Key Concepts in Political Science and Comparative Politics

A set of fill-in-the-blank flashcards designed to review key concepts in Political Science and Comparative Politics as outlined in course notes.

Political Science is defined as the systematic study of __.

politics.

In politics, we study "who gets what, when, and how," focusing on the process by which people __ and are being governed.

govern

Comparative Politics focuses on the methodology and may be referred to as Comparative __ or Comparative foreign policies.

government

Legitimacy refers to the attitude of the people that the government’s actions are __ and therefore deserved to be obeyed.

right

Sovereignty is the power to make laws and __ a territory and the people in it.

control

Authority is the ability of a ruler to win people’s __.

obedience

A nation refers to a population that exhibits __ in terms of behavior, attitude, and ideas.

homogeneity

A state is composed of a population, living in a given territory, ruled by a government that exhibits and protects __.

sovereignty

The objectives of Comparative Politics include contextual description, conceptual __, and hypothesis-testing.

classification

One of the most difficult objectives of Comparative Politics is __, where predictions are often based on probabilities.

prediction

Methods of comparison that involve many countries are particularly suited to a __ approach, using statistics.

quantitative

The "Most Similar System Design" seeks to compare political systems that share similar features in an effort to __ differences.

neutralize

Single country studies are considered comparative if the study uses concepts applicable to __.

other countries

Aristotle is regarded as the father of Comparative __ due to his classification of political systems.

politics

John Stuart Mill argued that historical generalizations are only possible through __ study.

comparative

Max Weber analyzed the importance of the comparative method and studied relations among landlords, peasants, and __.

farm laborers

For Emile Durkheim, the division of labor became a starting point for analyzing democracy and __.

dictatorship