Political Science & Government

Forms of Government

• Democracy — political authority derived from the people; may be direct (citizens vote on laws directly, as in Athenian assembly or modern referenda) or representative (elected agents legislate on behalf of constituents).
• Republic — government in which supreme power rests with citizens acting through elected representatives; often distinguished from pure democracy by constitutional constraints on majority rule.
• Constitutional monarchy — monarch serves as ceremonial head of state while an elected parliament holds governing power; examples: United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan.
• Absolute monarchy — monarch holds supreme, largely unchecked authority; example: Saudi Arabia (modified by council structures).
• Oligarchy — a small group holds power, typically based on wealth, military strength, or family ties; plutocracy specifies rule by the wealthy.
• Aristocracy — rule by a hereditary noble class, often distinguished from meritocracy (rule by the most qualified).
• Theocracy — religious law and clergy govern the state; examples: Iran (Islamic Republic, with a Supreme Leader), Vatican City.
• Authoritarian regime — concentrated power, limited political pluralism, but may permit some civil society; examples: contemporary Russia, Hungary’s illiberal democracy debate.
• Totalitarian regime — seeks to control all aspects of public and private life; examples: Nazi Germany, Stalinist USSR, North Korea.
• Military junta — government controlled by military officers who have seized power; examples: Myanmar post-2021 coup, historical Latin American regimes.

Political Ideologies

Core Spectrum Concepts

• Liberalism (classical) — individual liberty, limited government, free markets, rule of law; associated with Locke and Mill; underpins modern liberal democracies.
• Liberalism (modern/social) — retains individual rights but accepts state intervention to correct inequality and provide welfare; associated with John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971).
• Conservatism — preference for tradition, established institutions, and incremental change; Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is the founding text; skeptical of abstract reason remaking society.
• Socialism — collective or state ownership of the means of production; redistribution of wealth; spectrum from democratic socialism (via elections) to revolutionary socialism.
• Marxism — Marx and Engels: history driven by class struggle; capitalism produces alienation and eventually its own contradictions; the proletariat will overthrow the bourgeoisie; the state will eventually wither away under communism.
• Communism — a classless, stateless society with common ownership of production; as practiced in the USSR, China, Cuba, it involved single-party rule and command economies.
• Fascism — ultranationalism, authoritarian single-party rule, glorification of violence and the state, suppression of opposition; associated with Mussolini (Italy) and Hitler (Nazi Germany, a racial variant).
• Anarchism — advocates abolishing all coercive hierarchies, including the state; variants include anarcho-communism (Bakunin, Kropotkin) and anarcho-capitalism.
• Libertarianism — maximal individual freedom, minimal state; distinguishes from classical liberalism by more consistent anti-statism across social and economic domains.
• Nationalism — loyalty and devotion to a nation; civic nationalism (shared citizenship) vs. ethnic nationalism (shared ancestry/culture).
• Populism — anti-elite appeal to “the people” against a corrupt establishment; appears on both left (Bernie Sanders style) and right (Trump, Orbán); scholars debate whether it is an ideology or a rhetorical style.

Political Theory and Key Thinkers

Social Contract Tradition

• Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651) — the natural state of humanity is a “war of all against all”; people consent to an absolute sovereign (Leviathan) to escape chaos; sovereignty is indivisible.
• John Locke (Two Treatises of Government, 1689/1690) — natural rights are life, liberty, and property; government authority is derived from consent of the governed; the people may revolt if government violates natural rights; major influence on the Declaration of Independence.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract, 1762) — “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”; the general will (volonté générale) represents the common good and should govern; popular sovereignty.

Separation of Powers

• Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws, 1748) — articulated the tripartite separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers as a check against tyranny; directly influenced the US Constitution’s framers.
• Federalist Papers — 85 essays by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (1787–1788) defending the proposed Constitution; Federalist No. 51 (Madison) elaborates checks and balances; No. 10 argues extended republics control factionalism.

Other Canonical Figures

• Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince, 1532) — advised rulers to prioritize effective power over morality; originated “Machiavellian” as a descriptor of pragmatic, amoral statecraft.
• John Stuart Mill — classical liberal; On Liberty (1859) defends individual freedom against social and government tyranny; harm principle: liberty is limited only when actions harm others; also wrote Considerations on Representative Government.
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867); historical materialism; base (economic) and superstructure (law, politics, culture).
• Max Weber — defined the state as the entity claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of force; ideal types of authority: traditional, charismatic, rational-legal.
• Hannah Arendt — The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951); The Banality of Evil (from the Eichmann trial); distinguished between labor, work, and action.
• John Rawls — veil of ignorance thought experiment: just principles are those chosen without knowing one’s place in society; difference principle: inequalities are acceptable only if they benefit the least advantaged.
• Robert Dahl — coined polyarchy for actually-existing democracies; criteria include free elections, freedom of expression, alternative information sources.

