Chapter 13

Front 1

Collective bargaining

Back 1

The rights of employees and workers to negotiate with their employers for basic rights and benefits. (page 394)

Front 2

Government

Back 2

The enacting of policies and decisions on the part of officials within a political apparatus. In most modern societies governments are run by officials who do not inherit their positions of power but are elected or appointed on the basis of qualifications. (page 394)

Front 3

Politics

Back 3

The means by which power is employed to influence the nature and content of governmental activities. (page 394)

Front 4

Economy

Back 4

The system of production and exchange that provides for the material needs of individuals living in a given society. Economic institutions are of key importance in all social orders. (page 394)

Front 5

Power

Back 5

The ability of individuals or the members of a group to achieve aims or further the interests they hold. Power is a pervasive element in all human relationships. (page 394)

Front 6

Authority

Back 6

A government's legitimate use of power. (page 395)

Front 7

State

Back 7

A political apparatus (government institutions plus civil service officials) ruling over a given territorial order whose authority is backed by law and the ability to use force. (page 395)

Front 8

Nation-state

Back 8

A particular type of state, characteristic of the modern world, in which a government has sovereign power within a defined territorial area, and the population are citizens who know themselves to be part of a single nation. (page 395)

Front 9

Sovereignty

Back 9

The undisputed political rule of a state over a given territorial area. (page 395)

Front 10

Citizen

Back 10

A member of a political community, having both rights and duties associated with that membership. (page 396)

Front 11

Nationalism

Back 11

A set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national community. (page 396)

Front 12

Local nationalisms

Back 12

The beliefs that communities that share a cultural identity should have political autonomy, even within smaller units of a nation-state. (page 396)

Front 13

Civil rights

Back 13

Legal rights held by all citizens in a given national community. (page 396)

Front 14

Political rights

Back 14

Rights of political participation, such as the right to vote in local and national elections, held by citizens of a national community. (page 397)

Front 15

Franchise

Back 15

The right to vote. (page 397)

Front 16

Social rights

Back 16

Rights of social and welfare provision held by all citizens in a national community, including, for example, the right to claim unemployment benefits and sickness payments provided by the state. (page 397)

Front 17

Welfare state

Back 17

A political system that provides a wide range of welfare benefits for its citizens. (page 397)

Front 18

Democracy

Back 18

A political system that allows the citizens to participate in political decision making or to elect representatives to government bodies. (page 398)

Front 19

Participatory democracy

Back 19

A system of democracy in which all members of a group or community participate collectively in making major decisions. (page 398)

Front 20

Direct democracy

Back 20

A form of participatory democracy that allows citizens to vote directly on laws and policies. (page 398)

Front 21

Constitutional monarchs

Back 21

Kings or queens who are largely figureheads. Real power rests in the hands of other political leaders. (page 399)

Front 22

Liberal democracies

Back 22

A type of representative democracy in which elected representatives hold power. (page 399)

Front 23

Communism

Back 23

A set of political ideas associated with Marx, as developed particularly by Lenin and institutionalized in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and some developing countries. (page 399)

Front 24

Interest group

Back 24

A group organized to pursue specific interests in the political arena, operating primarily by lobbying the members of legislative bodies. (page 403)

Front 25

Suffrage

Back 25

A legal right to vote guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; guaranteed to women by the Nineteenth Amendment. (page 404)

Front 26

Democratic elitism

Back 26

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 leaders. (page 406)

Front 27

Pluralist theories of modern democracy

Back 27

Theories that emphasize the role of diverse and potentially competing interest groups, none of which dominate the political process. (page 406)

Front 28

Power elite

Back 28

Small networks of individuals who, according to C. Wright Mills, hold concentrated power in modern societies. (page 407)

Front 29

Terrorism

Back 29

Use of attacks on civilians designed to persuade a government to alter its policies, or to damage its standing in the world. (page 409)

Front 30

Old-style terrorism

Back 30

A type of terrorism that is local and linked to particular states and has limited objectives, which means that the violence involved is fairly limited. (page 410)

Front 31

New-style terrorism

Back 31

A recent form of terrorism characterized by global ambitions, loose global organizational ties, and a more ruthless attitude toward the violence the terrorists are willing to use. (page 410)

Front 32

Work

Back 32

The activity by which people produce from the natural world and so ensure their survival. Work should not be thought of exclusively as paid employment. In modern societies, there remain types of work that do not involve direct payment (for example, housework). (page 411)

Front 33

Occupation

Back 33

Any form of paid employment in which an individual regularly works. (page 411)

Front 34

Technology

Back 34

The application of knowledge of the material world to production; the creation of material instruments (such as machines) used in human interaction with nature. (page 412)

Front 35

Informal economy

Back 35

Economic transactions carried on outside the sphere of formal paid employment. (page 412)

Front 36

Division of labor

Back 36

The specialization of work tasks, by means of which different occupations are combined within a production system. All societies have at least some rudimentary form of division of labor, especially between the tasks allocated to men and those performed by women. (page 412)

Front 37

Economic interdependence

Back 37

The fact that in the division of labor, individuals depend on others to produce many or most of the goods they need to sustain their lives. (page 413)

Front 38

Alienation

Back 38

The sense that our own abilities as human beings are taken over by other entities. Karl Marx used the term to refer to the loss of workers' control over the nature and products of their labor. (page 414)

Front 39

Strike

Back 39

A temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand. (page 415)

Front 40

Union

Back 40

An organization that advances and protects the interests of workers with respect to working conditions, wages, and benefits. (page 415)

Front 41

Capitalism

Back 41

An economic system based on the private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit. (page 416)

Front 42

Corporations

Back 42

Business firms or companies. (page 417)

Front 43

Entrepreneur

Back 43

The owner or founder of a business firm. (page 417)

Front 44

Monopoly

Back 44

A situation in which a single firm dominates in a given industry. (page 417)

Front 45

Oligopoly

Back 45

The domination of a small number of firms in a given industry. (page 417)

Front 46

Family capitalism

Back 46

Capitalistic enterprise owned and administered by entrepreneurial families. (page 418)

Front 47

Managerial capitalism

Back 47

Capitalistic enterprises administered by managerial executives rather than by owners. (page 418)

Front 48

Welfare capitalism

Back 48

Practice in which large corporations protect their employees from the vicissitudes of the market. (page 418)

Front 49

Institutional capitalism

Back 49

Capitalistic enterprise organized on the basis of institutional shareholding. (page 418)

Front 50

Transnational corporations

Back 50

Business corporations located in two or more countries. (page 419)

Front 51

Automation

Back 51

Production processes monitored and controlled by machines with only minimal supervision from people. (page 421)

Front 52

Knowledge economy

Back 52

A society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but based instead on the production of knowledge. Its emergence has been linked to the development of a broad base of consumers who are technologically literate and have made new advances in computing, entertainment, and telecommunications part of their lives. (page 424)