(See related pages)
Following each term, the first page on which it is introduced substantively appears in parentheses.
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| agents of socialization | 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 (a) the agent's relevance to politics, and (b) the agent's credibility. (See page(s) 198) |
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| ambassador | An official charged by his or her state to conduct high-level politics with another state to which he or she is posted. (See page(s) 411) |
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| American conservatism | The rather loose ideology known in the United States as "conservatism." It is really a variant of the more general ideology of liberalism and has relatively little to do with the more general ideology of conservatism; therefore, it has been distinguished in this book by the name American conservatism. American conservatism is particularly suspicious of governmental intervention to make people more equal but is often willing to entrust government with power to maintain morality. (See page(s) 22) |
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| American liberalism | The rather loose ideology known in the United States as "liberalism." It is really a variant of the more general ideology of liberalism; therefore, it has been distinguished in this book by the name American liberalism. American liberalism is particularly concerned to make people equal, and it is relatively willing to entrust government with power to bring this about; it is also particularly concerned to maintain freedom of expression. (See page(s) 22) |
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| arbitrary action | 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. (See page(s) 134) |
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| authoritarian democracy | A formal democracy in which, however, 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. Current examples are Robert Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe, and Vladimir Putin's in Russia. (See page(s) 150) |
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| authority | 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. (See page(s) 5, 181) |
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| autocracy | A governmental arrangement in which those who hold power did not gain power by any regular constitutional process and are not responsible in their exercise of power to any formal set of rules. (See page(s) 161) |
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| autonomous state | A state in which the government and bureaucracy are relatively insulated from political pressures of groups in the society. (See page(s) 62) |
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| begging a question | "Answering" a question (failing to answer it) by offering a rephrasing of it as an answer. Example: "Why did Britain win the Falkland Islands war?" "Because Britain was more successful militarily than Argentina." (This leaves us with the question "Why was Britain more successful militarily than Argentina?" which restates the original.) (See page(s) 432) |
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| "behavioralists" | Political scientists who emphasize statistical analysis and abstract theories seeking out basic, essential regularities across a set of events. (See page(s) 15) |
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| bureaucracy | 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. (See page(s) 367) |
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| cabinet (in parliamentary system) | 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. The cabinet leads the parliament, proposing legislation, conducting the country's foreign policy, and so on. It serves at the pleasure of the parliament and can be ousted by a majority vote of no confidence. (See page(s) 318) |
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| case law | A legal system emphasizing the independence of the judiciary from the rest of the government. Under case law, the ongoing stream of prior decisions (precedents) becomes an important part of current law. Predominant in Britain and its former colonies. (See page(s) 380) |
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| causation | An interpretation of relations between events in which one event "brings about" or produces another event. Example: "Independence of their central banks is a major cause of low inflation for states." (See page(s) 430) |
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| central bank | 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. (See page(s) 111) |
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| circular argument | An argument in which one proves A from B but in which A provides our only evidence that B is true. (See page(s) 433) |
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| civil law | The body of law regarding relations between people; cases may include disputes about contracts, suits for damages in injury, divorce, and so on. (See page(s) 387) |
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| civil society | That part of society that is organized and active, but neither controlled by the government nor focused on private concerns such as the family or economic activity. In other words, the part of society that is publicly engaged but not controlled by the government. It is the natural counterweight to government in the affairs of the state. (See page(s) 64) |
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| classes | 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 of themselves and of the world. In his theory, classes were the drivers of social and political change. (See page(s) 32) |
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| coalition | A tactical combination of varied groups, constructed so that the groups will in combination be large enough to command power that they can then share among themselves. Frequently applied to parliamentary government, in which 50 percent of the votes in parliament are required to form a cabinet but in which it may be necessary to combine two or more parties to amass 50 percent of the votes. (See page(s) 321) |
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| code law | A legal system emphasizing a relative subordination of the judiciary to the rest of the government. Legal interpretation consists primarily of reading and applying codes of legal statute passed by the parliament, rather than looking to the precedent of prior court decisions. Used in various forms in most parts of the world except Britain and its former colonies. (See page(s) 381) |
