CHAPTER 1 Terms Political Science the study of human behavior involving coercion power of influence It is divided up into 4 subfields American Politics Comparative Politics International Relations and Public Policy Comparative Politics the study of political phenomena that occur predominantly within countries Most of the literature in comparative politics focus on political institutions mostly on the workings of democracy The major themes in comparative politics include state failure economic determinants of democracy cultural determinants of democracy benefits from democracy institutional design International Relations the study of political phenomena that occur predominantly between countries Comparative Politics and international relations are not mutually exclusive Mutually exclusive requires that it not be possible to assign any single case to more than one category the line between the 2 is blurred unable to be both true at the same time They are not Collectively exhaustive either which implies that we have a place to categorize every entity that is observed Comparative Politics and International Relations ARE overlapping subfields CHAPTER 2 The three types of questions that we are asked in political science are 1 evaluative how should the world look 2 descriptive how does the world look 3 explanatory why does the world look the way it does The scientific method is best prepared to answer explanatory questions The 3 steps in the scientific method are 1 question 2 theory or model 3 implications hypothesis The 3 things that must be true in order for political science to be a science is 1 science must accumulate knowledge 2 science helps answer explanatory questions which can motivate evaluative questions 3 the scientific process Terms Politics the subset of human behavior that involves the use of power or influence CHAPTER 3 Exit you accept that there has been a negative change in your environment and you alter your behavior to achieve the best outcome possible given your new environment ex GA raises it s taxes so you move to FL Voice you use your voice complain protest lobby or take direct action to try to change the environment back to its original condition Loyalty you accept the fact that your environment has changed and make no change to your behavior Backward Induction The process of reasoning backward from the end of a game or situation to the beginning in order to determine an optimal course of action Strategic situation the choices of one actor depend on the choices made by other actors The assumptions that must be true for voice to be a viable option is 1 The state must rely on citicen s loyalty 2 citizens must have a viable exit option CHAPTER 4 Terms Nation a group of people who share some sort of common identity like a language a religion an ethnicity or a shared history Nation state a state where a single nation predominates and the legal social demographic and geographic boundaries of the state are connected in important ways to the state Failed state a state like entity that cannot coerce and is unable to successfully control the inhabitants of a given territory Social Contract an implicit agreement among individuals in the state of nature to create and empower the state It outlines the responsibilities for each entity The agreement is implicit A predatory state uses the power to violate citizens rights Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies in a game one for each player such that no player has an incentive to unilaterally change her mind given what the other players are doing solve a normal form game look back at test 2 for examples The difference between an optimal nash equilibrium and a suboptimal nash equilibrium is that an optimal is the highest possible payoff for both sides whereas the suboptimal is the nash equilibrium but not the highest possible payoffs CHAPTER 5 Differences The state is an entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory The regime is the set of rules norms or institutions that determine how the government is constituted how it is organized and how major decisions are made The government is the set of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the state at a particular point in time The reliability refers to the extent to which the measurement process repeatedly and consistently produces the same score for a given case The validity refers to the extent to which our measures correspond to the concepts that they are intended to reflect Dahl s concepts of polyarchy recognized that modern states could never be truly democratic so he used the term polyarchy which is a political regime with high levels of both contestation and inclusion contestation captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire inclusion has to do with who gets to participate in the democratic process The difference between the substantive view of democracy vs the minimalist view is substantive view of democracy classifies political regimes in regard to the outcomes they produce whereas minimalist view of democracy classifies political regimes in regard to their institutions and procedures The 3 units of measurement are 1 nominal classifies cases into categories that have no natural ordering ex race ethnicity type of electoral rules ex ideology freedom house scores 2 ordinal classifies cases into categories that have a natural ordering 3 interval assigns a number to cases such that the distance between the units are equal ex age GDP CHAPTER 6 Terms GDP per capita a country s GDP divided by the size of the population measures economic development Sovereign debt refers to debt that is accrued by the sovereign Sovereign wealth refers to assets that is accrued by the government Credible commitment problem Time inconsistency problem occurs when 1 an actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to renege on that promise in the future and 2 power is in the hands of the actor who makes the promise and not in the hands of those expected to benefit from the promise Mobile asset stronger exit option assets that can be easily moved Rentier state a state that derives all or a substantial portion of its revenue form the rent sale of indigenous natural resources to external clients Dependent variable the outcome we are trying to explain Independent variable the variable used to explain the outcome What we think will
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