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26 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Alienation
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(Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx (in particular the Manuscripts of 1844), refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. In the concept's most important use, it refers to the social alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature" (Gattungswesen, usually translated as 'species-essence' or 'species-being'). He believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism.
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Bi-cameral System
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is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses. Bicameralism is an essential and defining feature of the classical notion of mixed government. Bicameral legislatures tend to require a concurrent majority to pass legislation.
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Charisma
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is a trait found in persons whose personalities are characterized by a personal charm and magnetism (attractiveness), along with innate and powerfully sophisticated abilities of interpersonal communication and persuasion. One who is charismatic is said to be capable of using their personal being, rather than just speech or logic alone, to interface with other human beings in a personal and direct manner, and effectively communicate an argument or concept to them.
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Demokratizatsija
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was a slogan introduced by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in January 1987 calling for the infusion of "democratic" elements into the Soviet Union's single-party government. For Gorbachev, demokratizatsiya meant the introduction of multi-candidate-not multiparty-elections for local Communist Party (CPSU) and Soviets. In this way, he hoped to rejuvenate the party with progressive personnel who would carry out his institutional and policy reforms. The CPSU would retain sole custody of the ballot box. Demokratizatsiya coincided with the announcement to Gorbachev's other reform programs including glasnost (increasing public discussion of issues and accessibility of information to the public), officially announced in mid-1986, and uskoreniye, a 'speed-up' of economic development, which failed miserably. Perestroika (political and economic restructuring), another slogan that became a full-scale campaign in 1987, embraced them all.
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Dialectical Materialism
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is the name granted to a strand of Marxist theorizing originating in the late 19th century, often wrongly attributed as 'the' philosophy of Marxism. The ideas associated with dialectical materialism formed the foundation of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy in the Soviet Union.
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Dictatorship of the Proletariat
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In Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat denotes the transitional socialist State between the capitalist class society and the classless communist society. During the transition, the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat,[1] The term, dictatorship, refers to the Classical Roman dictatura concept — republican and constitutional with absolute power while Marx's dictatorship of proletariat is revolutionary government with majority (proletarian) support which wield absolute power to replace the incumbent capitalist economic system and its socio-political supports, i.e. the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"
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Duma
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A Duma (Russian: Ду́ма, Russian pronunciation: [ˈdumə]) is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the last Czar, Nicholas II. It is also the term for a council to early Russian rulers ('Boyar Duma'), as well as for city councils in Imperial Russia ('Municipal dumas'), and city and regional legislative bodies in the Russian Federation.
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Duverger's Law
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In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that “The double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to multipartism”[1]
The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a “law” or principle. Duverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system. |
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Federal System
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Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together (Latin: foedus, covenant) with a governing representative head. The term federalism is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). Federalism is a system in which the power to govern is shared between national and central (state) governments, creating what is often called a federation. Proponents are often called federalists.
Federalism is the type of politics wherein a group of members create a sovereign constitution with central governing authority and political units. |
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Glasnost
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was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of 1980s.[1]
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Government
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A government is the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects[1].
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Hybrid Regimes
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The word legitimacy is often interpreted in a normative or a positive way. In a normative sense, legitimacy gets greater attention as a part of moral philosophy. A status conferred by the people on the government's officials, acts, and institution through their belief that the government's actions are an appropriate use of power by a legally constituted governmental authority following correct decisions on making policies.
According to the German political philosopher Dolf Sternberger, "Legitimacy is the foundation of such governmental power as is exercised both with a consciousness on the government's part that it has a right to govern and with some recognition by the governed of that right. |
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Maoism
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variably and officially known as Mao Zedong Thought (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想; pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism derived from the teachings of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles Romanization: "Mao Tse-tung"), widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology in the Communist Party of China (CPC) from Mao's ascendancy to its leadership until the inception of Deng Xiaoping Theory and Chinese economic reforms in 1978. It is also applied internationally in contemporary times. Maoist parties and groups exist throughout the world, with notable groups in Peru, India, and Nepal. Notably, in Nepal they won the elections in 2008.[1
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Monarchy
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is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state."[1] The person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during ancient and medieval times.