Comparative Political Systems

Presidential vs. Parliamentary

Feature	Presidential	Parliamentary
Executive selection	Elected separately	PM chosen by legislature
Separation of powers	Strict	Fused
Executive removal	Impeachment (difficult)	Vote of no confidence
Examples	USA, Brazil, Mexico	UK, Canada, Germany, Japan

• Semi-presidential — president elected by popular vote shares executive power with a prime minister (PM) responsible to parliament; examples: France, Finland, Poland.

Federal vs. Unitary

• Federal — sovereignty shared between national and subnational (state/province) governments; subnational units have constitutionally protected powers; examples: USA, Germany, India, Australia, Canada.
• Unitary — central government is sovereign; subnational units exercise only delegated authority; examples: France, Japan, UK (though with devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland).
• Confederation — loose association of sovereign states that delegate limited powers to a central body; historical examples: US Articles of Confederation (1781–1789), Confederate States of America; modern analogue: EU (partially).

Electoral Systems

• First-past-the-post (FPTP) — the plurality winner in each single-member district wins; tends to produce two-party systems (Duverger’s law); used in the US, UK, Canada.
• Proportional representation (PR) — seats allocated in proportion to vote share; favors multi-party systems; used in most of Europe; variants include party-list PR and mixed-member proportional (Germany, New Zealand).
• Ranked-choice voting (RCV) / instant runoff — voters rank candidates; lowest vote-getters are eliminated and their votes redistributed until one candidate has a majority; used in Australia, some US jurisdictions.
• Two-round system — if no candidate wins a majority in the first round, a runoff is held between the top two; used in French presidential elections.
• Duverger’s Law — FPTP electoral systems tend toward two dominant parties; PR tends toward multi-party systems.

International Relations

Core Concepts

• Sovereignty — the principle that states have supreme authority within their own territory and are not subject to external interference; foundational to the Westphalian system (1648).
• Balance of power — states counterbalance rising hegemons through alliances or internal buildup to prevent domination; classical realist concept.
• Hegemony — a dominant state with disproportionate power shaping rules of the international system; hegemonic stability theory (Kindleberger, Gilpin): a hegemon provides public goods such as free trade and security.
• Soft power — coined by Joseph Nye; the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce; includes cultural appeal, diplomacy, and international institutions.
• Hard power — coercive capacity: military force and economic sanctions.

IR Theories

Theory	Core Assumption	Key Thinkers
Realism	States are rational, self-interested; power is paramount	Thucydides, Morgenthau, Waltz
Liberal internationalism	Institutions, trade, democracy reduce conflict	Kant, Woodrow Wilson, Keohane, Nye
Constructivism	Interests and identities are socially constructed	Wendt; anarchy “is what states make of it”
Marxist/Critical	World system shaped by capitalism and class	Wallerstein, dependency theory

• Mutual assured destruction (MAD) — nuclear deterrence doctrine: both sides’ capacity for devastating second-strike retaliation prevents first strikes.

Major International Organizations

• United Nations — founded 1945; 193 member states; principal organs include the General Assembly (one state, one vote) and the Security Council (15 members: 5 permanent — US, UK, France, Russia, China — each with veto power; 10 rotating non-permanent members elected for 2-year terms).
• NATO — North Atlantic Treaty Organization; founded 1949; collective defense alliance; Article 5 declares an attack on one member is an attack on all (does not mandate a specific military response).
• European Union — political and economic union of 27 member states (as of 2026); has its own parliament, court, and currency (euro, used by 20 of the 27 members in the eurozone).
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) / World Bank — Bretton Woods institutions (1944); IMF focuses on monetary stability and balance-of-payments crises; World Bank on development lending.

