AP Comparative Government Key Terms & Concepts

Authority

Power that is recognized as legitimate by the people over whom it is exercised.

Austerity

A state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits.

Authoritarian Rule

A system of rule in which power depends not on popular legitimacy but on the coercive force of the political authorities.

Bonyads

Iranian charitable foundations subsidized by the government and known for immense corruption and inefficiency.

Bureaucracy

A system of managing government through departments run by appointed officials.

Camarilla

Patron-client networks extending from the political elites to vote-mobilizing organizations throughout the country.

Catch All Party

A politically party whose aim is to gather support from a broad range of citizens through a de-emphasis of ideology and an emphasis on pragmatism, charismatic leadership and marketing.

Cleavages

Factors that separate groups.

Ethnic Cleavages

The most divisive and explosive social cleavages in countries at all levels of development. are based on different cultural identities, including religion and language.

Religious Cleavages

Closely intertwined with ethnicity, which separate groups from one another within a country.

Social Cleavages

Divisions theoretically outside the realm of politics (religion, ethnic groups, race, social and economic classes) that interact with the political system and have a tremendous impact on policy-making.

Coinciding Cleavages

A division that strengthens feelings of difference and discrepancy, weakening society.

Crosscutting Cleavages

A division that includes people with differences, strengthening society.

Civil Service

A system of hiring and promotion based on the merit principle and the desire to create a nonpartisan government service.

Civil Society

A complex network of voluntary associations, economic groups, religious organizations, and many other kinds of groups that exist independently from the government.

Code Law

law based on a comprehensive system of written rules of law divided into commercial, civil, and criminal codes.

Common Law

A body of rulings made by judges or very old traditional laws that become part of a nation's legal system.

Corporatism

A method of co-optation whereby authoritarian systems create or sanction a limited number of organizations to represent the interests of the public and restrict those not set up or approved by the state.

Pluralism

A theory of government that holds that open, multiple, and competing groups can check the asserted power by any one group.

Charismatic Authority

Power made legitimate by a leader's exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers.

Coalition Government

A government controlled by a temporary alliance of several political parties.

Coup d'Etat

A sudden overthrow of the government by a small group.

Command Economy

An economic system controlled by strong, centralized government, which usually focuses on industrial goods. With little attention paid to agriculture and consumer goods.

Communism

A political system characterized by a centrally planned economy with all economic and political power resting in the hands of the central government.

Comparative Method

A way to make comparisons across cases and draw conclusions. By comparing countries or subsets between them, scholars hope to draw conclusions and make some generalizations that could be valid in other cases.

Empirical Questions

A question that can be answered by making objective observations.

Normative Questions

a question whose answer is based on an opinion.

Correlation

A relationship between two variables in which a change in one coincides with a change in the other.

Causation

A cause and effect relationship in which one variable controls the changes in another variable.

Constitution

A nation's basic law. It creates political institutions, assigns or divides power in government, and often provides certain guarantees to citizens. Constitutions can be either written or unwritten.

Democracy

A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.

Procedural Democracy

A form of democracy that is defined by whether or not particular procedures are followed, such as free and fair elections or following a set of laws or a constitution.

Substantive Democracy

A form of democracy that is defined by whether qualities of democracy, such as equality, justice, or self-rule, are evident.

Consolidated Democracy

A democratic political system that has been solidly and stably established for an ample period of time and in which there is relatively consistent adherence to the core democratic principles.

Illiberal Democracy

A system of government with free and fair elections but lack of civil liberties and rights.

Democratic Deficit

The loss of direct democratic control resulting from the shifting of capacity to highly autonomous supranational institutions.

Democratization

A process of transition as a country attempts to move from an authoritarian form of government to a democratic one.

Development

The act or process of developing; growth.

Devolution

The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government.

Efficacy

Capacity or power to produce a desired effect.

Electoral System

The process by which government officials are elected to office.

Proportional Representation

An election system in which each party running receives the proportion of legislative seats corresponding to its proportion of the vote.

Single Member District

An electoral system in which only a single candidate is elected to a particular office by the voters of that district. This system favors major parties because only candidates who can gain a large proportion of votes in an election district have a realistic chance of winning.

First Past the Post

An electoral system in which individual candidates compete in single member districts; voters choose between candidates and the candidate with the largest share of the vote wins the seat.

Two Ballot

An electoral system where two rounds of voting may take places to ensure a majority winner.

Minimum Winning Threshold

A minimum percentage of the vote that a party must win in a proportional representation system in order to win seats in the legislative branch.

Elite Recruitment

A process of identifying and selecting a person or group of people for future leadership positions. This may be done based on merit and education or through party hierarchy.

Failed State

A state that can no longer perform basic functions such as education, security, or governance, usually due to fractious violence or extreme poverty.

Federal

A form of government in which power is divided between the federal, or national, government and the states.

Unitary

A centralized governmental system in which local or sub-divisional governments exercise only those powers given to them by the central government.

