The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to politics and political science:
Politics – the exercise of power; process by which groups of people make collective decisions. Politics is the art or science of running governmental or state affairs (including behavior within civil governments), institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the corporate, academic, and religious segments of society.
Political science – the field concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior.
Fields of study of political science
Related disciplines
Political theory
Decision-making
Political institutions
Government
- Government
- Legitimacy
- Authority
- Tripartite classification of authority
- Traditional authority
- Charismatic authority
- Rational-legal authority
- Rule of law
- Constitution
- State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory.
- Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country.
- Microstate, a sovereign state having a very small population or land area, usually both.
- Multinational state, sovereign entity that comprises two or more nations or states.
- Nation state, a state where the majority identify with a single nation (with shared culture or ethnic group)
- Constituent state, a political subdivision of a state.
- Federated state, constituent states part of a federation.
- Fragile state, characterized by weak state capacity or weak state legitimacy leaving citizens vulnerable.
- Failed state, a state which has lost its ability to fulfill fundamental security and development functions, lacking effective control over its territory and borders.
- Vassal state, any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire.
- Buffer state, a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers.
- Stateless nation, an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own sovereign state.
Branches of government
The separation of powers is typically set in the constitution or basic law in order to achieve checks and balances within government. The typical model has three branches, and is referred to as the trias politica.
Political behavior
Political dysfunction
Types of polities and forms of government
By level of social organisation
By formal power structure
By source of power
- Autocracy, the source of power is the leader.
- Democracy, the source of power are the people through popular sovereignty.
- Ethnocracy, the source of power is ethnicity.
- Meritocracy, the source of power is talent.
- Noocracy, talent is measured by wisdom.
- Technocracy, talent is measured by expertise.
- Stratocracy, the source of power is the military.
- Military dictatorship
- Military junta
- Theocracy, the source of power is God(s).
- Christian republic
- Halachic state
- Hindu nation
- Islamic state
- Oligarchy, the source of power is the elite.
- Aristocracy, the elite are hereditary.
- Gerontocracy, the elite are the elderly.
- Plutocracy, the source of power is wealth.
Political ideologies and philosophies
- Authoritarianism
- Absolutism
- Totalitarianism
- Left-wing politics, usually focused on increasing egalitarianism.
- Far-left politics
- Anarchism
- Communism
- Autonomism
- Dengism
- Leninism
- Maoism
- MarxismâÂÂLeninism
- Stalinism
- Titoism
- Trotskyism
- Socialism
- Agrarian socialism
- Democratic socialism
- Liberal socialism
- Libertarian socialism
- Market socialism
- Marxist socialism (Scientific)
- Religious socialism
- Scientific socialism
- Social democracy
- Centre-left politics
- Gradualism
- Progressivism
- Reformism
- Green politics
- Green anarchism
- Ecofeminism
- Eco-socialism
- Centrism, usually defined by highly pragmatic politics.
- Radical centrism
- Syncretic politics
- Third Position
- Third Way
- Liberalism, defined by high valuing of liberty.
- Classical liberalism
- Conservative liberalism
- Neoliberalism
- Social liberalism
- Modern liberalism (in the United States)
- Right-libertarianism, often defined as high valuation of private property
- Paleolibertarianism
- Minarchism
- Anarcho-capitalism
- Right-wing politics, often defined by opposition to social change, and a veneration of tradition.
- Centre-right politics
- Christian democracy
- Compassionate conservatism
- Liberal conservatism
- One-nation conservatism
- Progressive conservatism
- Conservatism
- Fiscal conservatism
- Fusionism
- Libertarian conservatism
- National conservatism
- Neoconservatism
- Paleoconservatism
- Social conservatism
- Traditional conservatism
- Far-right politics, political ideas which are described as reactionary, ultranationalist, chauvinistic, xenophobic or racist.
- Alt-right
- Fascism
- Nazism
- Identity politics, political ideologies concerned with the interests of the members of a specific group.
- Black power
- Feminism
- Gay pride
- Indigenism
- Islamism
- Nationalism, based on the centrality of the nation.
- Civic nationalism
- Ethnic nationalism
- Expansionist nationalism
- Irredentism
- Pan-nationalism
- Racial nationalism
- Left-wing nationalism
- Liberal nationalism
- Territorial nationalism
- Secessionism
- Zionism
- Environmentalism
Governments of the world
Political issues and policies
Politics by continent
Foreign relations by continents
Political parties by continent
History of politics
Political scholars
Influential literature
See also
Further reading
- Roskin, M.; Cord, R. L.; Medeiros, J. A.; Jones, W. S. (2007). Political Science: An Introduction. 10th ed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall. (10). (13).
- Tausch, A.; Prager, F. (1993). Towards a Socio-Liberal Theory of World Development. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press.
- Oxford Handbooks of Political Science – ten-volume set covering the political science topics political methodology, public policy, political theory, political economy, comparative politics, contextual political analysis, international relations, Law and Politics, political behavior, and political institutions. The general editor of the series is Robert E. Goodin.
References
External links