Exam 1 Terms & Definitions Weeks 1–3

Flashcard glossary for Exam 1, covering political theory, The Michigan School, and Downs's Economic Theory of Democracy.

Techne

Plato's term for a genuine technical skill or expertise (e.g., navigation, medicine). Plato argues governing is a techne too, requiring training most citizens lack.

Ship of State

Plato's allegory (Republic 488a–489a) in which an untrained crew mutinies against the one skilled captain aboard, illustrating that democracy selects leaders for their ability to flatter a crowd, not genuine competence.

“The Beast”

Plato's term (Republic 492b–493c) for the mass public: a crowd whose collective moods define “good” and “bad” with no independent standard of truth; Sophists merely learn to please it.

Sophist

A paid professional teacher of rhetoric and persuasion in ancient Athens. Plato argues Sophists teach only what pleases the crowd, not genuine wisdom.

General Will

Rousseau's term for the single, real common good of the political community, distinct from the sum of private preferences. A legitimate vote asks what the general will requires, not what any individual personally wants.

Will of All

Rousseau's term for the mere sum/aggregate of citizens' private, self-interested preferences — not the same as the general will, and not a legitimate basis for law.

“Forced to Be Free”

Rousseau's claim that compelling a citizen to obey the general will is not a loss of freedom, because the general will is also that citizen's own true will; the citizen was simply mistaken about what it required.

Negative Liberty

Freedom defined as the absence of interference by others; you are free to the extent no one obstructs your choices. Associated with Hobbes, Bentham, Mill, and Berlin.

Positive Liberty

Freedom defined as self-mastery: acting on one's rational “second-order” desires rather than raw impulses. Associated with Rousseau, Spinoza, and Hegel.

Second-Order Desire

A desire about what one wants to want (e.g., wanting to not want a cigarette), as opposed to a first-order desire (the immediate craving itself). Central to the definition of positive liberty.

Republican Liberty / Non-Domination

Freedom defined as the absence of any other person or group's arbitrary power over you — regardless of whether that power is ever actually used. A third concept, distinct from both negative and positive liberty.

“Kind Master” Problem

Pettit and Skinner's thought experiment: a slave with a lenient master is still unfree, because non-interference wrongly implies he is freer than a slave with a cruel master. Shows domination is structural, not about actual interference.

Arbitrary Power

Power that is not reliably controlled by known rules/procedures (the procedural view) or by the people subject to it (the democratic view). Its mere presence — not its use — is what makes someone dominated.

Procedural Definition of Arbitrariness

Power is non-arbitrary to the extent it is reliably controlled by effective rules or procedures that are common knowledge to everyone concerned (essentially, rule of law).

Democratic Definition of Arbitrariness

Power is non-arbitrary to the extent it is directly or indirectly controlled by the very people subject to it (e.g., through accountability or an equal share in decision-making).

Instrumental Turn

Skinner and Pettit's reinterpretation of classical/Roman republicanism as valuing civic virtue and participation only as tools for preventing domination, not as intrinsically valuable — unlike the older “civic humanist” reading.

Civic Humanism

The older interpretation of classical republicanism (Arendt, Pocock) holding that active political participation is intrinsically part of a flourishing human life, modeled on the Greek polis.

Faction (Federalist 10)

A group of citizens united by a common interest adverse to the rights of others or to the community's overall interest.

Extended Republic (Federalist 10)

Madison's solution to the problem of faction: a large, diverse republic in which no single faction can easily become an oppressive majority.

Federalist 14

Answers the objection that a republic cannot work at a large geographic scale; representation and distance let it succeed where direct democracy could not.

Checks and Balances (Federalist 51)

Separated governmental powers with built-in institutional rivalry (“ambition must counteract ambition”) that guard against tyranny without relying on the virtue of any single ruler.

Party Identification

A stable, early-acquired psychological attachment to a political party (Campbell et al.), measured by self-identification rather than by voting record.

Perceptual Screen

The way party identification filters which political facts a citizen notices and how they evaluate candidates and issues.

Ideological Constraint

Converse's term for the degree to which a person's political beliefs and attitudes are logically or psychologically bound together into a coherent structure.

Levels of Conceptualization

Converse's ranked categories describing how citizens organize political thinking, running from “ideologue” at the top down to “no issue content” at the bottom.

Belief System

Converse's term for a configuration of ideas and attitudes bound together by some form of constraint or functional interdependence.

Rational Choice Theory (Downs)

A model treating voters and parties as rational, self-interested actors: parties maximize votes, and voters maximize their own expected utility.

The Framing Problem (Downs)

Downs's opening move: a coal miner mines coal for his own income, not for society's benefit. Downs suggests we assume politicians and voters act for personal gain, not the betterment of society.

