Political Concepts and Ideologies Quiz

Activities associated with group decisions

• Politics refers to activities associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.

• Political science is the branch of social science that studies politics and government.

• Various methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including warfare against adversaries.

• In modern nation states, people often form political parties to represent their ideas. Members of a party often agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders.

• A political system is a framework that defines acceptable political methods within a society.

• The history of politics spans human history and is not limited to modern institutions of government.

• The first states of sorts were those of early dynastic Sumer and early dynastic Egypt, which arose from the Uruk period and Predynastic Egypt respectively around approximately 3000 BCE.

• The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is considered by political scientists to be the beginning of the modern international system, in which external powers should avoid interfering in another country's domestic affairs.

• Political globalization began in the 20th century through intergovernmental organizations and supranational unions.

• The study of politics is called political science, or politology. It comprises numerous subfields, including comparative politics, political economy, international relations, political philosophy, public administration, public policy, gender and politics, and political methodology.

• The political system defines the process for making official government decisions. It is usually compared to the legal system, economic system, cultural system, and other social systems.

• Forms of government can be classified by several ways. In terms of the structure of power, there are monarchies (including constitutional monarchies) and republics (usually presidential, semi-presidential, or parliamentary).Overview of Politics: Forms of Government, Constitutions, Political Culture, Political Dysfunction, and Political Values

• Political systems can be categorized by their form of government, which includes democracies, dictatorships, and absolute monarchies.

• There are different levels of vertical integration in political systems, such as confederations, federations, and unitary states.

• Constitutions are written documents that limit the powers of different branches of government and may set out the separation of powers. Separation of powers divides government into the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

• Political culture is how culture impacts politics, and it is embedded in every political system. Political culture includes attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments that give order and meaning to the political process.

• Political dysfunction includes political corruption, which is the use of powers for illegitimate private gain, conducted by government officials or their network contacts. Political corruption includes bribery, cronyism, nepotism, and political patronage.

• Macropolitics refers to political issues that affect an entire political system, while mesopolitics describes the politics of intermediary structures within a political system, such as national political parties or movements. Micropolitics describes the actions of individual actors within the political system.

• Political values include democracy, equality, and freedom. Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. Equality is a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same social status, especially socioeconomic status, including protection of human rights and dignity, and equal access to certain social goods and social services. Freedom is a central concept in political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Authoritarianism vs Libertarianism

• Two opposing views on individual freedom and state control

• Authoritarian systems prioritize group goals over individual rights

• Libertarians oppose the state and hold the individual as sovereign

• Pure libertarians argue for the total abolition of the state, political parties, and other political entities

• Pure authoritarians support state control over all aspects of society

• Classical liberalism emphasizes individual freedom and limited government

• This includes human rationality, individual property rights, free markets, natural rights, protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, and individual freedom from restraint

• Libertarianism stresses "as much liberty as possible" and "as little government as necessary"

• Anarchism and liberalism are both focused on individual freedom, but differ in their approach to property relations

• Anarchism rejects liberalism's competitive property relations

• There is ongoing debate and discussion around the balance of individual freedom and state control in society

• Understanding these two political perspectives can help inform discussions and decisions around policy and governance.