Final Flashcards
(23 cards)
Holding members of the government responsible by rewarding them when they do what citizens want and punishing them when they don’t
Accountability
Explanation that puts individual agency at the forefront of explanations, rather than social or economic structures
Agent-Centric Explanation
Those who carry out political socialization: parents, schools, media, friendship groups, and so on. The impact of an agent of socialization on one’s political knowledge and viewpoints is a function of the agent’s relevance to politics, and the agent’s credibility
Agents of Socialization
The rather loose ideology known to the US as conservatism. Particularly suspicious of governmental intervention to make people more equal but is often willing to entrust government with power to maintain morality
American Conservatism
The rather loose ideology known to the US as liberalism. Particularly concerned to make people equal, and it is relatively willing to entrust government with power to bring this about, also concerned to maintain freedom of expression
American Liberalism
Action that is taken capriciously. The people affected do not know what to expect before the action and do not learn afterward the grounds on which the action was chosen.
Arbitrary Action
A formal democracy in which, through some mix of fraud, intimidation, and control of communications, the same ruler stays in power indefinitely. Though the institutions of democracy are there, the open competition is not.
Authoritarian Democracy
A governmental arrangement in which those who hold power are not responsible in their exercises of power, in any formal way, to the broad citizenry of the state.
Authoritarian System
Power based on a general agreement that the holder of the power has the right to issue certain commands and that those commands should be obeyed.
Authority
A state in which the government and bureaucracy are relative insulated from political pressures of groups in the society
Autonomous State
Political scientists who emphasize statistical analysis and abstract theories seeking out basic, essential regularities across a set of events
Behavioralists
A way of organizing the public administration that emphasizes professionalism, recruitment, and promotion on the basis of merit, standardization of procedures, and the smooth flow of commands
Bureaucracy
The executive portion of a parliamentary government. It consists of ministers, most of whom are usually members of the parliament. Each minister is responsible for the administration of some part of the government’s services, such as health or defense.
Cabinet (in parliamentary system)
A bank set up by a government to help handle its transactions, to coordinate the policies of private banks, and, above all, to manage interest rates in the economy
Central Bank
The part of society that is organized and active, but neither controlled by the government nor focused on private concerns such as the family or economy activity. In other words, the part of society that is publicly engaged but not controlled by the government. It is the natural counter weight to government in the affairs of the state.
Civil Society
In Marx’s theory of socialism, groups of people who share the same relationship to the means of production and who therefore develop a distinctive view on themselves and of the world.
Classes
A system in which citizens rely primarily on a patron who provides them with emergency help when needed and helps to intercede with the government on their behalf
Clientelism
A tactical combination of varied groups, constructed so that the groups will in combination be large enough to combine power that they can then share among themselves
Coalition
German system by which corporations are legally required to include workers’ representatives on their boards of directors.
Codetermination
Small group of legislators whose task is to review carefully a proposed piece of legislation and recommend to the full legislature what action should be taken on it.
Committees
The more militant branch of socialism. Argue that the only way to build a socialist state is by revolution
Communism
Parliamentary government in which the adversarial relationship between the cabinet and the opposition parties is reduced through a variety of power sharing devices, such as allotting control of committees to parties proportionally to their strength, whether or not they are part of the cabinet coalition.
Consensus Parliamentarism
An ideology positing that the most important goal of politics is to create stable communities based on hierarchy of power responsibilities and obligations. Power should be in the hands of a traditional class of rulers.
Conservatism