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| codetermination | German system by which corporations are legally required to include workers' representatives on their boards of directors. (See page(s) 123) |
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| committees (legislative) | Small group of legislators whose task (usually) is to review carefully a proposed piece of legislation and recommend to the full legislature what action should be taken on it. In many legislatures, bills may be amended by the committee or killed in entirety. Committees may also perform other tasks, such as investigating an area of possible legislation. (See page(s) 327) |
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| communism | The more militant branch of socialism. Communists argue that the only way to build a socialist state is by revolution. Therefore, they are sometimes less interested in electoral activity than the democratic socialists. After the 1920s, communists acknowledged the leadership of the Soviet Union in the formulation of their goals and strategies. See also socialism; democratic socialism. (See page(s) 34) |
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| "consensus" parliamentarism | 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. (See page(s) 329) |
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| conservatism | An ideology positing that the most important goal of politics is to create stable communities based on a hierarchy of power in which leaders and followers have reciprocal responsibilities and obligations. Unlike liberalism, conservatism is not suspicious of power and does not seek to limit the power of the state. Rather, the point of conservatism is that power should be in the hands of a traditional class of rulers. See also American conservatism. (See page(s) 27) |
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| constitution | A set of rules by which power is distributed in a political group, such as the state. This usually consists in part of a formal set of rules, but it always contains as well various informal mechanisms, traditions, and understandings by which power is assigned to people. (See page(s) 209) |
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| constitutional law | The body of law regarding the nature of the political process, and whether laws and governmental actions are consistent with the constitution. (See page(s) 388) |
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| constitutional monarch (contrast monarchy) | A monarch, that is, one who acquires the position of head of state by inheritance, holds it for life, and passes it along to heirs—but with the difference that a constitutional monarch serves as head of state in a parliamentary system, and thus serves a symbolic role, not participating in the making of political decisions. (See page(s) 320) |
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| constitutional review | A system under which a judicial or quasi-judicial part of the government can annul acts of other parts of the government if, in its judgment, those acts violate the constitution of the state. (See page(s) 354) |
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| constitutionalism | The doctrine that states' constitutions should be designed fairly, not to give undue advantage to any particular group, and that the government should then be faithful to that constitution. In this way, individuals are protected against arbitrary governmental action. (See page(s) 223) |
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| consulates (contrast ambassador) | Offices maintained by a state in major cities of another state to deal with individuals' problems regarding trade, immigration, travel, and so forth. (See page(s) 411) |
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| corruption | Improperly performing one's public tasks to receive personal benefits (bribes, etc.). (See page(s) 114) |
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| coup | The forceful deposition of a government by all or a portion of the armed forces and installation of a new military government. (See page(s) 163) |
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| courts | Governmental institutions charged with interpreting the law. (See page(s) 386) |
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| criminal law | The body of law involving charges that persons have disobeyed a law prescribing proper conduct. In criminal law the state brings the case, against an individual defendant who is charged with a crime. (See page(s) 387) |
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| crisis transitions | Transitions from an autocratic to a democratic system that take place in the context of an economic crisis. (See page(s) 157) |
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| democracy | A state in which qualified citizens vote at regular intervals to choose, among alternative candidates, the people who will be in charge of setting the state's policies. (See page(s) 149) |
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| democratic peace | The observation that democracies have never, or hardly ever, waged war with other democracies. (See page(s) 415) |
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| democratic socialism | The branch of socialism that supports electoral democracy and holds that the proper way for workers to control society is to win elections. Democratic socialists are also more moderate than communists in the goals they set, being more willing to settle for piecemeal progress rather than holding out for a complete remaking of society. See also socialism; communism. (See page(s) 34) |
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| diplomacy | The conduct of relations between states and other global actors other than by war. (See page(s) 411) |
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| dominant-party system (contrast one-party system) | A political party system in which various parties are allowed to function openly and with reasonable effectiveness but in which a single party nonetheless holds power all the time. (See page(s) 267) |
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| due process | An expectation that certain procedures must always be followed in making a policy and that if they were not, the policy should be void. (See page(s) 135) |
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| economic sanctions | A form of nonmilitary coercion in which a state or group of states deliberately withholds normal economic relations with another state to punish it. (See page(s) 412) |