The US Political System

Constitutional Structure

• Three branches — (1) Legislative: bicameral Congress (Senate + House of Representatives); (2) Executive: President + Vice President + Cabinet; (3) Judicial: Supreme Court + lower federal courts.
• Checks and balances — each branch limits the others; e.g., Congress passes laws, the President signs or vetoes, the Supreme Court may strike down as unconstitutional; Senate confirms executive appointments and ratifies treaties.
• Enumerated vs. implied powers — Article I §8 lists Congress’s specific powers; the Necessary and Proper Clause (elastic clause) allows implied powers; the 10th Amendment reserves non-delegated powers to states.
• Supremacy Clause — the Constitution and federal law are the supreme law of the land (Article VI).
• Amendment process — requires two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of states (or a constitutional convention route, never used).

Congress

• Senate — 100 senators, 2 per state, 6-year staggered terms; confirms presidential nominations (majority vote, since 2019 for all nominees); ratifies treaties (two-thirds); sole power to try impeachments.
• House of Representatives — 435 voting members, apportioned by population, 2-year terms; all revenue bills must originate here; initiates impeachment.
• Filibuster — Senate procedure allowing unlimited debate to delay or block a vote; ended by cloture, which requires 60 of 100 senators (Senate Rule XXII); not in the Constitution.
• Reconciliation — budget-related legislation that bypasses the filibuster; requires only a simple majority.

Executive Branch

• Electoral College — 538 total electors (one per senator + one per representative + 3 for DC per the 23rd Amendment); 270 needed to win; most states use winner-take-all allocation.
• Cabinet — 15 executive departments headed by Secretaries (e.g., State, Defense, Treasury); all require Senate confirmation.
• Presidential powers — commander in chief of armed forces; veto legislation (Congress can override by two-thirds of both chambers); executive orders; pardon power for federal offenses.
• War Powers Resolution (1973) — requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing forces; limits unauthorized deployments to 60 days without congressional authorization; presidential compliance has been contested.

Judicial Branch

• Supreme Court — 9 justices (not constitutionally fixed); lifetime appointments; judicial review (power to strike down laws as unconstitutional) was established by Marbury v. Madison (1803) — see Documents & Law.
• Federal court structure — district courts (trial level) → circuit courts of appeals (13 circuits) → Supreme Court.
• Originalism vs. living constitutionalism — two major interpretive philosophies; originalists look to the original meaning or intent of the text; living constitutionalists hold the meaning evolves with society.

Key Concepts in US Politics

• Federalism — division of power between national and state governments; cooperative federalism (intergovernmental programs) vs. dual federalism (“layer cake,” separate spheres).
• Separation of church and state — derived from the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause; the government may not establish an official religion.
• Civil liberties vs. civil rights — civil liberties are protections from government action (free speech, due process); civil rights are protections against discrimination (equal treatment under law).
• Political parties — the US has a durable two-party system (Republican and Democratic parties) reinforced by FPTP elections; third parties have rarely won national office.

Rule of Law and Civil Liberties

• Rule of law — no person or institution is above the law; laws must be publicly known, consistently applied, and independently adjudicated.
• Due process — procedural due process: fair procedures before deprivation of life, liberty, or property; substantive due process: certain fundamental rights cannot be infringed regardless of procedure; rooted in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
• Habeas corpus — the right to challenge unlawful detention before a court; can be suspended in cases of rebellion or invasion (Article I §9).
• Suffrage — the right to vote; expanded through the 15th (race, 1870), 19th (sex, 1920), 24th (poll tax, 1964), and 26th (age 18, 1971) Amendments.
• Freedom of expression — cornerstone of liberal democracy; protected by the First Amendment in the US; most democracies have constitutional equivalents with varying limits on hate speech, incitement, and libel.
• Fourth Estate — the press as an informal check on government power alongside the three formal branches.
• Lobbying — legal in the US; interest groups employ lobbyists to influence legislators; the revolving door describes officials moving between government and industries they regulated.
• Incumbency advantage — the tendency for sitting officeholders to win re-election at markedly higher rates than challengers; in U.S. House elections, re-election rates have historically exceeded 90%; attributed to name recognition, franking privilege, constituency service, and superior fundraising access; a structural feature of electoral competition studied in political science.
• Defamation — a false statement of fact communicated to a third party that damages a person’s reputation; subdivided into libel (written) and slander (spoken); in U.S. law, the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) ruling held that public officials must prove actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth) to recover damages, giving broad First Amendment protection to press criticism of government; a central concept at the intersection of free expression and civil liability.

