poli 2053 final

• (Political) institutions are structures and organizations that shape political behavior.
• Constitution is the foundational charter and fundamental laws of most modern states.
• Rule of law is the observance of/compliance with a regime's constitution.
• Unitarism is a constitutional feature in which the central government wields the most political power.
• Parliamentary sovereignty is the principle that only a legislature can determine what is constitutional.
• A party is a political organization that seeks to influence policy by getting candidates and members elected or appointed to public office.
• Interest Groups are organizations that make demands in the political system on behalf of their constituents and members.
• Single-party system is a party system in which parties besides the dominant party are banned.
• Clientelistic parties are parties that rely on providing direct benefits to voters to win support.
• Corporatism is an IG system in which major groups are designated as reps of certain interests in society.

  • IG and gov't regularly interact
  • occurs through peak organizations
  • ensures rep for different interets in society w/ the gov't
• Legislatures are deliberative bodies composed of the decision makers who represent the population at large.
• The Executive is the individual or branch of government that implements and administers laws passed by legislatures.
• Hybrid / hybrid systems are electoral systems combining elements of district-based and proportional representation systems.
• A portfolio is the combination of cabinet positions a party is offered as part of a coalition.
• A Minimum winning coalition is a coalition with no surplus parties beyond those needed to reach a majority of seats.
• Political economy is the study of how politics and economics relate to each other.
• Development is the process by which a society changes or advances in terms of economic growth or other indicators.
• Contention is a type of political conflict in which at least one group involved in the conflict pursues goals outside of formal political institutions.
• State interventionism is an economic ideology that holds poverty can be reduced through the state expanding the social safety net and providing more public goods.
• Revolutionary movement is a social movement with maximalist goals (e.g., independence/self- determination, regime change, or change in social structure)
• Bureaucracy is a characteristic of the modern state and a key part of the executive.
• Federalism is the presence of nationalism and strong nationalist ideologies in different regions of a country may lead to this constitutional feature.
• Neoliberalism is this economic ideology is compatible with the political ideologies of libertarianism, and at times conservatism and social democracy.
• Closed-list PR system is a 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 is when 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.
• The 3 types of representation are: geographic, identity, and political.
• Geographic Representation ensures the aspects of voters from across a country’s geographic regions are represented in the legislature.
• Identity Representation ensures that the politically relevant identities of a country’s voters are represented in the legislature.
• Political Representation ensures that the political party preferences of a country's voters are represented in the legislature.
• Minimum Connected Winning Coalition is when all parties in the coalition are adjacent to each other on the left-right ideological spectrum.
• Minimum Size Coalition is the closest possible coalition to a majority plus 1 seat.
• Grand Coalition is when 2 or more parties representing a large share of the electorate hold more than half the seats.
• Minority Gov’t occurs when a coalition with a majority of seats doesn’t form.
• Alternative Vote (ranked choice) method is when voters rank candidates rather than vote for one.
• District based elections are either single member districts or multi member districts.
• Single Member Districts are elected to legislature from territorial districts called constituencies. Each district elects 1 legislator either by party or by primary vote. Elections tend to be 1st past the post: the candidate with the most votes wins.
• Multi Member District representatives are also elected from territorial districts, but they elect more than 1 candidate from each district. The top 2 vote-getters go to the legislature.
• There are 7 types of parties: elite vs. mass, catch-all vs. niche, programmatic vs. clientelistic and personalistic.
• • Elite Parties: party membership is limited to a small number of the wealthy and/or powerful
• • Mass Parties: party membership is open to large numbers of ordinary citizens