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| effective policy | An effective policy is one that gives the state the greatest benefits at the least cost. (See page(s) 138) |
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| electoral system | A set of rules by which the outcomes of an election (a set of officers elected or whatever) is determined from the distribution of votes cast by the electorate. (See page(s) 235) |
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| empirical theory | A theory describing how things work in the world we observe. (See page(s) 15) |
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| European Union | An organization of twenty-seven Western European states that have set up a rather weak common government and have coordinated many of their economic policies. (See page(s) 70) |
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| externality | A situation in which there are social costs or benefits beyond the individual costs and benefits involved in a transaction. (See page(s) 144) |
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| failed state | A geographic entity with no effective central state apparatus, but controlled by various warlords and gangs in loose and fluid relationships with one another. (See page(s) 61) |
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| falsifiability | A property of statements, such that they are in principle capable of being true or false. A statement that is falsifiable is the opposite of a tautology. (See page(s) 427) |
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| fascism | A political movement that appeared in many countries in the 1920s and 1930s. Fascism stressed militaristic pageantry and a strident nationalism as ways of binding the people to a single dramatic dictator. Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler were fascist dictators. (See page(s) 35) |
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| federal state | A state in which the constitution grants to regional governments a legal monopoly over certain political decisions, such as educational policy. Therefore, two different governments will control the same group of people, but with regard to different political questions. (See page(s) 218) |
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| fiduciary role | A role in which one acts as an agent on behalf of someone else's interests. This role often places the agent in problematic positions. (See page(s) 406) |
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| global politics (contrast international politics) | Politics conducted above the level of a state. It is essentially the same thing as international politics but includes the connotation that not only states but also international organizations and nongovernmental organizations are actors in the process. (See page(s) 395) |
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| government | The group of people within the state who have the ultimate authority to act on behalf of the state. (See page(s) 62) |
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| gross domestic product, or GDP | The total value of all goods and services exchanged in a society; that is, the sum of such things as the value of all food sold, the value of all mechanics' work on automobiles, the value of all educational activity, and so on. The higher the GDP, the greater the total amount of economic activity in the society. Per capita GDP divides GDP by the population to measure how economically well-off the average person is. (See page(s) 81) |
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| habeas corpus | The right not to be held indefinitely by the police without being formally charged with a crime. (See page(s) 380) |
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| head of state | The executive figure in any state who is the symbolic focus of the state, and represents the state personally. In a presidential system, the head of state also is the leader of political decision making in the state. In a parliamentary system, the two functions are separated, and filled by two different people. (See page(s) 320) |
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| hierarchical command structure | An organization in which there is a single, branching path of power by which a person at the top of the structure issues a command to a set of people at the second tier, each of those in turn passes the command on to a set of people in the next tier, and so on. No commands can move up the structure, and no commands can move laterally across a tier. Bureaucracies are organized hierarchically. (See page(s) 368) |
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| higher civil service | Specialized and executive members of the public administration, corresponding to professionals and managers in the private sector. (See page(s) 374) |
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| hybrid presidential government | A system in which a president with more than ceremonial power coexists with a premier and cabinet who are responsible to a parliament. Executive decision making is shared in some way between the two executives, often with the president having the greater power in defense and foreign policy, while the premier and cabinet have greater power in domestic policies, but the relationship between the two can be quite variable. (See page(s) 353) |
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| identity group | A group of people who share an identity that they (and others) think defines them and sets them apart from others. (See page(s) 38) |
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| ideology | A set of ideas that are related and that modify one another; that is, an organized set of ideas about something. (See page(s) 20) |
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| implicit power | Power in which A does what B desires not because of anything B says or does but because (1) A senses that B wants something done and (2) for any of a variety of reasons, A wishes to do what B wants done. (See page(s) 5) |
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| import-substitution industrialization | A policy especially followed by many states of the Third World in the 1960s and 1970s whereby the states erected high tariff barriers against imports, hoping to build their domestic industries. (See page(s) 101) |
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| incentive compatibility | A situation in which those who make decisions on behalf of society benefit personally when their decisions benefit society. When incentive compatibility is present, society does not need to depend on nobility of character in its officials; it can depend on a more reliable force—their concern for their own self-interest. (See page(s) 213) |
