matrix illustrating how two rational actors, acting in their self-interest under incomplete information, arrive at a suboptimal outcome (such as mutual confession carrying 5-year sentences) rather than cooperating (which yields 1-year sentences).

Defensive Realism

A structural realist approach associated with Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt asserting that states seek security and status-quo preservation rather than power maximization, behaving cautiously because excessive power triggers counterbalancing.

Offensive Realism

A structural realist theory associated with John Mearsheimer and Robert Gilpin positing that states seek to aggressively accumulate power and achieve hegemony because balances of power are inherently temporary and unsustainable.

Neoliberal Institutionalism

An IR theory advanced by Robert Keohane in 'After Hegemony' (1984) positing that international institutions, interdependence, and norms facilitate sustained interstate cooperation and absolute gains despite system anarchy.

Dependency Theory

A socialist-inspired IR theory developed by André Gunder Frank arguing that global underdevelopment is driven by ongoing Western exploitation and core–periphery economic relationships rather than domestic cultural deficiencies.

World-Systems Theory

An analytical model formulated by Immanuel Wallerstein dividing the global capitalist economy into core, semi-periphery, and periphery zones, where core states extract surplus and raw materials from periphery states.

Critical Theory (Cox)

An emancipatory approach to global politics epitomized by Robert Cox's statement that 'theory is always for someone and for some purpose,' challenging realism as a status-quo ideology that normalizes contingent social orders.

Constructivism (Alexander Wendt)

An IR perspective positing that international relations and social realities are intersubjectively constituted by shared ideas and norms rather than material factors alone, asserting that 'anarchy is what states make of it.'

Genealogical Approach (Foucault)

A poststructuralist method analyzing how academic truth claims and discourses disguise and legitimize the pervasive operation of power across society.

Post-Colonial Theory

A critical perspective developed by Edward Said arguing that European intellectual dominance historically defined itself by constructing 'the Orient' as a cultural opposite, critiquing persistent Eurocentrism in global studies.

State (Institutional Definition)

A formally constituted, sovereign political institution encompassing people and a defined territory, holding recognized legal authority distinct from transient regimes or governments.

Nation

A collective human identity grounded in shared culture, language, and historical narrative that may or may not demand political sovereignty or a distinct territorial homeland.

Empire (Perkins' Definition)

A dominant nation-state controlling others through disproportionate resource consumption, economic exploitation, military enforcement, cultural dissemination, extraterritorial taxation, or imposed currency.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The landmark peace settlement that established the modern state system, establishing state sovereignty, non-intervention, legal equality between states, and exclusive authority over war, treaties, and religion.

Concert of Europe (1815)

The balance-of-power framework established at the Congress of Vienna following the Napoleonic Wars that facilitated the 19th-century emergence of new European national states including Greece, Belgium, Italy, and Germany.

Quasi-State (Weak State)

A state that holds international legal recognition but possesses deficient domestic institutional capacity to regulate, secure, or deliver public goods to its populace, often relying on foreign aid.

Failed State

A weak state characterized by complete institutional breakdown, widespread social violence, and loss of the monopoly on legitimate physical force (e.g., Somalia).

Aristotle's Classificatory Schema

A taxonomy categorizing political regimes by ruler quantity (one, few, many) and governing motivation (common interest versus ruler self-interest): Monarchy/Tyranny, Aristocracy/Oligarchy, and Polity/Democracy.

Structural Theory of Revolution (Skocpol)

Theda Skocpol's comparative theory asserting that social revolutions (such as in France 1789, Russia 1917, and China 1949) are not merely engineered by classes or leaders, but result from state structural breakdown triggered by international military and fiscal pressures combined with peasant revolts.

Method of Agreement

John Stuart Mill's comparative logic stating that if diverse cases share only one common causal circumstance ($x$) associated with a common outcome ($y$), that shared factor is the cause of the phenomenon.

Method of Difference

John Stuart Mill's comparative logic stating that if two similar cases differ in only one causal factor ($x$) and produce differing outcomes ($y$ and $\text{not } y$), that single differing factor is the cause of the occurrence.

Moral Economy (Scott)

James C. Scott's concept demonstrating that peasant uprisings and symbolic resistance are motivated by breaches of traditional community subsistence rights and mutual obligations rather than abstract economic formulas.

Totalitarianism vs. Authoritarianism (Linz)

A regime distinction formulated by Juan Linz where totalitarian regimes exhibit zero pluralism, strong transformative ideology, and compulsory mass mobilization, whereas authoritarian regimes permit limited pluralism, weak ideology, and low mobilization.

Minimalist Definition of Authoritarianism

Erica Frantz's baseline definition stating that a political regime is authoritarian if the national chief executive obtains and achieves political power through undemocratic mechanisms.

