SOCIO 211 1st Edition Lecture 18I. Government, Political Power, and Social Movementsa. Democracyi. Apolitical system allows the citizens to participate in political decision making or to elect representatives to government bodies 1. Participatory (direct)a. A system of democracy in which members of a group or community participate collective in making major decisionsb. Liberal democracyi. Systems of democracy based on parliamentary institutions, coupled to the free-market system in the area of economic productionii. The united states, japan, most western European countries, Australia, and new Zealandc. Nation statei. Particular types of states in which governments have sovereignpower within defined territorial areas and populations are citizens who know themselves to be apart of single nationsii. Sovereignty: the undisputed political rule of a state over a giventerritorial areaiii. Nationalism: a set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national communityd. Nationalismi. A set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national communityii. Local nationalism: the belief that communities that share a cultural identity should have political autonomy, even within smaller units of a nation-state1. For example, French-speaking Quebec in Canadae. Poweri. The ability of individuals or the members of a group to achieve aims or further the interests they holdii. Authority: a government’s legitimate use of powerf. Citizensi. Members of a political community, having both rights and duties associated with that membershipii. Citizenship rights: civil rights are the legal rights held by all citizens in a given national communityiii. Political rights are the rights of political participation, such as the right to vote in local and national elections, held by citizens of a national communityg. Social rightsi. The rights of social and welfare provisions held by all citizens in a national community, including, for example, the right to claim unemployment benefits and sickness payments provided by the stateii. A welfare state is a political system that provides a wide range of welfare benefits for its citizensh. Revolutioni. Occurs when an existing political is overthrown by means of a mass movementi. Social movementi. Large groups of people who seek to accomplish, or to block, a process of social changej. Democratic Elitism (Weber)i. A theory of the limits of democracy, which holds that in large-scale societies democratic participation is necessarily limited to the regular election of political leadersk. Pluralist theoriesi. There are multiple centers of power in a democracy that are balance out by competing interest vying for influence over government policiesl. Power Elite (Mills)i. Small networks of individuals who hold concentrated power in modern societies ii. Federal government, corporations, and militaryiii. The role of the militarym. Political Partiesi. An organizations of individuals with broadly similar political aims, oriented toward achieving legitimate control of government through an electoral processii. Two-party system (winners-take-all elections)iii. Multiparty (proportional
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