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| inflation | A situation in which most prices are rising at the same time and the value of the currency is therefore declining in real terms. (See page(s) 105) |
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| institutional interest group | A group that is primarily set up for some purpose other than political activity but becomes politically active to defend its interests in the policy decisions of the state. (See page(s) 286) |
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| interest group | An organized group of citizens that has as one of its goals ensuring that the state follows certain policies. (See page(s) 278) |
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| intergovernmental international organization, or IGO | An organization set up by a group of states to implement an agreement among the states or to regulate some aspect of their relations. (See page(s) 398) |
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| International Court of Justice | The court that hears cases at law between states. It has no power to enforce its ruling. (See page(s) 405) |
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| International Criminal Court | An international court that can try any individuals, including heads of state and other officials, for a broad range of crimes, including genocide, "crimes against humanity," war crimes, and the crime of aggression. It is based in the Netherlands. (See page(s) 403) |
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| international politics | Politics conducted among states rather than within a single state. (See page(s) 395) |
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| interpretive political scientists | Political scientists who emphasize historical, anthropological, and (sometimes) legal methods, and the complex whole that is being studied. (See page(s) 15) |
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| justice | A situation in which people are treated as they deserve. See procedural justice and substantive justice. (See page(s) 132) |
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| law | A collection of rules laid down by the government, binding all members of the state, including members of the government itself. The law includes both criminal law and civil law. (See page(s) 379) |
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| legal systems | General, organized sets of legal principles. (See page(s) 379) |
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| legitimacy | A belief on the part of large numbers of people in a state that the existing governmental structure and/or the particular persons in office should appropriately wield authority. (See page(s) 183) |
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| liberalism | An ideology positing that the most important goal of politics is to help individuals develop their capacities to the fullest. To this end, people should be regulated and aided by governments as little as possible, so that they will learn from the experience of being responsible for their own decisions. Liberalism may be summarized by the slogan, "That government is best which governs least." See also American liberalism. (See page(s) 25) |
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| manifest power | Power based on an observable action by A that causes B to do what A wants. (See page(s) 5) |
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| market mechanism | A mechanism whereby social choice results from choices of all members of the collectivity rather than from a decision made by the central governing unit. (See page(s) 140) |
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| military government | An autocracy in which military officers rule, perhaps with the help of appointed civilians, but without any sort of auxiliary structure such as a political party. (See page(s) 163) |
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| minority cabinet | A cabinet based on a coalition controlling less than a majority of votes in the parliament. It generally governs through an agreement with one or more other parties, which are not part of the cabinet coalition, that they will not vote for motions of no confidence against the cabinet. (See page(s) 330) |
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| mobilization | The systematic stimulation of concerted effort by large numbers of people, as in elections or demonstrations. This term is used especially in reference to such stimulation conducted on its own behalf by the government. (See page(s) 258) |
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| monarchy | A state in which the power to rule is inherited through descent in a family. (See page(s) 169) |
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| multiparty system | A democratic system in which there are more than two major parties. (See page(s) 270) |
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| nation | A large group of people who are bound together and recognize a similarity among themselves because of a common culture; in particular, a common language seems important in creating nationhood. Nations often but not always coincide with the political boundaries of states. The Kurdish language and culture is spread across parts of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran; Irish nationalists and British nationalists are mixed together in Northern Ireland, where they are at each other's throats. There are many similar examples of mismatches between national "boundaries" and the boundaries of states. Such mismatches are a potent source of political turmoil. (See page(s) 55) |
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| nation-state | A term often used to signify today's states; it takes cognizance of the fact that states in the modern era try to develop a sense of nation to coincide with the boundaries of the state, so that emotions of nationalism will lodge on the state as well. (See page(s) 61) |
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| nationalism | Passionate identification with a nation on the part of its citizens. (See page(s) 59) |
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| nationalization of industry | The acquisition of an industrial operation by the government, which then operates it directly as part of the governmental administration. (See page(s) 77) |