Competitive Authoritarianism

A hybrid regime where formal democratic arenas (elections, courts, legislatures) exist as real instruments to gain power, but state power is abused to disadvantage the opposition and undermine fair competition.

Democratic Backsliding

The gradual erosion of democratic norms, judicial independence, freedom of the press, and constitutional checks and balances, typically orchestrated by legally elected incumbent executives.

Dahl’s Conditions for Democracy

Three baseline procedural criteria formulated by Robert Dahl requiring that all citizens be able to: 1) formulate preferences, 2) signify preferences to fellow citizens and the state, and 3) have those preferences weighted equally in governance.

Parliamentary Democracy

A democratic constitutional arrangement wherein the executive branch (Prime Minister and cabinet) emerges from and remains politically accountable to the elected legislature.

Presidential Democracy

A democratic system featuring strict separation of powers where the president is independently elected by voters for a fixed term and does not depend on legislative confidence to govern.

Proportional Representation (PR)

An electoral method in which legislative seats are distributed to political parties in mathematical proportion to the percentage of popular votes cast for each party list.

Polyarchy

Robert Dahl's designation for real-world functioning democracies that combine high levels of political contestation (open political competition) with high levels of public participation (broad inclusion).

Typology of Political Parties

A classification scheme categorizing political parties into Elite-based, Electoralist (clientelistic, personalistic, catch-all, programmatic), Movement, Ethnicity-based, and Mass-based variants.

State-Making as a Protection Racket (Tilly)

Charles Tilly’s thesis that European state emergence was organized coercion driven by four interdependent processes: war making, state making, protection, and extraction ('War made the state, and the state made war').

State Capacity

The degree to which a state can control its territory, extract fiscal revenues, enforce the rule of law, and execute public policies through professional administrative institutions.

Federalism

A constitutional system dividing governmental sovereignty between a central national authority and constituent subnational governments, typically arbitrated by a constitutional court.

Constitutionalism

The political doctrine holding that government authority is circumscribed by formal institutional checks, legal codes, and fundamental rights to prevent arbitrary rule.

Ideology

An evolving, action-oriented comprehensive belief system and worldview that explains social reality and outlines a preferred political and economic order.

Burkean Conservatism

A political philosophy originating in Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution (1790), emphasizing tradition, social fabric, institutional continuity, and civic virtue over abstract liberal ideals.

Anarchism

An anti-authoritarian political ideology advocating for the abolition of the state and centralized hierarchies in favor of voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, and self-management.

Intersectionality

A feminist theoretical framework formulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw analyzing how multiple social identities and structures of oppression (gender, race, class) interconnect and reinforce one another.

Ecocentrism vs. Anthropocentrism

The environmental philosophical divide contrasting ecocentrism (nature has intrinsic moral worth independent of humans) with anthropocentrism (human welfare is the exclusive source of value).

Weber's Monopoly on Violence

Max Weber's definition of the state as a human community that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a specified geographic territory.

Weber’s Three Types of Authority

Max Weber’s tripartite typology of political legitimacy: Traditional (customs), Charismatic (individual personality and devotion), and Legal-Rational (formal rules, codified laws, and offices).

Democratic Elitism (Schumpeter)

Joseph Schumpeter’s minimalist democratic model asserting that mass participation is unviable, defining democracy as institutional competition where voters periodically choose between competing political elites.

Deliberative Democracy

A democratic model influenced by Jürgen Habermas positing that legitimate political outcomes emerge from inclusive, reasoned public discourse rather than the mere aggregation of predetermined votes.

Negative Liberty vs. Positive Liberty

Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative liberty ('freedom from' external interference or coercion, favored by Locke) and positive liberty ('freedom to' achieve personal autonomy and fulfillment, favored by Rousseau).

Original Position and Veil of Ignorance

John Rawls's thought experiment in 'A Theory of Justice' (1971) where individuals establish rules of social cooperation without knowing their own class, race, talents, or future status.

Rawls' Difference Principle

The second principle of justice from John Rawls stating that social and economic inequalities are permissible only if they work to the maximum benefit of the least-advantaged members of society.

Communitarianism

A political philosophy challenging liberal universalism by asserting that individual identity, values, and conceptions of justice are fundamentally embedded in communal traditions and shared culture.

Power vs. Authority

Power is the capacity to compel individuals to act against their preferences, whereas authority is the recognized, legitimate right to issue commands that are obeyed.

Night-Watchman State

A minimalist state configuration advocated by classical liberals restricting state intervention exclusively to the maintenance of public order, property rights enforcement, and national defense.

Developmental State

A state model prominent in post-WWII East Asia (e.g., Japan, South Korea, Malaysia) characterized by close state-private collaboration directing industrial policy and rapid economic growth.

Six Nations Model (Haudenosaunee)

A historic governance system grounded in the Great Law of Peace that unified the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations under a shared council likened to a longhouse.