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Democracy
A political system in which the rulers are accountable to the ruled through institutionalized participation and contestation
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Accountability
A way for citizens to remove rulers from office --> A political mechanism that offers citizens regular and realistic opportunities to remove the rulers from office through peaceful and constitutional means
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Electorate
a group of citizens eligible to participate in the election of government leaders
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Universal suffrage:
wherein all adult citizens have the right to participate in the electoral process that selects and removes government leaders
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Participation
Clear rules must institutionalize universal suffrage; political choices must be unforced
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Contestation:
Real competition for power must exist; there must be more than one group competing for power
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Constitution:
A set of key laws and principles that structure the extent and distribution of government authority and individual rights, by setting up the rules of the political game
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Unitarism:
the constitution grants the central government exclusive and final authority over policy-making across the entire national territory (France, Chile, Japan, Israel, UK)
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Federalism:
the constitution grants two or more governments overlapping political authority over the same group of people and same piece of territory (local, state, and federal levels) --> (US, India, Brazil, Mexico, Germany)
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Presidential system:
A constitutional format in which the executive and legislative branches enjoy both separation of origin and survival
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Separation of origin:
Voters directly elect the members of the legislature and also cast a separate ballot directly electing the chief executive and president
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Separation of Survival:
Members of both the executive and legislative branches serve for fixed terms of office
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Parliamentary system:
a constitutional format in which he executive and legislative branches have neither separation of origin nor separation of survival
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Prime Minister:
the chief executive in a parliamentary system
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No-Confidence Vote:
a parliamentary vote which, if successful, terminates the prime minister's appointment
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comparative politics
the systematic search for answers to political questions about how people around the world make and contest authoritative choices
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Method of Agreement
Compares and contrasts cases with different attributes but shared outcomes, seeking the one attribute these cases share in common to attribute causality
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