1. INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS UNIT I CH. 1
Electoral Systems, Citizens, Society, & State

2. When classifying governments, you can ask five questions to help you classify them:
Who can participate?
How is power distributed?
How are the legislative, executive, and judicial branches structured?
What is the relationship between the legislative and executive branch?
What type of electoral systems do they have?

3. III. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 5
III. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 5.) What type of electoral systems do they have?
Types of Electoral Districts
Single Member Districts. AKA “winner take all”, “first past the post”
Follow plurality election rules
Single Member systems tend to favor two-party rule.
Proportional representation is where the nation is divided into a few, large districts and competing parties offer a list of candidates rather than a single candidate. The number of representatives in the legislature is proportional to the percentage of votes it gets
Most proportional systems have a minimum threshold for a party to win seats – ie. 7% of the vote in Russia.

4. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
An electoral system in which political parties compete in multi-member districts
Voters choose b/t parties and the seats are awarded proportionally

5. FIRST PAST THE POST Single member district Winner take all
Candidate with the largest share of the vote wins the seat

6. Supranational Organizations
Supranational Organizations are those who have been given some sovereignty because nations have shifted their powers upwards to them. This shift took place after WWII.
*Even though these organizations are important, the state is still the most important political system in the world!*

7. IV. CITIZENS, SOCIETY & THE STATE
Civil society:
Formal and informal organizations that are NOT part of the state but operate in public
The web of membership in social and political groups that some analysts believe is needed to sustain democracy
A society in which people are involved in social and political interactions free of state control or regulation
Social, charitable, religious, community – advance own cause

8. POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION
The process by which individuals acquire their political attitudes and behaviors
Family, school, media

9. POLITICAL CULTURE
History, culture, values, beliefs, traditions that influence political behavior
Defines the public’s expectations toward the political process and its role within the process

10. POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
A set of political values about what the goals of government should be

11. LIBERALISM
An ideology that favors a limited state role in society and the economy and places a high value on individual freedom
SUPPORTS
limited government
individual freedom
social toleration
the redistribution of resources

12. LIBERTARIAN
Prefers little government interference in the economy or personal freedoms

13. CONSERVATISM
A political attitude that questions the need for change and supports the current order

14. RADICALISM
Favors dramatic and revolutionary change

15. REACTIONARY
Someone who seeks to restore the institutions of a real or imagined earlier political or societal order

16. CLEAVAGES
Factors that separate groups

17. CROSS CUTTING CLEAVAGE
Divisions that cut across differences.
Crosscutting cleavages bring groups together in a society that might not otherwise have much in common
The PRI in Mexico united rural peasants and urban dwellers for much of the 20th century
Religion in some societies – like Iran and Mexico – can be a crosscutting cleavage

18. COINCIDING (CUMULATIVE) CLEAVAGES
Divisions that strengthen feelings of difference and discrepancy
Coinciding cleavages create tension in a political system
Religion in Nigeria
Class in most countries

19. POST MATERIALIST
The theory that younger voters tend to favor issues such as the environment and feminism