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| neocorporatism | A system of government and interest groups in which all interests are organized but—instead of responding to groups' pressures—the government actively involves the groups themselves in the job of governing. This active governmental role distinguishes neocorporatism from pluralism. (See page(s) 294) |
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| neoliberalism | An ideology emphasizing the economic side of liberalism—free markets, free trade, and privatization of industries. The emphasis in neoliberalism, in contrast with liberalism, is more on economic efficiency and economic growth than on the virtues for individuals of being responsible for their own decisions. (See page(s) 37) |
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| nongovernmental international organization, or NGO | A cross-state organization that is not affiliated with or sponsored by governments. (See page(s) 398) |
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| normative theory | A theory that involves making a judgment about the world, not describing how it works. (See page(s) 16) |
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| ombudsman | A government official whose primary duty is to seek out citizens' complaints of abuse by public administrators and to negotiate changes in the offending practices. (See page(s) 370) |
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| one-party state | A state in which the government is based on, and in turn supports, a single political party. No other party is allowed to function in other than a token way. (See page(s) 168) |
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| one-party system (contrast dominant-party system) | A political system in which only a single political party is allowed to be active. (See page(s) 266) |
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| opportunity structure | Aspects of the political situation that offer a social movement (or for that matter, any political group or entrepreneur) advantages and openings. Examples could be the presence of potential allies, the absence of any other political movement in a niche, a breakdown of confidence in an incumbent leader, and so on. (See page(s) 306) |
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| pacts | In general, agreements; specifically, with regard to democratization, agreements between the leaders of the new democracy and supporters of the older authoritarian system that soften the change for the latter and help them to accept the democracy. (See page(s) 155) |
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| paradox of voting | The paradox that no one should vote if their only reason for voting is that they wish to help their favored candidate win. The odds that the rest of the voters will produce a tie are incredibly small, and that is the only circumstance in which the person's vote will make any difference to the candidate. (See page(s) 245) |
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| parliamentary government | A democracy in which the executive and legislative functions are merged in one institution, the parliament. The parliament is the state's supreme legislature, but it also appoints a committee (the cabinet) to serve as the political executive for the state. (See page(s) 318) |
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| party identification | A personal identification with a political party; not just agreement with its policies or candidates of the moment but an enduring identification with the party itself. (See page(s) 247 and 259) |
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| party system | The set of all parties in a state. Political scientists distinguish among such systems primarily by the number and relative size of the parties: for example, two-party systems, multiparty systems, dominant party systems. (See page(s) 266) |
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| per capita GDP; see also PPP per capita GDP | GDP, that is, gross domestic product, is the sum of all economic transactions in a state. We divide this by the population to obtain per capita GDP, the average amount of economic transactions per person, which is a measure of the average prosperity of the population. (See page(s) 81) |
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| pluralism | A system of government and interest groups in which all interests organize and compete freely, with no one group dominating, and in which the government is open to pressure from the groups so that policy is largely the outcome of groups' competing pressures. (See page(s) 293) |
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| political culture | The attitudes and beliefs held communally by a people, forming the basis for their political behavior. (See page(s) 193) |
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| political economy | A subfield of political science that focuses on ways the state and the economy interact. Political economy is concerned with how the economy affects the state (for example, effects of the economy on elections) and how the state affects the economy (for example, whether independent central banks reduce inflation). (See page(s) 120) |
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| political party | A group of officials or would-be officials who are linked with a sizable group of citizens into an organization; a chief object of this organization is to ensure that its officials attain power or are maintained in power. (See page(s) 255) |
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| political psychology | A subfield of political science that focuses on how individuals, both among political elites and ordinary citizens, make their choices in political decisions. Political psychology draws heavily on the field of psychology for insights and theory. (See page(s) 122) |
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| political science | The academic field that takes as its sole and general task the analysis of politics, especially the politics of the state. (See page(s) 14) |
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| political socialization | The process of learning the facts, assumptions, and attitudes we use in responding to politics. Political socialization occurs most rapidly in childhood and youth but continues throughout life. (See page(s) 198) |
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| politics | The making of common decisions for a group of people through the exercise of power by some members of the group over other members. (See page(s) 1) |
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| post hoc explanation | An explanation tailored to the particular set of events to be explained. (Post hoc means "after this.") A danger in this is that mere coincidences may be treated as general relationships in the explanation. (See page(s) 433) |
