Politics Terms

Normative Questions

Questions that are primarily answered by our values and ethics. How should the world be?

Empirical Questions

Questions that are primarily answered with observable facts. How is the world and why is it that way?

Cultural Imperialism

My values= universal and can be applied across all cultural differences.

Cultural Relativism

My values= culture-specific and cannot be applied outside of my cultural group.

Operationalize

To take abstract concepts and replace them with measurable indicators.

Human Development Index (HDI)

Life expectancy + Education + Per capita income.

Gini Index

Mathematical measure of the level of economic equality in a country.

Modernization theory

Values and political culture must adapt to changing world; traditional values hold back developing countries.

Dependency theory

Western colonialism and economic imperialism created a hierarchy that persists today, making poorer countries providers of cheap resources.

Political institutions

Rules, norms, and shared understandings that influence political actors’ interactions with one another.

State

Territory, people, government control of legitimate violence/coercion.

Treaty of Westphalia (1648)

Treaty that ended the 30-year war in Europe and established the norm of sovereignty.

Sovereignty

The right of a people to govern themselves without interference from outside powers.

Fiscal Policy

Decisions about how to generate and spend revenue.

Monetary Policy

Decisions about how to influence the cost of borrowing and lending money.

Nationalization

Government takes ownership of a privately-owned company.

Regulation

Government rules that dictate how privately-owned companies must behave.

Welfare Systems

Government provision of benefits/services outside on a non-market basis.

Command Economy

Government owns and manages the means of production and exchange.

Market Economy

Economy is managed by private, for-profit exchange.

Kuznet’s curve

Inequality rises during the early period of economic growth and then declines.

Declining terms of trade

Price of exports falls relative to imports.

Value-Added

The amount by which an item’s value increases at each stage in the production process.

Import-substituting industrialization

Policy of replacing imports with domestically-produced goods.

Export-led growth

Policy of providing government incentives for private firms to export higher value-added products.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Financial arm of the UN that serves as lender of last resort for countries in debt crisis.

Washington Consensus

Market-based economic reforms enforced by IMF to promote economic growth and encourage repayment of debts.

Procedural Democracy

A political system that holds fair, contested elections on a regular basis, with universal adult suffrage.

Illiberal democracy

A political system with competitive elections but few mechanisms for holding the government accountable.

Liberal Democracy

A political system where most officials are elected by near-universal suffrage, and liberties are respected.

Citizenship

Participatory membership in a political community.

Corruption

Use of public authority for private gain.

Clientelism

Unequal but mutually beneficial relationships between powerful and less powerful actors.

Endemic corruption

Routine, low-level corruption in everyday life.

Developmental corruption

Corruption by businesses to secure government contracts or preferential treatment.

Secularization

Declining salience of religion or other identity.

Primordialism

Identities are fixed and conflict is inevitable.

Instrumentalism

Identities are fixed but can be mobilized by effective leaders.

Social constructivism

Identities are fixed but socially malleable, with changing political salience.

Gender-related development index (GDI)

Measure of female life expectancy, education, and income compared to men.

Candidate quota systems

Electoral systems requiring a certain number or percentage of candidates to be women or from underrepresented groups.