AP Comparative Government Vocabulary GRADE A+ SOLUTION

accountability the concept that government officials are responsible to and serve at the pleasure of constituents or elected officials (and that they may be removed from office by those electors or officials) adjudicate to resolve a matter in dispute; when backed up by the authority of government the decision can be enforced agricultural sector that part of a country's economy that is involved in the production of farm products autarchy complete self-sufficiency authoritarianism a system of governance based on coercion rather than political legitimacy (questionable definition) autocracy a system of governance in which a small group has absolute power autonomy the degree to which a state can implement policies independent of the populace or the amount of sovereignty a nation-state can exercise in the global environment balance of trade comparison between the value of exports and the value of imports for a nation-state; usually figured by subtracting the value of imports from the value of exports (positive means that exports were worth more than imports; negative means that the value of imports exceeded the value of exports) bicameral describing a legislative body with two houses budgetary deficit the result of government spending in any one fiscal year exceeding the government revenue in that year (national debt is the total of yearly deficits) bureaucracy a hierarchically structured organization charged with carrying out the policies determined by those with political authority cabinet in a parliamentary system, the group of ministers who direct administrative bureaucracies (ministries) and make up the government, which is responsible to the parliament; in a presidential system, the administrative directors responsible to the president capacity the degree to which a government or state is able to implement its policies capitalism an economic system that emphasizes private property rights and market mechanisms catch-all party a political party whose aim is ot gather support from a broad range of citizens through a de-emphasis of ideology and an emphasis on pragmatism, charismatic leadership, and marketing causation a correlation in which a change in one variable results in a change in others checks and balances a system of governance in which divisions of government can restrain the political authority of other divisions citizen a member of a state who is legally entitled to full civil rights and is legally obliged to perform defined public duties civic culture a political culture in which citizens widely share a belief in the legitimacy of their regime and a trust in the government; therefore the citizens demonstrate restraint in their demands on the government civil servants employees of the government who administer (not make) policy; expected to serve any and all governments civil service a system of carefully describing the tasks involved in performing government jobs, evaluating applicants for these jobs, and hiring people from among those applicants based on skills and experience rather than political factors; civil service also protects incumbents in civil service positions from politically based retribution civil society all those organizations outside of government and commercial arenas which provide avenues of public participation in society class the divisions of society into groups according to economic roles and status attributes cleavage CONTINUED........