Downs vs. Rousseau (on motive)

Rousseau assumes citizens vote for the common good (general will); Downs assumes voters and politicians act primarily out of self-interest.

Government (Downs's Definition)

“That agency in the division of labor which has the power to coerce all other agents in society; it is the locus of ‘ultimate’ power in a given area.” It acts as society's final decision-maker backed by force.

Sovereignty vs. Government (Rousseau, via Downs's lecture)

Rousseau distinguishes sovereignty (collective deliberation on the common good) from government (the administrative body). Downs's model of government matches Rousseau's definition of the administrative government.

Downs's Model of Democracy

A system where two or more parties compete for office without overturning results or barring losers, and where every person receives exactly one vote.

Party Axiom (Downs)

Each political party is a team of people who seek office in order to enjoy the income, prestige, and power that come with running the governing apparatus.

Winning-Party Axiom (Downs)

The winning party or coalition has complete control over government action until the next election, with no votes of no-confidence allowed between elections.

Government-Power Axiom (Downs)

Government's economic powers are unlimited: it can nationalize resources, favor private interests, or strike any balance between the two.

Government-Limit Axiom (Downs)

The incumbent party cannot restrict the political freedom of opposition parties or citizens unless they attempt to overthrow the government by force; the government acts as a referee.

Rational-Actor Axiom (Downs)

Every agent behaves rationally at all times, pursuing goals using minimum scarce resources and taking action only when marginal returns exceed marginal costs.

Downs's Main Hypothesis

Political parties formulate policy strictly as a means of gaining votes to win office, rather than seeking office to implement specific policies.

Perfect Information (Downs)

A condition where a rational voter understands exactly which party's policies offer more utility and supports them accordingly.

Imperfect Information (Downs)

The reality that information is a scarce resource; voters don't always know which policies benefit them, and parties don't know citizens' exact interests, leading to unequal political influence.

Downs on the Function of Ideology

Party ideology serves as a cost-saving shortcut for citizens, removing the need to researchทุก individual policy by providing a general framework for judging parties.

Downs's Spatial Model — Left-Right Ordering

The concept that political parties in a society can be ordered along a single left-right scale upon which all voters agree.

Single-Peaked Preferences (Spatial Model)

Each voter's preference is highest at one specific point on the scale and declines steadily as one moves away from that point in either direction.

Party Movement Constraint (Spatial Model)

A party can move ideologically left or right, but it is restricted from moving past the position of the next-nearest party on the scale.

Abstention at the Extremes (Spatial Model)

In a two-party system, if a party moves toward the center, extreme voters may choose not to vote because the choices offered no longer seem meaningfully different.

Free Information

Information provided to a citizen with no transferable cost, where the only cost is the citizen’s time used to absorb it. Access to this is typically unequal based on income and free time.

Sources of Free Information

Data distributed by media/publishers, interest groups, political parties, and the government itself.

The Basic Problem of Data Cost

A rational citizen's goal to minimize time/money spent on info while maximizing knowledge and the expected return of their decision.

Cost-Cutting Strategy 1 — Reduce Quantity

Absorbing fewer bits of information; results in lower knowledge and a higher chance of making a wrong decision.

Cost-Cutting Strategy 2 — Reduce Procurement Cost

Maintaining info levels while lowering costs by relying on free or subsidized information.

Cost-Cutting Strategy 3 — Delegate the Decision

Using expert advice or adopting someone else's value judgments to lower the cost of analyzing and evaluating information.

V. O. Key — Retrospective Voting Origin

From The Responsible Electorate (1966): argues voters look backward at actual policy outcomes when deciding their vote.

Downs — Retrospective Voting Origin

From An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957): argues voters look backward primarily to project forward and predict a party's future performance.

Fiorina — Retrospective Voting Origin

From Retrospective Voting in American Elections (1981): argues voters use party identification as a response to past results to secure future well-being.

Sanctioning Model (Retrospective Voting)

A reward/punishment system where high-performers are re-elected and poor performers are ousted; threat of losing voters keeps politicians accountable.

Selection Model (Retrospective Voting)

The view that elections are referendums on an incumbent's performance that filter out incompetent leaders over time.

Psychological Model (Retrospective Voting)

Voters use cognitive shortcuts (heuristics) to evaluate the past; these can be distorted by cognitive biases or emotions.

Sanctioning + Selection = Normative Payoff

The combination of accountability incentives and leadership filtering that supports the general goals of democratic government.

Bounded Rationality

The decision theory concept that human decision-making is limited by incomplete information, time, and cognitive capacity; applicable to Downs's theory of costly political info.