Flash review

• Units in the AP Comparative Government and Politics course framework

  • Political Systems, Regimes, and Governments
  • Political Institutions
  • Political Culture and Participation
  • Party and Electoral Systems, and Citizen Organizations
  • Political and Economic Changes, and Development
  • The Core Countries
• Core countries are the 6 main countries discussed in the AP exams
• 5 big ideas in comparative politics

  • Power and Authority
  • Legitimacy and Stability
  • Democratization
  • Internal and External Forces
  • Methods of Political Analysis
• Quantitative information


  Presented in numbers, used to compare different countries and draw conclusions
• Qualitative information


  Typically presented in statements
• Correlation


  When two sets of data are related
• Causation


  When one variable influences another
• Data collection resources used in comparative politics

  • Human Development Index (HDI)
  • Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
  • GDP Per Capita
  • GDP Growth Rate
  • Gini Index/Coefficient
  • Freedom House
  • Transparency International
  • Failed States Index
• Comparative method


  The method with which researchers approach comparative politics, involving comparing different countries
• Empirical statements


  Simply state facts
• Normative statements


  Include value judgments
• Systems theory


  A model of a political system that can be generalized, explaining the factors that influence public policy

  
• Aspects of the environment that can influence political systems

  • Political culture
  • Inputs
  • Outputs
• Feedback


  The process where outputs from the political system receive responses, including from news media and linkage institutions

  
• Linkage institutions


  Institutions that can connect people to policymaking, including elections, political parties, interest groups, and media
• State institutions


  Formal institutions most directly involved with policymaking, including branches of government
• Linkage institutions and state institutions act within the boundaries of political culture
• State


  A political organization with a permanent population, governing institutions, control over a defined territory, and international recognition
• Sovereignty


  A state's ability to make decisions for its people without having to confer with another entity
• Strong state


  A state that is able to effectively make, enact, and enforce policies
• Weak state


  A state that lacks the capacity to effectively make, enact, and enforce policies
• Failed state


  A state that fails to provide basic necessities like law and order to its people
• Legitimacy


  How much people accept and believe the state's right to rule
• Types of state legitimacy

  • Traditional legitimacy
  • Charismatic legitimacy
  • Rational-legal legitimacy
• Unitary state


  A state that concentrates most or all of its power in one level of government
• Devolution


  When a unitary state gives certain powers to regional governments
• Federal state


  A state that maintains an official division of power between central and regional governments
• Types of institutions


  • State institutions
  • Linkage institutions
• Nation


  A group of people who share commonalities and the desire for sovereignty
• Regime


  The rules that oversee a political system's operations, determining the acquisition and practice of political power
• Government


  The formal institutions that make authoritative decisions for a state
• Sovereignty


  The capacity of a state
• Nation


  A group of people who share commonalities, like race, religion, language, political identity, ethnicity, and most importantly, the desire for sovereignty
• Stateless nations


  Nations that are wrongly distributed into different states and their political systems
• Regime


  The rules that oversee a political system's operations. Determines the acquisition and practice of political power
• Regime changes


  1. Reforms (gradual and evolutionary changes)

  2. Revolutions (sudden and extreme changes)

  3. Coup d'états (military seizes political power)
• Government


  The people who currently hold political power in official positions of authority
• Supranational organizations


  Organizations that involve many states (through their representatives) in order to make decisions for the states involved
• Supranational organizations


  • The European Union (EU)
  • The World Trade Organization (WTO)
  • The United Nations (UN)
• Supranational organizations' decisions are not obligations for the states to follow, but they could use political pressure or threaten to revoke benefits to "enforce" their policies