UGC NET Political Science Comparative Political Analysis Syllabus

How is the post-colonial state characterised (Hamza Alavi)?

As 'overdeveloped' relative to its weak indigenous bourgeoisie—it inherits a powerful colonial bureaucratic-military apparatus and mediates among competing propertied classes (metropolitan bourgeoisie, indigenous bourgeoisie, landed classes).

What is a welfare state?

A state that assumes responsibility for citizens' basic economic security and social well-being through provision such as healthcare, education, pensions, unemployment benefits and social insurance, decommodifying aspects of welfare.

Name Esping-Andersen's three worlds of welfare capitalism.

Liberal (means-tested, market-reliant, e.g. USA), Conservative/Corporatist (status-based social insurance, e.g. Germany), and Social Democratic (universal, decommodifying, e.g. Sweden).

How does globalization challenge the nation-state's sovereignty?

By weakening states' control over capital flows, trade, production and information, empowering transnational corporations and bodies (IMF, WTO), and creating the 'hollowing out' of the state, though states still regulate and adapt.

What are Robert Dahl's defining institutions of 'polyarchy' (modern democracy)?

Elected officials, free/fair/frequent elections, freedom of expression, alternative sources of information, associational autonomy, and inclusive citizenship/suffrage.

Distinguish authoritarian from totalitarian regimes (Juan Linz).

Authoritarian regimes have limited pluralism, no elaborate guiding ideology (mentalities), and limited mobilisation; totalitarian regimes feature a single mass party, an all-encompassing ideology, and extensive mobilisation and terror penetrating all of society.

What is a 'hybrid regime' or 'competitive authoritarianism' (Levitsky and Way)?

A regime that holds genuine but unfair multiparty elections—formal democratic institutions exist yet incumbents systematically tilt the playing field, blurring the line between democracy and autocracy.

Distinguish a written/codified constitution from an unwritten/uncodified one.

A written constitution is contained in a single formal document (e.g. India, USA); an uncodified constitution draws on statutes, conventions and common law spread across sources (e.g. UK).

Distinguish a rigid constitution from a flexible constitution.

A rigid constitution requires a special, harder amendment procedure than ordinary law (e.g. USA); a flexible constitution can be amended by the ordinary legislative process (e.g. UK).

What is the 'rule of law' as articulated by A.V. Dicey?

Three principles: (1) supremacy of regular law over arbitrary power; (2) equality before the law for all, including officials; and (3) that constitutional principles result from ordinary court decisions (rights are judicially protected).

What does 'judicial independence' mean and how is it commonly secured?

The judiciary's freedom from control by the executive and legislature; secured through security of tenure, fixed/protected salaries, difficult removal procedures, and insulated appointment processes.

What is the core idea of 'liberal constitutionalism'?

That government power must be limited by law and structured to protect individual rights—through written constitutions, separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, and entrenched fundamental rights.

What is judicial review?

The power of courts to examine legislative and executive acts and declare them void if they conflict with the constitution; classically established in the US case Marbury v. Madison (1803).

Why are emergency powers seen as a 'crisis of constitutionalism'?

Because suspending normal rights/limits to meet emergencies (Schmitt's 'state of exception') concentrates power in the executive and risks becoming permanent, undermining the rule of law the constitution is meant to guarantee.

What is meant by 'democratic transition'?

The interval and process of regime change from authoritarian rule to democracy—beginning with the breakdown of the old regime and ending with the installation of a new government via free elections.

What is 'democratic consolidation'?

The process by which democracy becomes deeply entrenched and stable—when it becomes 'the only game in town,' accepted by all major actors and unlikely to break down (Linz and Stepan).

What are the four 'arenas' Linz and Stepan say a consolidated democracy requires?

A free civil society, a relatively autonomous political society, the rule of law, a usable state bureaucracy, and an institutionalized economic society (often listed as five conditions).

What does 'underdevelopment' mean in dependency theory?

Not an original or backward state but an actively produced condition—'the development of underdevelopment' (Frank)—created by a country's subordinate insertion into the world capitalist economy.