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Additional Political Theory & Key Works

• Plato’s Republic — Socratic dialogue arguing that the ideal city-state is governed by philosopher-kings; outlines five regime types in order of decay: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny; introduces the allegory of the cave to illustrate the philosopher’s ascent to knowledge.
• Aristotle’s Politics — classifies regimes by who rules and whether they rule in the common interest: monarchy/tyranny, aristocracy/oligarchy, polity/democracy; polity (rule by many for the common good) is the most stable; Aristotle calls man a “political animal” (zoon politikon).
• Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy — companion to The Prince; argues republican government is more durable than princely rule; praises the Roman republic for mixing aristocratic, monarchical, and popular elements; contrasts with the purely instrumental advice of The Prince.
• Edmund Burke — Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is the foundational text of modern conservatism; argued tradition embodies accumulated wisdom and reforms should be gradual; opposed the abstract rationalism of the French revolutionaries.
• Montesquieu’s separation of powers — in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), argued that liberty is best preserved by dividing legislative, executive, and judicial functions among separate institutions that check each other; directly borrowed by Madison and the Constitutional Convention.
• Rousseau’s general will — the volonté générale in The Social Contract (1762) is not the sum of individual preferences but the collective interest of a community; citizens alienate natural freedom to gain civil freedom under the general will; critics argue the concept can justify authoritarian “forcing people to be free.”
• Locke’s natural rights — in the Second Treatise, rights of life, liberty, and property exist in the state of nature prior to government; government is created by consent specifically to protect them; if it fails, the people retain a right of revolution.
• Hobbes’s Leviathan — the state of nature is a condition of war “of every man against every man,” and life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”; rational actors therefore covenant to surrender freedom to an absolute sovereign in exchange for security; sovereignty is indivisible and irrevocable.
• Antonio Gramsci / hegemony — Italian Marxist who wrote Prison Notebooks (1929–1935); developed cultural hegemony: the ruling class maintains power not only through force but by securing consent via dominant ideas, norms, and culture; proposed the war of position (gradual cultural struggle) vs. war of maneuver (direct assault).
• Robert Nozick / Anarchy, State, and Utopia — 1974 libertarian response to Rawls; argues only a minimal “nightwatchman” state (protecting against force and theft) can be justified without violating individual rights; entitlement theory: a distribution is just if it arose through just acquisition and transfer.
• Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism — 1951 analysis tracing the ideological and institutional roots of Nazi and Stalinist totalitarianism through antisemitism and imperialism; distinguished totalitarianism from ordinary despotism by its use of ideology and terror to transform human nature itself.
• Arendt’s The Human Condition — distinguishes labor (biological necessity), work (fabricating durable objects), and action (political life in the public realm); argues modernity has collapsed these distinctions, threatening genuine political freedom.
• Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty — 1958 lecture distinguishing negative liberty (freedom from interference) and positive liberty (freedom to self-govern or self-realize); warns that positive liberty can be hijacked to justify coercion in the name of one’s “true” self.
• Alexis de Tocqueville — Democracy in America (1835–1840): French aristocrat who observed the United States and analyzed democratic equality’s tendency toward tyranny of the majority and soft despotism; praised voluntary associations as a bulwark of democratic liberty.
• Joseph Schumpeter — Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942); procedural democracy: democracy is not rule by the people but competition among elites for votes; voters choose between competing leadership groups, not policies.
• Samuel Huntington — The Clash of Civilizations (1996): post–Cold War conflicts will be driven by cultural and religious identities, not ideology or economics; The Third Wave (1991) documented democratization in the 1970s–1980s.
• Francis Fukuyama — The End of History and the Last Man (1992): the triumph of liberal democracy after the Cold War represents the endpoint of ideological evolution; later revised to acknowledge challenges from nationalism and populism.
• Giovanni Sartori — political scientist who developed a typology of party systems (two-party, limited pluralism, extreme pluralism, predominant-party); influential in comparative politics alongside Robert Dahl.
• Iron law of oligarchy — Robert Michels’s thesis (Political Parties, 1911) that all organizations, even democratic ones, inevitably develop a small ruling leadership class; large-scale organization requires specialization and coordination that empowers an elite.