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"Nasty Brutish and Short"
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The life of mankind when in his natural state. Nasty, brutish and short aren't a firm of particularly unpleasant lawyers but a quotation from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, or the matter, forme, and power of a commonwealth, ecclesiasticall and civill, 1651. The fuller quotation of this phrase is even less appealing - "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Hobbes described the natural state of mankind (the state pertaining before a central government is formed) as a "warre of every man against every man". In the book he outlines the 'incommodites' of such a war:
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Nation
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A nation is a territory or country as political entity or a grouping of people who share real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, often possessing or seeking its own government.[1] The development and conceptualization of a nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,[2] although nationalists would trace nations into the past along uninterrupted lines of historical narrative.[3]
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Nomenklatura
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The nomenklatura were a small, elite subset of the general population in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc. The nomenklatura was analogous to the ruling class, which Communist doctrine denounced in the capitalist West.
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Perestroika
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is the Russian term (now used in English) for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987[1] by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuration of the Soviet political and economic system.
Perestroika is often argued to be one reason for the fall of communist political forces in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and for the end of the Cold War.[2] |
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Regime
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a regime is the form of government: the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of government and its interactions with society. For instance, the United States has one of the oldest regimes still active in the world, dating to the ratification of its Constitution in 1789. Although modern usage often gives the term a negative connotation, like an authoritarian one, Webster's definition clearly states that the word "regime" refers simply to a form of government.[2]
The term is also used to distinguish what is actually being enforced from what is considered legitimate. Enforcement of an unconstitutional statute would be a regime but not a law. |
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Socialism in One Country
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Socialism in One Country was a thesis put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin. The thesis held that given the defeat of all communist revolutions in Europe from 1917–1921 except in Russia, the Soviet Union should begin to strengthen itself internally. Though promoted at the time as an ideology of necessity, not core belief, the theory came to define the course of political construction within the Soviet Union throughout its history. Today the expression is largely used as one of approbation since its thesis is held to be antithetical to Marxist Socialism by Trotskyists and others
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Social Democrats
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is a political ideology of the political left and centre-left on the classic political spectrum. Social democracy emerged in the late 19th century from the socialist movement and continues to exert influence worldwide.[1] The concept of social democracy has changed throughout the decades since its inception. The fundamental difference between social democratic thought and other forms of socialism, such as orthodox Marxism, is a belief in the primacy of political action as opposed to the primacy of economic action or economic determinism.[1]
Historically, social democratic parties advocated socialism in the strict sense, which was to be achieved by class struggle. In the early 20th century, however, a number of socialist parties rejected revolution and other traditional ideas of Marxism such as class struggle, and went on to take more moderate positions. |
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Sovereignty
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is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. The concept has been discussed, debated and questioned throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day, although it has changed in its definition, concept, and application throughout, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. The current notion of state sovereignty was laid down in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which, in relation to states, codified the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state (rather than the Church). A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority.
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Surplus Value of Labor
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Surplus value is a concept used famously by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy, although he did not himself invent the concept. It refers roughly to that part of the new value created by production which is claimed by enterprises as "generic gross profit". Marx argues its ultimate source is unpaid surplus labor performed by the worker for the capitalist, and that the surplus-value is the primary basis for capital accumulation.
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Treaty of Westphalia
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The term Peace of Westphalia denotes the two peace treaties of Osnabrück (15 May 1648) and Münster (24 October 1648) that ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
The Peace of Westphalia treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III (Habsburg), the Kingdoms of Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic and their allies, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and sovereigns of the Free imperial cities. The treaties resulted from the first modern diplomatic congress, thereby initiating a new political order in central Europe, based upon the concept of a sovereign state governed by a sovereign. In the event, the treaties’ regulations became integral to the constitutional law of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), ending the Franco–Spanish War (1635–59), is considered part of the Peace of Westphalia, with which were ended the European wars of religion. |
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Unicameral System
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Unicameralism is the practice of having only one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Many countries with unicameral legislatures are often small and homogeneous unitary states and consider an upper house or second chamber unnecessary.
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Vanguard Party
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originally known as the Vanguard Nationalist and Socialist Party, a socialist political party in the Bahamas. The party was founded in 1971 by a group belonging to the youth organization of Progressive Liberal Party. The party was inspired by the Black Panther Party in the United States.
The Vanguard Party has failed to reach electoral success. In 1977, the party had put up five candidates, but could only muster 55 votes. In 1979, the party contested 18 seats, and won 173 votes. In the period 1979-1985, John T. McCartney was the party president. The party has close relations to the Communist Party of Cuba. The party publication is The Vanguard. |