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| power | The ability of one person to cause another to do what the first wishes, by whatever means. See also implicit power and manifest power. (See page(s) 4) |
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| PPP per capita GDP; see also per capita GDP | Straight per capita GDP, expressed in dollars, can be misleading because it depends not only on how much economic activity there has been in the state, but also on the exchange rate between the state's currency and the dollar. PPP per capita GDP corrects for this, putting the per capita GDPs of all states into a comparable unit. (See page(s) 81) |
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| prefect | A civil servant in the central government who oversees local and regional governments and bureaucracies, including elected ones. The prefect in some states has the right to annul acts of local or regional governments, or even to remove them. The office of prefect is a tool for central control of local and regional governments. (See page(s) 375) |
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| presidential government | A democratic system in which the legislature and executive exist independently and are elected independently of each other. The president takes a leading role in forming policy but must have the consent of the legislature if that policy is to be enacted. A presidential system divides power, whereas a parliamentary system unifies it. (See page(s) 341) |
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| privatization | Selling to the public or by some other means transforming to private ownership economic enterprises that were previously owned and managed by the state. (See page(s) 78) |
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| procedural justice | A concept of justice less concerned with fairness of distribution to people than with the procedures by which decisions are reached about them. (See page(s) 134) |
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| progressive taxation | A system of taxes that takes a greater proportion of a person's income if the income is high than if the income is low. (See page(s) 109) |
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| promotional interest group | The "typical" interest group—an organized group of citizens, one of whose primary purposes is to affect the policies of the state. (See page(s) 287) |
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| proportional representation electoral system, or PR | An electoral system in which parties receive a number of seats in the legislature roughly proportional to the number of votes that were cast for them among the electorate. (See page(s) 235) |
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| public administration | The set of people who are not involved directly in the making of major political decisions but who construct and implement the policies that carry out those decisions. Examples are police officers, public health nurses, IRS agents, and public university presidents. (See page(s) 363) |
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| public good | Something that benefits all members of the collectivity and that no one can be prevented from using. The basic problem of public goods is that they can allow recipients to be free riders, which makes it difficult to accomplish them by voluntary action. (See page(s) 53, 143) |
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| question time | A device, originating in the British House of Commons and since imitated in many parliaments, by which cabinet members appear regularly in the parliament to answer questions from members about the administration of their offices. These questions and answers often spark hot debate. (See page(s) 323) |
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| rational choice models of politics | Models of politics that are based on a core assumption that all who are involved act "rationally"; that is, they make their decisions in order to further certain specific goals. A rational choice model posits what those goals are and then proceeds by deductive logic to demonstrate what political choices a person should make if those are her or his goals. (See page(s) 121) |
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| referendum | An election in which voters choose directly whether a particular proposal will become law; this contrasts with other kinds of elections in which voters choose among various candidates for a political office. (See page(s) 234 and 240) |
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| regime | The general form of government of a state, including its constitution and rules of government. A regime generally continues beyond the terms of individual officeholders. A state, in turn, is in principle more enduring than a regime; that is, a state can alter the form of its regime. (See page(s) 149) |
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| regime theory | A theory of international relations emphasizing the importance of "regimes," or sets of principles and values that transcend state boundaries and regulate in an informal way areas of policy such as trade, development of the polar regions, and so on. (See page(s) 417) |
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| regional integration | A partial merging of the political and economic structures of several states in the same region of the world. The most successful attempt at regional integration to date has been the formation of the European Union. (See page(s) 67) |
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| regressive taxation | A system of taxes that takes a greater proportion of a person's income if the income is low than if the income is high. (See page(s) 109) |
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| regulation | Direct laying down of rules by the government as to how people may conduct their affairs. This is distinguished from indirect governmental direction of choices, as when a government taxes liquor heavily to discourage its use but does not actually make its use illegal. The latter would constitute regulation. (See page(s) 141) |
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| rent | Not the charge you pay to live in an apartment. In its specialized usage in political economy, rents are transfers of money that do not relate to production. Though rents can be good and useful (Social Security is a rent, for instance), they are troubling because (a) many rents are not good and useful (pork barrel projects, for instance), and (b) rents tend to pull money away from investment. (See page(s) 100) |
