INTRO TO POLITICAL SCIENCE EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

INTRO TO POLITICAL SCIENCE EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Politics - answer- the process by which a community selects rulers and empowers them to make decisions, takes action to attain common goals, and reconciles conflicts within the community Power - answer- the capacity to influence or control the behavior of persons and institutions, whether by persuasion or coercion Authority - answer- command of the obedience of society's members by a government Legitimacy - answer- the exercise of political power in a community in a way that is voluntarily accepted by the members of that community Legitimate Authority - answer- the legal and moral right of a government to rule over a specific population and control a specific territory Order - answer- in a political context, refers to an existing or desired arrangement of institutions based on certain principles such as liberty, equality, prosperity, and security Society - answer- an aggregation of individuals who share a common identity Social Contract - answer- a concept in political theory most often associated with Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke, the social contract is an implicit agreement among individuals to form a civil society and accept certain moral and political obligations essential to its preservation Government - answer- the persons and institutions that make and enforce laws and rules for the larger community Republic - answer- a form of government in which sovereignty resides in the people of that country, rather than with the rulers; vast majority of republics today are democratic or representative republics, meaning that sovereign power is exercised by elected representatives who are responsible to the citizenry State - answer- in its sovereign form, an independent political-administrative unit that successfully claims the allegiance of a given population, exercises a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force, and controls the territory inhabited by its citizens or subjects; in its other common form, a state is the major political-administrative subdivision of a federal system Sovereignty - answer- a government's capacity to assert supreme power successfully in a political state Country - answer- as a political term, it refers loosely to a sovereign state and is roughly equivalent to "nation" or "nation-state" Nation - answer- often interchangeable with state or country; in common usage, this term actually denotes a specific people with a distinct language and culture or a major ethnic group Nation-State - answer- a geographically defined community administered by a government Stateless Nation - answer- people (or nations) who are scattered over the territory of several states or dispersed widely and who have no autonomous, independent, or sovereign governing body of their own; examples include the Kurds, Palestinians, and Tibetans Justice - answer- fairness; the distribution of rewards and burdens in society in accordance with what is deserved Nation-Building - answer- the process of forming a common identity based on the notion of belonging to a political community separate and distinct from all others; often the concept of "nation" is based on common ethnolinguistic roots Political Literacy - answer- the ability to think and speak intelligently about politics Methodology - answer- the way scientists and scholars set about exploring, explaining, proving, or disproving propositions in different academic disciplines; the precise methods vary according to the discipline and the object, event, process, or phenomenon under investigation Positivism - answer- a philosophy of science that stresses observable, scientific facts as the sole basis of proof and truth; a skeptical view of ideas or beliefs based on religion or metaphysics Behaviorism - answer- an approach to the study of politics that emphasizes fact-based evaluations of action Normativism - answer- an approach to the study of politics that emphasizes the key role of intentional human behavior based on values, principles, and reason as opposed to instincts, impulses, and deterministic forces- "ought" versus "is"; normative theory focuses on fundamental and enduring questions Rational Choice - answer- the role of reason over emotion in human behavior; political behavior, in this view, follows logical and even predictable patterns so long as we understand the key role of self-interest Political Realism - answer- the philosophy that power is the key variable in all political relationships and should be used pragmatically and prudently to advance the national interest; policies are judged good or bad on the basis of their effect on national interests, not on their level of morality Political Culture - answer- the moral values, beliefs, and myths by which people live and for which they are willing to die Public Good - answer- the shared beliefs of a political community as to what goals government ought to attain