Comparative Systems: Additional Concepts

• Consociationalism — Arend Lijphart’s model for managing deep social divisions (ethnic, religious) through power-sharing among elites of each segment; features grand coalitions, mutual veto, proportionality, and segmental autonomy; examples: Belgium, Switzerland, Lebanon.
• Westminster model — parliamentary system characterized by single-party majority government, strong cabinet dominance, FPTP elections, and a unitary state; contrasted with consensus democracy (Lijphart) featuring coalition governments and PR.
• Median voter theorem — in a two-candidate election on a single policy dimension, both candidates converge to the position preferred by the median voter to maximize votes (Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, 1957).
• Gerrymandering — manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor one party or group; named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, whose 1812 redistricting created a salamander-shaped district; partisan gerrymandering (political) vs. racial gerrymandering (racial).
• Spoils system (patronage) — practice of appointing political supporters to government positions regardless of merit; associated with Andrew Jackson; largely replaced by the merit/civil service system after the Pendleton Act (1883).
• Corporatism — a system in which the state organizes interest groups (business, labor) into officially recognized, non-competitive bodies that negotiate policy with the government; neo-corporatism in Scandinavia involves peak associations in tripartite bargaining (state, capital, labor).
• Proportional representation — party-list — voters choose parties rather than individual candidates; seats allocated proportionally; closed list (party determines candidate order) vs. open list (voters can express candidate preferences).
• Mixed-member proportional (MMP) — voters cast two ballots: one for a constituency representative (FPTP) and one for a party list; list seats compensate parties underrepresented in constituencies; used in Germany (as the Bundestag model) and New Zealand.
• Overton window — the range of policy ideas considered politically acceptable at a given time; policies outside the window are seen as extreme; the concept (Joseph Overton) holds that political actors can shift the window by advocating more radical positions.
• Veto players — George Tsebelis’s theory: the number of actors whose agreement is required to change the policy status quo; more veto players produce policy stability; relevant in comparing presidential vs. parliamentary vs. federal systems.
• Party systems — classified by number and ideological distance of relevant parties; two-party (US, UK under FPTP), multi-party (most European PR systems), dominant-party (Japan’s LDP era, South Africa’s ANC); Sartori’s polarized pluralism describes fragmented systems with anti-system parties at the extremes.
• Dealignment and realignment — realignment: a durable shift in the partisan coalition defining a party system (V.O. Key’s “critical elections”); dealignment: weakening of voter attachment to parties, rising independent identification.
• Electoral college — faithless electors — electors who vote for a candidate other than their state’s popular vote winner; 33 states plus DC legally bind electors; the Supreme Court upheld such laws in Chiafalo v. Washington (2020). verify: confirm Chiafalo case name and year.

International Relations: Additional Concepts

• Structural realism (neorealism) — Kenneth Waltz (Theory of International Politics, 1979) shifted from human nature (Morgenthau’s classical realism) to the structure of the international system (anarchy + distribution of capabilities) as the cause of state behavior; great powers compete for security, not necessarily power maximization.
• Hans Morgenthau — Politics Among Nations (1948); classical realism; six principles including the concept of the national interest defined in terms of power; the statesman must pursue power while acting under moral constraints.
• Liberalism / complex interdependence — Keohane and Nye (Power and Interdependence, 1977); when states are highly interdependent economically, military force becomes less useful and international institutions grow more important.
• Woodrow Wilson / liberal internationalism — Fourteen Points (1918) proposed self-determination, freedom of the seas, open diplomacy, and a League of Nations; the US Senate rejected the League, but Wilson’s idealism shaped post-WWII institutions.
• Constructivism — Alexander Wendt’s famous claim: “anarchy is what states make of it” (Social Theory of International Politics, 1999); state identities and interests are not given by nature but constructed through interaction; shared ideas shape behavior as much as material forces.
• Security dilemma — John Herz (1950): when one state increases its security (e.g., arms buildup), other states perceive a threat and respond in kind, leaving all states less secure; a structural cause of arms races and war even without aggressive intent.
• Deterrence theory — the threat of retaliation deters attack; credibility and capability are the two necessary conditions; extended deterrence covers allies; contrasted with compellence (coercing a change in behavior).
• Joseph Nye / soft power — coined in Bound to Lead (1990) and developed in Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004); soft power resources include culture, political values, and foreign policy perceived as legitimate; contrasted with smart power (combining hard and soft).
• Hegemonic stability theory — Charles Kindleberger and Robert Gilpin: a stable liberal international economic order requires a hegemon willing to provide public goods (reserve currency, open markets, security); hegemonic decline produces disorder.
• Westphalian sovereignty — the principle, traced to the Peace of Westphalia (1648) ending the Thirty Years’ War, that states have supreme authority within their territory and other states may not interfere in their internal affairs; the basis of the modern state system.
• Responsibility to Protect (R2P) — doctrine adopted by the UN World Summit (2005): states have a responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity; if a state fails, the international community may intervene. verify: confirm R2P adoption was 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, not a treaty.
• Collective security — the principle that aggression against any member of a collective is met by a response from all; the basis of the League of Nations and the UN Charter Chapter VII; distinct from alliance-based balance of power.
• Democratic peace theory — originated with Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1795); empirically formalized by Michael Doyle (1983) and Bruce Russett; liberal democracies almost never go to war with each other, though the causal mechanism is debated (institutional constraints, shared norms, economic interdependence).
• World-systems theory — Immanuel Wallerstein: the capitalist world economy is organized into core (advanced industrial states exploiting the periphery), periphery (raw-material exporters), and semi-periphery (industrializing states); structural inequality is reproduced across centuries.

