Glossary
I. State, nation, political change
Centralization: concentration of government power in the central government, particularly in the executive branch. (Decentralization is the delegation of greater authority to local or regional units.)
Examples: Russia under Putin (centralization); UK under Blair (decentralization, a.k.a. devolution).
Democratization (i.e. political liberalization): The transition process from authoritarianism towards liberal democracy: free, fair, competitive elections, checks on executive authority, civil liberties, rule of law, open civil society, civilian control of military, independent judiciary.
Democratic consolidation: the process by which a new democracy matures and becomes profoundly legitimized among its citizens.
Third wave of democracy: global democratization trend beginning in southern Europe in the 1970’s, then spreading to Latin America, Eastern Europe & the former Soviet Union, and parts of East Asia and Africa. While most of the earlier (and somewhat wealthier) democratizing states have consolidated their democratic gains, many states in the former Soviet Union and Africa have not.
Globalization: Increasing integration of social, environmental, economic, and cultural activities resulting from significant improvements in transportation and communications technologies.
Fragmentation: growing tendency of individuals to identify with local or ethnic cultural identity in response to sense of dislocation brought on by globalization and, in particular, the association of globalization with western or American values and corporations.
Government: political leaders with policy-making authority in a state for a given period of time.
Ideology: a set of political values held by individuals regarding basic goals of government and politics. Some major political ideologies (“isms”) are:
Liberalism: places emphasis on individual political and economic freedom. Liberals seek to maximize freedom for all people, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association. They also believe that citizens have the rights to disagree with state decisions and act to change the decisions of their leaders. (All major parties in UK, PAN in Mexico support liberal ideology.)
Communism: places emphasis on equality rather than freedom. Communism rejects the idea that personal freedom will ensure prosperity for the majority. Instead, communists advocate the takeover of all resources by the state to ensure that true economic equality exists for the community. Private ownership is abolished and individual liberties must be given away to the needs of the society as a whole. (Russia & China used to be/are examples of communist government)
Socialism: combines both liberal and communist ideologies. Unlike communism, socialists promote private ownership and free market principles. However, unlike liberals, they believe that the state has a strong role to play in regulating the economy and providing benefits to the public. (Stronger ideology in Europe)
Islamism: proposes that Islam and Islamic law serve as the basis of the political system. Like communism, Islamism places community goals above individual rights & liberties. Moderate Islamists favor accommodation of Islam to constitutional democracy and liberal interpretations of shari’ah; radical Islamists favor theocracy (clerical rule) and a fundamentalist interpretation of shari’ah.
Legitimacy: The belief among citizens in a regime’s right to rule. Legitimacy allows the government to successfully implement its programs. Low legitimacy makes it difficult for government to implement policies. If a government struggles for legitimacy because it has failed to meet the basic needs of its people, the people will be reluctant to support such a government.
Rational-legal authority/legitimacy: Political legitimacy gained by regimes through the basis of system of laws and procedures that become highly institutionalized.
Example: liberal democracies with rule of law, e.g. UK
Charismatic authority/legitimacy: Legitimacy based on the charisma of the leader, and the leader’s ability to gain support for his/her policies or ideology by the sheer force of his/her personality. In traditional societies, often partly based on the perception that this leader has certain extra or supernatural attributes, e.g. a tribal chief or religious leader.
Examples: Iran’s Ruhollah Khomeini, China’s Mao Zedong, Russia’s Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin & Vladimir Putin, Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas, UK’s Margaret Thatcher & Tony Blair.
Traditional authority/legitimacy: belief that tradition should determine who should rule and how. Rituals and ceremonies help to reinforce traditional legitimacy.
Examples: UK monarchy, Iran’s clergy, Nigeria’s tribal chiefs. Revolution destroyed traditional legitimacy of Russia’s nobility, China’s landlords, Mexico’s clergy.
Economic legitimacy: belief in a regime’s right to rule based on its ability to provide for citizens’ basic needs.
Examples: China CCP post-Mao. NOT Nigeria (under any regime).
Nation: population with an historical and cultural bond to each other and to a particular territory, and with a sense of shared political destiny.
Political culture: values underlying political attitudes & beliefs. Closely connected to legitimacy.
Examples: UK – tolerance & respect for individual rights; Iran – religious belief; Russia – belief in strong central authority.
Political elites: leaders that have a disproportionate share of policymaking power. In democracies, these people are mostly selected through competitive elections.
Political socialization: the way in which political values are formed and political culture is transmitted from one generation to the next, e.g. through family, schools, religious institutions, media.
Reform: political or economic change involving gradual modification of basic political or economic institutions.
Example: UK – devolution; Mexico – democratization.
Regime: political system with a specific pattern of relationship between the state, society, markets, and the outside world.
Revolution: radical political, social and/or economic change involving the complete overhaul of existing institutions, and the involvement of a wide segment of society.
Rule of law: A system in which all individuals and groups are subject to the law, and the law is fairly and properly enforced.
Sovereignty: The ability of a state to enforce its authority and implement policies within its territorial boundaries independently from external actors or internal rivals.
State: set of political institutions with sovereignty over a defined territory; basic unit of political organization in the modern world.
Failed State: A failed state is a state whose central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory.
Strong state: States that can perform the basic tasks of defending their borders from outside attacks and defending their authority from internal non-state rivals.
Weak state: a state with fragile rule of law and weakly established institutions.
Example: Nigeria
II. Political economy
Capitalism – a social/economic system based on recognition of individual property rights. Individuals are able to produce and trade freely for private benefit (see market economy).
Collective ownership – group control or possession of property rather than individual holdings.
Example: China’s Great Leap Forward (1958-60) expanded the role of collective ownership by creating gigantic communes where people jointly worked land owned by the group.
