Comparative Politics and Political Systems Midterm Review

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering fundamental comparative politics concepts, regime types, electoral systems, colonialism, and political institutions from the lecture notes.

Political Identity

How individuals categorize themselves and others and how they understand the power relationships of domination and oppression.

Marxist View of Political Identity

The theoretical view asserting that political identity and interests are a function of economic assistance (or economic status).

Weberian View of Political Identity

The theoretical view asserting that political interests and identity are an influence of non-economic functions.

Political Party

A group of citizens that make nominations and contest elections for governmental power, typically autonomous from the state or government.

Clientelistic Appeal (Patron-Clientelism)

A basis for party appeal in which subordinates or clients exchange personal loyalty for special favors.

Party System

A constellation or group of political parties characterized by varying numbers of parties, differing longevity, and specific bases of competition.

Interest Groups

Groups of citizens that try to ensure that favorable candidates are voted into government to enforce certain policies (e.g., ACLU, ABA, NRA, Planned Parenthood).

Civil Society Organizations

Societal organizations bound by a legal order of shared rules that constitute organized social life (e.g., labor unions, local parent-teacher organizations).

Continuous Political Action

Activity that dramatizes a group's demands, such as protests, social movements, civil disobedience, and strikes.

Government

The temporary caretakers who run the state by making policy and enacting decisions during their time in power.

State

A permanent governing apparatus that claims sovereignty over a territory and reserves the right to organize violence and coercion.

Sovereignty

The exercise of command and supreme authority over a specific geographical territory.

Failed State

A state that has lost its monopoly over the legitimate ability to commit violence as well as its sovereignty, often characterized by corruption and weak capacity.

Polity

A broad term for a political system that may or may not represent the highest authority within a state.

Nation

A political identity that transcends class and involves a claim to being an independent, self-governing community characterized as imagined, limited, sovereign, and a community.

Corruption

The abuse of public power for private gain, almost always linked to weak state capacity and manifesting as bribes or theft of state resources.

Race Consciousness

Explicitly recognizing the existence of a race or racial identity.

Race

The categorization of people into large populations based on supposed hereditable physical conditions.

Ethnicity

A categorization defining a group of people who share a common heritage (such as Hispanic/Latino, Han Chinese, Irish, or Nigerian).

Primordism

The perspective that identities are innate traits that individuals are born with, emerging through deep psychological processes during childhood.

Constructivism

The perspective that political identities and ideas are malleable and change depending on environment and circumstances.

State Capacity

The ability of a state to govern, penetrate and organize society, extract resources, maintain bureaucratic coherence, and bring about developmental progress.

Illiberal Democracy

A political system that conducts elections but lacks constitutional liberties, the rule of law, and institutional protections.

Presidential System

A system of government featuring a single chief executive who serves concurrently as both head of state and head of government.

Parliamentary System

A system where executive leadership is split between a head of state and a head of government, and the executive and legislative branches are combined.

Import Substitution Industrialization

An economic policy in which a country raises tariffs on foreign imports to stimulate domestic industry and produce local goods.

Colony

A political organization created by invasion or settlement in which the colonized population exists in a dependent relationship with the mother culture.

Colonialism

A relationship of political, social, and economic domination between an indigenous majority and a foreign minority.

Direct Rule

A colonial governance strategy where the colonizing power establishes its own administrative government in the colonized territory (e.g., Japan in Manchuria).

Indirect Rule

A colonial governance strategy where the colonizer rules over the colonized population through preexisting local power systems and rulers (e.g., Britain in Nigeria).

Regime

A specific set of institutions and rules that determines who gets access to the principal offices of the state.

Closed Autocracy

A regime type that offers no multiparty elections for the chief executive or legislature (e.g., North Korea).

Electoral Autocracy

A regime type that holds de jure (supposedly) multiparty elections that do not fulfill free and fair democratic standards (e.g., China).

Electoral Democracy

A regime type featuring de facto free and fair multiparty elections, but which fails to satisfy full liberal principles and the rule of law (e.g., India).

Liberal Democracy

A regime type featuring de facto free and fair multiparty elections where the rule of law and liberal policies are fully satisfied (e.g., United States).

Totalitarianism

A special form of authoritarian regime wherein the ruling party exercises total control over society and politics.

Federal System

A constitutional division of power shared between a national central government and regional units (states or provinces), subjecting citizens to both levels of law.

Unitary System

A political governance model where authority is held exclusively by the central power, with sub-national units existing solely at the discretion of the national government.

Majority Electoral System

An electoral rule requiring a candidate or party to win greater than $50\%$ of the vote to secure victory, often utilizing runoffs if not met.

Plurality Electoral System

A single-member, 'winner-takes-all' voting system where the candidate with the highest number of votes wins, even without securing an absolute majority.

Proportional Representation (PR)

An electoral system in multi-member districts where parties receive legislative seats in proportion to their share of the total vote.

Closed List PR

A proportional representation system where voters choose a party list, and each party determines the ranked order of candidates who fill the won seats.

Open List PR

A proportional representation system where votes count for both an individual candidate and their party, and candidates with the most individual votes receive the party's allocated seats.

Coup d'état

A sudden overthrow of a state government carried out by a small group, typically composed of high-ranking military officials.

Executive Auto Coup (Self Coup)

An action where an elected chief executive unlawfully assumes extraordinary powers to overturn the legislature or subvert democratic institutions.

Madison's Dilemma

The constitutional challenge of balancing a governing state so that it is simultaneously effective while remaining limited in its authority.

Mass Party

A political party organized to mobilize broad segments of the general population into politics.

Catch-all Party

A political party that seeks to attract the broadest possible electorate by downplaying rigid ideology and appealing across social classes.

Cadre Party

A political party established by political and economic elites primarily to support and advance themselves.

Federal Character Principle

A constitutional principle in Nigeria intended to ensure fairness and representation through ethnic, regional, and religious balancing across executive offices.