SACE Stage 2 Politics, Power and People flashcards
SACE Stage 2 Politics, Power and People · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Ideology
- A coherent set of beliefs about human nature, society and the proper role of government that guides political action and justifies particular institutional arrangements.
- Negative liberty
- Freedom from external interference, coercion or constraint, associated with classical liberalism and the view that individuals should be left to pursue their own goals.
- Positive liberty
- Freedom to act and to realise one's potential, often requiring resources, education or state support, and associated with social liberalism and social democracy.
- Social democracy
- A reformist ideology accepting parliamentary democracy and a mixed economy while pursuing equality through welfare, public services and regulated markets rather than revolution.
- Conservatism
- An ideology valuing order, tradition, property and gradual change, sceptical of abstract rational planning and inclined to trust established institutions and inherited practice.
- Fascism
- An authoritarian ultranationalist ideology glorifying struggle and national or racial unity, suppressing opposition and rejecting liberal democracy, individual rights and class conflict.
- Civic nationalism
- A form of nationalism defining the nation by shared citizenship, political values and institutions rather than by descent, ethnicity or bloodline.
- Anarchism
- An ideology rejecting compulsory state authority and advocating voluntary cooperation, self-management and decentralised organisation of social and economic life.
- Double majority
- The referendum requirement under section 128: a national majority of votes plus majorities in at least four of the six states for constitutional change.
- Section 44
- The constitutional provision disqualifying from Parliament people with dual citizenship, undischarged bankruptcy, certain convictions or a paid office of profit under the Crown.
- Responsible government
- A convention under which the executive is drawn from and accountable to Parliament, must retain lower-house confidence and resign or seek an election after losing it.
- Collective ministerial responsibility
- The convention that all ministers publicly support Cabinet decisions or resign, maintaining government unity and confidentiality of Cabinet deliberations.
- Separation of powers
- The division of government into legislature, executive and judiciary, each with distinct functions and checks, so that power is not concentrated in one body.
- Preferential voting
- An electoral system where voters number candidates in order of preference and preferences are distributed until one candidate obtains an absolute majority.
- Quota (Senate)
- The proportion of the vote needed to win a Senate seat under proportional representation, calculated as total formal votes divided by seats plus one.
- Hung parliament
- A situation where no party holds a majority of lower-house seats, so government depends on negotiated confidence and supply support from crossbenchers.
- Judicial review
- The power of courts to examine legislation and executive action against the constitution and to declare invalid anything inconsistent with it.
- Three faces of power
- Lukes' framework: open decision-making, non-decision-making that excludes issues, and ideological power shaping beliefs and perceived interests.
- Legitimate authority
- Weber's concept of power accepted as rightful, resting on tradition, personal charisma or legal-rational rules and office, which secures voluntary compliance.
- Iron law of oligarchy
- Michels' claim that any large organisation, including democratic parties and unions, develops a ruling elite because organisation requires expertise and delegation.
- Pluralism
- The view that power is dispersed among competing groups and that no single elite consistently controls all policy decisions in a democratic system.
- Compulsory voting
- A legal requirement that enrolled citizens attend a polling place and vote at elections, enforced in Australia by a modest fine for non-compliance.
- Implied freedom of political communication
- A freedom derived from the constitutional requirement that members be directly chosen by the people, limiting laws that unduly burden political speech.
- Civil disobedience
- Deliberate, public and non-violent breach of a law to protest injustice, usually accepting punishment to demonstrate the law's moral wrongness.
- Social movement
- A sustained collective campaign by networks of people using protest and persuasion to pursue or resist social and political change outside normal electoral channels.
- Realism
- A theory holding that states act in an anarchic system to pursue power and national interest, and that international institutions cannot override state interests.
- Liberalism (international)
- A theory stressing that trade, international law, institutions and democracy reduce conflict by creating interdependence and shared rules among states.
- Sovereignty
- The principle that a state has supreme authority within its territory and legal equality with other states, including freedom from external interference.
- Responsibility to protect
- A 2005 norm holding that states must protect populations from atrocity crimes and that the international community may act if a state fails.
- Security Council veto
- The power of any of the five permanent members to block a substantive Security Council resolution, a structural limit on collective security action.
- Collective action problem
- A situation where shared benefits give individuals or states an incentive to free-ride on others' contributions, making cooperation difficult without monitoring and sanctions.
- Middle power
- A state without dominant military capability that influences international affairs through coalitions, diplomacy, niche expertise and support for multilateral rules.