Command economy – An economic system where supply and price are controlled by the government rather than market forces. Government decides which goods and services are produced and how they are distributed.
Corruption –abuse of position of power for illegitimate private gain.
Economic development – transition from a rural, agricultural economy to an urban, industrialized economy, and the set of accompanying changes, including increased standard of living as well as rising inequality.
Economic liberalization – economic reform in the direction of a more free-market economy.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the total market value of goods and services produced in a country in one year.
Inflation – rise in prices of goods and services over time.
Market Economy – an economic system in which production and distribution of goods and services takes place through the mechanisms of supply and demand, with limited government interference (see capitalism).
Modernization theory – the hypothesis that economic development sets off a series of social changes (including liberalization of cultural values and concern for protection of individual rights and property) that results in strong pressure to liberalize the political system.
Nationalization – The collective, public or national ownership/management of economic resources such as land property, and industries.
Privatization – process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector to the private sector.
Rentier State – a state which derives most of its revenue from natural resources.
Resource curse – the paradox that many resource-rich countries have failed to develop economically
Subsidy – a form of financial assistance paid to a business or economic sector.
Example: Iran, Nigeria and Russia heavily subsidize domestic consumption of oil so citizens can afford it.
Welfare State – social expenditures by the state to ensure that all citizens’ basic needs (e.g. food, housing, health care) are met.
III. Political Institutions
Authoritarian: any political regime whose rulers are not regularly accountable to the public through elections, and who therefore need not fully respect rights & rule of law.
Bicameral: legislature with two separate houses. Most common in federal systems, where the lower house is usually representative of the whole population and has primary responsibility for passing legislation and approving executive appointments to the cabinet, while the upper house represents the federal regions and is usually responsible for ratifying treaties and approving executive appointments to the judiciary.
Democracy: literally, rule by the people. Usually consists of the people selecting leaders to represent them in government.
Devolution: the process of decentralizing decision-making authority in a unitary state, for example, through the creation of regional legislative bodies.
Federalism: organization of a state that grants constitutionally protected powers to subnational units of government. In a truly federalist system, these lower-level units have the ability to raise revenue independently from the federal government, and political leaders at the local level are elected by voters.
Head of government: executive role involving overseeing the day-to-day operation of the government, and proposing legislation for the legislature to pass.
Head of state: executive role, often ceremonial, involving status as a national symbol.
Illiberal democracy/procedural democracy: political regime where certain democratic procedures are maintained, notably regular elections, but individual rights and/or rule of law are often undermined, generally through executive manipulation of the judiciary, the police and the electoral/campaign process.
Judicial independence: separation of judiciary from executive or other interference. Necessary for the maintenance of rule of law.
Judicial review: ability for courts (typically just the highest court) to rule on the constitutionality of a law.
Liberal democracy/substantive democracy: consolidated democratic regime, where elections are free, fair & competitive, individual rights are protected, and rule of law is upheld by political elites. Such regimes usually have a high degree of legitimacy.
Mixed presidential/parliamentary system (semi-presidential system): organization of a state that includes both a separately elected president (head of state) and a prime minister (head of government) either chosen or approved by parliament.
Parliamentary system: organization of a state where the head of government (Prime Minister) is determined through legislative elections. The leader of the majority party (or coalition) in parliament becomes the head of government.
Presidential system: organization of a state that relies on checks & balances. The president is usually head of government & head of state, and must work with the legislature – which may or may not contain a majority from the president’s political party – to pass legislation.
Public policy: action taken by government (either through a law, a decree, a referendum, etc.) to address an issue of public concern.
Theocracy: political regime involving religious law and direct rule by clerics.
Transparency: ability of the public to oversee government decision-making.
Unitary system: organization of a state where all constitutional authority is vested in the central government. There may be subnational governments, but they do not have constitutional authority independent of the central government.
Vote of confidence: vote taken by the legislature in a parliamentary system, where the failure to achieve a majority causes the government (prime minister & cabinet) to step down and call for new elections.
IV. Electoral & Party Systems
Coalition: group of political parties that combines efforts, either to stand for election or to form a legislative majority in the event that no party wins a majority outright.
Electoral commission: institution in charge of administering elections and overseeing their fair execution.
Electoral fraud/vote rigging: any of various means of tampering with voting so as to ensure victory for one’s party or candidate (usually the incumbent).
Electoral system: system for determining how citizen votes translate into seats in parliament. Most common examples are single-member district and proportional representation (or some combination of the two).
First-past-the-post/plurality/winner-take-all: candidate with the most votes in a district wins the seat, regardless of what share of the vote s/he received.
Majority vote/runoff election/two-ballot system: electoral procedure that requires winning candidate in a single-member district system (or a candidate for executive office) to surpass a threshold vote-share (50 percent in the case of “majority vote”.) If this does not happen in one round of voting, all candidates surpassing some lower threshold in the first round (or just the top two vote-getters in case of “majority vote”) compete in a second round of voting.
Party system: description of the number, organization, and institutionalization of political parties in a state, along with the type of dividing lines between parties (e.g. ideological, ethnic, class, etc.)
Political parties: organizations formed to represent citizens’ political views and compete for elected office. In a democratic political system, parties are the most crucial link between citizens and political elites. In an authoritarian political system, parties are often co-opted or even created by the state.
Proportional representation: electoral system where voters select a party, and legislative seats are allotted to parties (often only those parties surpassing a minimal threshold) according to their share of votes earned.
Referendum: national ballot called by the government on a policy issue; allows public to be a part of the policy decisions.
Single-member district system: electoral system where one representative to the legislature is selected from each district.
Single-party dominance/one-party state: a political regime based on control of the government by members of one political party.
Examples: Mexico under the PRI, China under the CCP, Soviet Union under the Communist Party, and – increasingly – Russia under United Russia and Nigeria under the PDP.