POLI 2053 S25 Final Exam Review

Political Institutions

• Definition: Structures and organizations that shape political behavior.

Constitution

• Definition: The foundational charter and fundamental laws of most modern states.

Rule of Law

• Definition: Observance of/compliance with a regime's constitution.

Unitarism

• Definition: A constitutional feature in which the central government wields the most political power.

Parliamentary Sovereignty

• Definition: The principle that only a legislature can determine what is constitutional.

Political Party

• Definition: A political organization that seeks to influence policy by getting candidates and members elected or appointed to public office.

Interest Groups

• Definition: Organizations that make demands in the political system on behalf of their constituents and members.

Single-Party System

• Definition: A party system in which parties besides the dominant party are banned.

Clientelistic Parties

• Definition: Parties that rely on providing direct benefits to voters to win support.

Corporatism

• Definition: An interest group system in which major groups are designated as representatives of certain interests in society.

Legislatures

• Definition: Deliberative bodies composed of the decision-makers who represent the population at large.

Executive

• Definition: The individual or branch of government that implements and administers laws passed by legislatures.

Hybrid Systems

• Definition: Electoral systems combining elements of district-based and proportional representation systems.

Portfolio

• Definition: The combination of cabinet positions a party is offered as part of a coalition.

Minimum Winning Coalition

• Definition: A coalition with no surplus parties beyond those needed to reach a majority of seats.

Political Economy

• Definition: The study of how politics and economics relate to each other.

Development

• Definition: The process by which a society changes or advances in terms of economic growth or other indicators.

Contention

• Definition: A type of political conflict in which at least one group involved in the conflict pursues goals outside of formal political institutions.

State Interventionism

• Definition: An economic ideology that holds poverty can be reduced through the state expanding the social safety net and providing more public goods.

Revolutionary Movement

• Definition: A social movement with maximalist goals (e.g., independence/self-determination, regime change, or change in social structure).

Bureaucracy

• Definition: A characteristic of the modern state that is also a key part of the executive.

Federalism

• Definition: The presence of nationalism and strong nationalist ideologies in different regions of a country may lead to this constitutional feature.

Neoliberalism

• Definition: This economic ideology is compatible with the political ideologies of libertarianism, and at times conservatism and social democracy.

Closed-list Proportional Representation System

• Definition: This type of proportional representation system, in which parties choose candidates, tends to lead to the highest number of women winning seats in the legislature.

Social Revolution

• Definition: The rising middle class (bourgeoisie) in France led to more democracy, as the modernization theory would predict, but achieving more democracy required this type of event to occur.