State the central thesis of dependency theory.

That poverty in periphery (satellite) nations results from their exploitative dependence on rich core (metropolitan) nations, which extract surplus and structure peripheral economies to serve core needs.

What is 'modernization theory' and its key claim?

A post-war theory (Rostow, Lerner) holding that societies progress along a unilinear path from 'traditional' to 'modern' by adopting Western values, technology and institutions; Rostow's five stages culminate in 'high mass consumption.'

List Rostow's five stages of economic growth.

(1) Traditional society, (2) preconditions for take-off, (3) take-off, (4) drive to maturity, and (5) age of high mass consumption.

What are the three structural positions in Wallerstein's World Systems Theory?

Core, periphery, and semi-periphery—within a single capitalist world-economy where the core exploits the periphery, and the semi-periphery occupies an intermediate, stabilising role.

What does Wallerstein mean by a single 'capitalist world-economy'?

A world system with one integrated division of labour and multiple political states but no single political centre, structured by ceaseless capital accumulation since the 'long sixteenth century.'

What is the relationship Lipset proposed between development and democracy?

His modernization/'social requisites' thesis: the more well-to-do (wealthier, more educated, urbanised) a nation, the greater the chances it will sustain democracy—economic development underpins democratic stability.

How does Marx define the 'ruling class'?

The class that owns and controls the means of production (the bourgeoisie under capitalism); its dominant economic position lets it dominate the state and ruling ideas—'the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class.'

What is C. Wright Mills's concept of the 'power elite'?

In The Power Elite (1956), the small, interlocking group of leaders from the corporate, military and political (executive) institutions who hold and coordinate the key decision-making power in American society.

What is the 'iron law of oligarchy' (Robert Michels)?

The thesis that all organisations, even democratic parties, inevitably develop a dominant ruling minority/leadership oligarchy—'who says organisation says oligarchy.'

What is 'democratic elitism' (Schumpeter)?

A theory redefining democracy as a competitive struggle among elites for the people's vote; democracy is 'that institutional arrangement... in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote.'

Compare First-Past-The-Post with Proportional Representation electoral systems.

FPTP (plurality, single-member districts) tends to produce two-party systems and majoritarian/disproportional results; PR allocates seats in proportion to votes (multi-member districts), tending toward multiparty systems and coalitions.

State Duverger's Law and the accompanying hypothesis.

Duverger's Law: single-ballot plurality (FPTP) systems tend to produce two-party systems; the hypothesis: proportional representation and two-ballot systems tend to favour multipartism.

How does Sartori classify party systems by number and ideological distance?

By format and polarization: one-party, hegemonic, predominant, two-party, moderate pluralism (3–5 parties, centripetal), polarized pluralism (5+ parties, anti-system parties, centrifugal), and atomized.

What distinguishes pluralist from corporatist interest-group systems?

Pluralism features many competing, voluntary, overlapping groups freely lobbying the state (e.g. USA); corporatism features a few peak, hierarchically organised groups officially incorporated into policymaking with the state (e.g. Scandinavia).

What are 'new social movements' and how do they differ from old class-based movements?

Movements (since the 1960s) focused on identity, quality of life and post-material issues—environment, peace, gender, civil rights—using decentralised networks and direct action, rather than the labour/class economic concerns of 'old' movements.

What is the difference between NGOs and civil society in political analysis?

Civil society is the broad sphere of voluntary associations between family/market and the state; NGOs are specific formal, non-profit organised bodies within civil society that deliver services, advocate, or campaign on public issues.

What is the key difference between a revolution and a coup d'état?

A revolution is a rapid, fundamental, mass-based transformation of a society's state and class structures; a coup is merely a sudden seizure of state power by a small group (often the military) without transforming social structure.

What is the central argument of Theda Skocpol's 'States and Social Revolutions' (1979)?

A structural, state-centred account: social revolutions (France, Russia, China) arise from the conjuncture of state crises (especially international/military pressure) and agrarian class structures enabling peasant revolt—'revolutions are not made; they come.'