Political Science: Key Concepts and Thinkers Flashcards

Question 1

Define Political Science.

Accepted Answer

The systematic study of power, government and public decision-making, asking who holds authority, how it is gained and used, and how institutions and beliefs shape political outcomes.

Question 2

What is State?

Accepted Answer

A political community that claims authority over a defined territory and population, with institutions of government able to make and enforce binding rules.

Question 3

What is Sovereignty?

Accepted Answer

The supreme and final authority to make and enforce laws within a territory, with no higher power above the state and no other state entitled to override it.

Question 4

What is Legitimacy?

Accepted Answer

The widely shared belief that a government's authority is rightful, so that people comply out of acceptance and not only out of fear of punishment.

Question 5

What is Power?

Accepted Answer

The ability of one actor to get another to do something they would not otherwise do, often defined in Robert Dahl's terms as influence over another's behaviour.

Question 6

Define Weber's Types of Authority.

Accepted Answer

Max Weber's classification of legitimate authority into three kinds: traditional, resting on custom; charismatic, resting on personal appeal; and rational-legal, resting on formal rules and offices.

Question 7

Define Social Contract.

Accepted Answer

The idea that political authority is justified by an agreement among individuals to accept common rules and a government in exchange for protection and order.

Question 8

Define State of Nature.

Accepted Answer

A hypothetical condition of human life before or without government, used by social contract thinkers to test why people need political authority and what it should do.

Question 9

Define Natural Rights.

Accepted Answer

Rights people are said to hold simply as human beings, prior to and independent of any government, which government exists to protect rather than to grant.

Question 10

Define Thomas Hobbes.

Accepted Answer

English philosopher whose 1651 book Leviathan argued that, without a strong sovereign, life is a war of all against all, so people should submit to one authority for security.

Question 11

Define John Locke.

Accepted Answer

English philosopher whose Two Treatises of Government argued that people hold natural rights to life, liberty and property, that government rests on consent, and that unjust rulers can be replaced.

Question 12

Define Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Accepted Answer

Genevan philosopher whose 1762 work The Social Contract holds that legitimate authority comes from the collective self-rule of citizens guided by the general will and not from any ruler.

Question 13

Define General Will.

Accepted Answer

Rousseau's term for the collective will of the citizens aimed at the common good, which he contrasted with the mere sum of individuals' private interests.

Question 14

What is Montesquieu?

Accepted Answer

French political thinker whose 1748 work The Spirit of the Laws argued that liberty depends on dividing government power among separate executive, legislative and judicial bodies.

Question 15

Define James Madison.

Accepted Answer

American founder and principal architect of the US Constitution who argued in the Federalist Papers that a large republic and divided institutions would restrain factions and prevent tyranny.

Question 16

Define John Stuart Mill.

Accepted Answer

British philosopher and reformer whose 1859 essay On Liberty defended individual freedom of thought and action against both government and social pressure, limited only by harm to others.

Question 17

Define Harm Principle.

Accepted Answer

Mill's rule that power may rightfully be used against a member of a community, against their will, only to prevent harm to others, not to protect them from themselves.

Question 18

Define Karl Marx.

Accepted Answer

German philosopher and economist who argued that history is shaped by class conflict over control of production and that capitalism would eventually give way to a classless society.

Question 19

Define Max Weber.

Accepted Answer

German sociologist who defined the modern state as the organisation that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a territory.

Question 20

Define Niccolo Machiavelli.

Accepted Answer

Florentine writer whose book The Prince analysed politics as it actually works rather than as it ought to, advising rulers on gaining and keeping power.

Question 21

Define John Rawls.

Accepted Answer

American philosopher whose 1971 book A Theory of Justice argued that just principles are those people would choose from an original position behind a veil of ignorance about their own place in society.

Question 22

Define Positive and Negative Liberty.

Accepted Answer

Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative liberty, freedom from interference by others, and positive liberty, the capacity to act on one's own purposes and shape one's own life.

Question 23

What is Democracy?

Accepted Answer

A system of government in which political authority rests with the people, exercised directly or through representatives chosen in free and fair competitive elections.

Question 24

What is Federalism?

Accepted Answer

A system that constitutionally divides authority between a national government and regional governments so that each holds powers the other cannot simply remove.

Question 25

Define Separation of Powers.

Accepted Answer

The principle of dividing government into distinct branches with different functions so that no single body can make, enforce and judge the law entirely alone.

Question 26

What is Ideology?

Accepted Answer

A relatively coherent set of ideas about how society is organised and what it should become, which guides political goals and helps people interpret events.

Question 27

What is Realism?

Accepted Answer

An international relations theory holding that states are the main actors in an anarchic system, driven by national interest and security, so power and self-help outweigh shared norms.

Question 28

What is Constructivism?

Accepted Answer

An international relations theory arguing that ideas, norms and identities shape how states define their interests and behave, so global politics is socially constructed rather than fixed by material power.

Question 29

Define Public Good.

Accepted Answer

A benefit that is available to everyone and not used up by one person's use, so people cannot easily be excluded from it, which makes private provision difficult.

Question 30

Define Free Rider Problem.

Accepted Answer

The tendency for individuals to enjoy a shared benefit without contributing to its cost, hoping others will pay, which can leave collective goods underprovided.

Question 31

Define Median Voter Theorem.

Accepted Answer

The prediction, associated with Duncan Black and Anthony Downs, that in a majority election along one issue dimension, competitors move toward the position of the median voter.

Question 32

Define Duverger's Law.

Accepted Answer

The observation, from Maurice Duverger, that single-member plurality elections tend to produce and sustain two-party systems, while proportional representation tends to allow more parties.

Question 33

Define Proportional Representation.

Accepted Answer

A family of electoral systems in which parties win legislative seats in rough proportion to the share of votes they receive, so smaller parties can gain representation.

Question 34

Define Soft Power.

Accepted Answer

Joseph Nye's term for the ability to shape what others want through attraction, such as culture, values and diplomacy, rather than through force or payment.