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| representative bureaucracy | The idea that members of the public administration should be similar to the groups they serve in such characteristics as class, race, and gender, so that they will be able to serve them better. (See page(s) 373) |
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| rule of law | An assurance that actions of the government are based on general principles that are applied equally to all people. Under the rule of law, governmental actions are not arbitrary, and are not based on personal connections or pay-offs. (See page(s) 223) |
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| sectoral interest group | A group representing a section of the economy. Examples are trade unions, professional associations, corporations, and trade associations. (See page(s) 286) |
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| selective incentive | Benefits that can be given to some people, and denied to others. An organization may offer its members selective incentives in addition to the central purposes of the organization, in order to avoid the problem of free riders. A trade union, for example, may offer its members such added benefits as low-cost package vacations. (See page(s) 284) |
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| Sharia | Islamic law, based on a set of rules for moral conduct developed over the first few centuries after the death of Muhammad. (See page(s) 384) |
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| single-member-district plurality electoral system, or SMDP | An electoral system in which the state is divided into geographic subdivisions, each subdivision is represented by a single member in the legislature, and the candidate who attains a plurality of votes in that subdivision is the one who fills the seat. (See page(s) 235) |
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| social capital | The interwoven network of associational activities (clubs, churches, civic associations, neighborhoods, etc.) through which people are involved in their communities and build a reservoir of trust and positive expectations about collective action. (See page(s) 192) |
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| social movement | A loosely organized group of people who ordinarily have little power but challenge the state power—usually through disruption and sometimes violently. The object of a social movement is usually an emotional issue, which may range from a very local question such as the location of a new highway all the way up to the constitution or identity of the state. (See page(s) 303–304) |
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| socialism | An ideology positing that society consists of classes (groups of people similarly placed economically) constantly in conflict. To create a just society in which people are equal, the working class should take over the state and direct all industries. (See page(s) 32) |
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| sovereignty | The legal capacity of a geographic unit to maintain ultimate responsibility for the conduct of its own affairs. (See page(s) 55) |
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| state | The basic unit by which people are organized politically; often casually called "country" or "nation." States are militarily independent of each other and are guided by governments that typically regulate the economy, set the laws of the state, and so on. States in the twentieth century tended to be relatively large territories with stable boundaries whose populations are bound together by intimate political ties. In marginal cases such as the European Union, it can be a bit tricky to say exactly whether a unit is or is not a "state." In the United States, state also has a second meaning, referring to one of the fifty regional divisions (California, Alaska, Florida, Minnesota, etc.) into which the United States is divided. (See page(s) 14 and 55) |
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| state-building | The process of building or reconstructing a state. Because a state is a complex of rules, institutions, and expectations about how collective actions will be performed, state-building is complicated and difficult. (See page(s) 61) |
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| substantive justice | A concept of justice that emphasizes people receiving what they need and deserve, whether on the basis of the contributions they make to common efforts, of their need for the reward, or of at least approximate equality of treatment. (See page(s) 134) |
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| tautology | A statement that is logically true and thus cannot be shown false by an examination of evidence. Example: "All brunettes have dark hair." (See page(s) 427) |
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| terrorism | The use of violent acts against civilians in order to accomplish political goals. (See page(s) 416) |
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| theocracy | A state ruled by a set of religious leaders. (See page(s) 169) |
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| theory | A statement linking specific instances to broader principles. (See page(s) 15) |
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| trivial explanation | An explanation that is obvious to the audience and therefore not interesting to them. Example: "Why does John eat so much?" "Because he's hungry." (See page(s) 429) |
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| two-party system | A democratic system in which two parties regularly receive 90 percent or more of votes cast but in which it is rare for either of them to receive more than 55 or 60 percent of the votes. These two parties will replace each other in office fairly frequently. (See page(s) 269) |
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| unitary state | A state in which no other governmental body but the central government has any areas of policy that are exclusively under its control. In a unitary state, local and regional governments may potentially be overruled by the central government in any political decision they make. (See page(s) 218) |
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| United Nations | An organization of almost all the world's states. The UN provides a forum at which complaints can be aired; it has often helped to cool off conflicts between states; and its specialized committees seek to improve world standards of health, education, and so on. (See page(s) 67 and 421) |