Fragmentation

A situation in which responsibility for a policy area is dispersed, making it difficult to coordinate the policy.

Fusion of Power

A system of governance in which the authority of government is concentrated in one body.

Separation of Power

A system of government in which different institutions exercise the different components of governmental power.

GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

The total market value of all final goods and services produced annually in an economy.

Gini Index

A statistical formula that measures the amount of economic inequality within a country. "0" corresponds with perfect equality and "100" represents perfect inequality.

Glastnost

The Soviet Union's plan to allow more political freedom in the 1980's--Gorbachev was the leader "Openness."

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.

Head of Government

The executive role that deals with the everyday tasks of running the state, such as formulating and executing policy.

Head of State

The executive role that symbolizes and represents the people both nationally and internationally.

Interest Group System

The number of functioning groups relative to the size of a states economy.

Industrialized Democracy

Democracies with well-established democratic governments and a high level of economic development. These democracies have the highest potential for creating and sustaining powerful states.

Iron Triangle

A close relationship between an agency, a congressional committee, and an interest group.

Judicial Review

Power of federal courts to review state laws and state court decisions to determine if they are constitutional.

Legitimacy

A characterization of elections by political scientists meaning that they are almost universally accepted as a fair and free method of selecting political leaders.

Marxism

A branch of socialism that emphasizes exploitation and class struggle and includes both communism and other approaches.

Mass Line

Economic policy of Mao Zedong; led to formation of agricultural cooperatives in 1955; cooperatives became farming collectives in 1956.

Military Rule

A nondemocratic rule in which the military intervenes directly in politics as the organization that can solve the problems.

Micro Credit

Small loans usually given to enable poor people to start up very small-scale businesses in developing countries.

Mixed Presidential Parliamentary System

A system consisting of both a president elected by the people and another head of government (usually a prime minister) who is elected by a legislative body.

Modernization

The process of reforming political, military, economic, social, and cultural traditions in imitation of the early success of Western societies, often with regard for accommodating local traditions in non-Western societies.

Multinational Corporation

An organization that manufactures and markets products in many different countries and has multinational stock ownership and multinational management.

Party System

The number of parties and the relationships among them.

Multiparty System

A system in which three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition.

Two Party System

An electoral system with two dominant parties that compete in national elections.

One Party System

A political system in which one political party controls the government and clearly dominates political activity.

One Party Dominant System

A system in which multiple parties may legally operate but in which only one particular party has a realistic chance of gaining power.

Nation

A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's country.

State

A body of people living in a defined territory who have a government with the power to make and enforce law without the consent of any higher authority.

Government

A social organization extending to the whole of society that can legitimately use force to carry out its decisions.

Regime

A government in power; a form or system of rule or management; a period of rule.

Newly Industrialized Countries

Refers to countries that are building up their industries and infrastructure. These countries are generally shifting from an agricultural to an industrial economy.

Nomenklatura

The former Soviet Communist Party's system of controlling all important administrative appointments, thereby ensuring the support and loyalty of those who managed day-to-day affairs.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)

An import trade agreement creating a huge zone of cooperation on trade and economic issues in North America.

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the production and sale of petroleum.

United Nation

An international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. It was founded in 1945 at the signing of the United Nations Charter by 50 countries, replacing the League of Nations, founded in 1919.

Nongovernmental Organization

A group working to resolve international problems which is not directed, paid, or sponsored by any government.

Oligarchy

A form of government in which the power to rule is held by a small, usually self-appointed elite.

Parastatals

Companies or organizations which are owned by a country's government and often have some political power: the intention of the Government is for all parastatal companies to be privatized.

Parliamentary System

A system of democratic government in which authority is concentrated in the legislative branch, which selects a prime minister and cabinet officers who serve as long as they have majority support in the parliament.

Patron-client Politics

An informal aspect of policy-making in which a powerful patron offers resources such as land, contracts, protection, or jobs in return for the support and services of lower-status and less powerful clients; corruption, preferential treatment, and inequality are characteristic of clientelist politics.

Perestoika

Gorbachev's policy to restructure the economy. The government would have less control over decisions and individuals could own businesses.

Plurality

Candidate or party with the most votes cast in an election, not necessarily more than half.

Politburo

A seven-member committee that became the leading policy-making body of the Communist Party in Russia.

Political Culture

Commonly shared attitudes, beliefs, and core values about how government should operate.

Political Participation

All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue.

Political Socialization

Complex process by which people get their sense of political identity, beliefs, and values. (family, school, media, religion, national events-all help to socialize)

Postmaterialism

Theory that young middle-class voters are likely to support environmentalism, feminism, and other "new" issues.

Presidential System

A system of government in which the legislative and executive branches operate independently of each other.

Privatization

Process of converting government enterprises into privately owned companies.

Referendum

A state-level method of direct legislation that gives voters a chance to approve or disapprove proposed legislation or a proposed constitutional amendment.