Flashcards: Political systems

A political system is a system of politics and government.

Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power.

Federalism is distinguished from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level.

Caesaropapism /ˌsiːzəroʊˈpeɪpɪzəm/ is the idea of combining the power of secular government with the religious power, or making it superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government.

Corporatocracy /ˌkɔːrpərəˈtɒkrəsi/, is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.

A dominant-party system or one-party dominant system, is a system where there is "a category of parties/political organisations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe, influenced by national syndicalism.

A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch.

A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state.

Khanate or Khaganate is a political entity ruled by a Khan or Khagan.

A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national election, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition.

World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective), a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change, emphasizes the world-system (and not nation states) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis.

Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.

Dual monarchy occurs when two separate kingdoms are ruled by the same monarch, follow the same foreign policy, exist in a customs union with each other and have a combined military but are otherwise self-governing.

Real union is a union of two or more states, which share some state institutions as in contrast to personal unions; however they are not as unified as states in a political union.

A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers.

A federacy is a form of government where one or several substate units enjoy considerably more independence than the majority of the substate units.

Cooperative federalism (1930s-1970s) is a concept of federalism in which national, state, and local governments interact cooperatively and collectively to solve common problems, rather than making policies separately but more or less equally (such as the dual federalism of the 19th century United States) or clashing over a policy in a system dominated by the national government.

An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, or hybrid regime, is a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties.

Confessionalism (Arabic: محاصصة طائفية‎‎ muḥāṣaṣah ṭā’ifīyah) is a system of government that refers to de jure mix of religion and politics.

Corporative federalism is a system of federalism not based on the common federalist idea of relative land area or nearest spheres of influence for governance, but on fiduciary jurisdiction to corporate personhood in which groups that are considered incorporated members of their own prerogative structure by willed agreement can delegate their individual effective legislature within the overall government.