International Organizations: Additional Detail

• UN Security Council — 5 permanent members (P5): United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China; each holds veto power over substantive resolutions; 10 non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly for 2-year terms; the P5 composition reflects the post-WWII power structure.
• UN General Assembly — all 193 member states have one vote; resolutions are not legally binding on members but carry political weight; passes the UN budget; elects non-permanent Security Council members.
• UN Secretary-General — chief administrative officer of the UN; currently (as of 2026) António Guterres (second term began 2022); appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council.
• International Court of Justice (ICJ) — the UN’s principal judicial organ; settles disputes between states (not individuals); 15 judges elected by the General Assembly and Security Council; seated in The Hague; advisory opinions are non-binding.
• International Criminal Court (ICC) — distinct from the ICJ; prosecutes individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and (since 2018) the crime of aggression; the US, China, Russia, India, and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute.
• European Union institutions — European Commission (executive body, proposes legislation, one commissioner per member state); Council of the EU (ministers from member governments, legislative and executive functions); European Parliament (directly elected by EU citizens, co-legislates with Council); European Court of Justice (interprets EU law).
• World Trade Organization (WTO) — succeeded GATT (1947); 164 members (as of mid-2020s); operates on consensus; dispute settlement mechanism; most-favored-nation (MFN) principle requires that trade concessions extended to one member be extended to all; the Doha Development Round (launched 2001) has largely stalled.
• Bretton Woods system — post-WWII monetary order established at Bretton Woods, NH (1944); created the IMF and World Bank; fixed exchange rates pegged to the US dollar (which was convertible to gold); collapsed when Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility in 1971 (Nixon shock).
• NATO Article 5 — the collective defense clause of the North Atlantic Treaty; an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all; Article 5 has been invoked once, after September 11, 2001.

Key Political Concepts (Additional)

• Legitimacy (Weber’s types) — Max Weber identified three ideal types of legitimate authority: traditional (sanctioned by long-standing custom and hereditary status), charismatic (derived from personal appeal and perceived exceptional qualities of a leader), rational-legal (authority rests in impersonal rules and procedures, e.g., bureaucracies and constitutional offices).
• State monopoly on violence — Weber’s definition of the state as the entity that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory; foundational to modern political sociology.
• Totalitarianism vs. authoritarianism — Juan Linz’s distinction: authoritarian regimes limit pluralism and demobilize civil society but do not impose a guiding utopian ideology; totalitarian regimes seek comprehensive control of public and private life, enforced through mass mobilization and ideology.
• Social contract — the theoretical device across Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau in which individuals in a state of nature voluntarily agree to surrender some freedoms to a political authority in exchange for security and social order; the justification for political obligation under consent-based government.
• Sovereignty — popular vs. parliamentary — popular sovereignty (Rousseau, Jefferson): ultimate authority resides in the people; parliamentary sovereignty (British tradition): Parliament is the supreme legal authority, and no court can invalidate Acts of Parliament.
• Political culture — Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (The Civic Culture, 1963): the pattern of orientations toward political objects (parochial, subject, participant); civic culture (mix of subject and participant orientations) is most conducive to stable democracy.
• Path dependence — historical choices constrain future options; institutional arrangements persist even after their original rationale disappears (lock-in); applied in comparative politics to explain divergent outcomes across countries with similar starting points.
• Civil society — the realm of voluntary associations, NGOs, religious institutions, and informal networks outside the state and market; Tocqueville and later Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone, 2000) argued dense civil society sustains democratic participation.