Absolutist state: A hybrid or transitional form that laid the foundations the modern nation-state wherein the nobility or feudal aristocracy continued to rule though the rise of 'natural law' theory began chipping away at this.
Acculturation: the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation.
Affect: a feeling or emotion as distinguished from cognition, thought, or action
Agents of political socialization: Those individuals or groups which influence and shape the political culture within a society. These include parents, teachers, religious institutions, friends, and coworkers.
Assimilation: the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another.
Autocracy: A form of government in which a single individual (king/queen/emperor/ dictator) rules
Behavioralist perspective: A view which considers the actions of individuals within a society and how they relate to each other and the institutions within it according to the degree of influence each possesses.
Chattel: An item of personal property which is not affixed to the land or building
Conservative: An individual who believes government should have a very limited role, in fact, as little a role as is possible, in effecting change in the lives of individuals.
Cultural relativism: The view that all cultures are unique and equally valid and should be viewed neutrally.
Democratic government: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Developmental States: A well-organized and state-controlled/planned society having well-defined but limited rights for citizens. Limitations reflect state-defined goals that foster national objectives such as economic growth.
Dictatorship: a form of government in which absolute authority is concentrated in a dictator, or a small group.
Ethnicity: Refers to the classification of people in social groups who share a cultural heritage with a common language, values, religion, customs and attitudes
Ethnicity gap: a term describing the tendency for members of different ethnic groups to express disparate differences in political ideology as expressed in voting behavior and polling data.
Gender gap: a term describing the tendency for women and men to express disparate differences in political ideology as expressed in voting behavior and polling data.
Generation gap: term describing disparate cultural differences between members of different age groups.
Globalization: the rapid growth of internationally connected economic, social, and cultural relations spurred by new communication, transportation, technology and shifts in population.
Hispanic: Refers to people, who, based upon self-identification are descendants of the Spanish settlers in the Southwest; descendants of early immigrants from Mexico; recent immigrants and their descendants from Mexico; Cuban refugees and their descendants; Puerto Ricans; and immigrants and their descendants from Spain and Central and South America. Hispanic is a cultural identification and not a race category. Persons of Hispanic origin can be of any race.
Institutional perspective: Considers the processes by which structures become established and operate to allocate, authoritatively, guidelines for behavior within a society.
Liberal: an individual who believes government should have and can have a positive role in effecting change in the lives of individuals.
Liberal market state: A nation-state wherein the production and distribution of goods and services takes place within the market that the government does not regulate.
Majority Rule: a process whereby decisions are made by the majority
Manifest Destiny: The belief that white Americans had a God-given right to occupy the entire North American continent. It is an expression used to describe any act of colonization and settlement which displaces geographically and or culturally, another race.
Mercantilism: refers to economic nationalism for the purpose of building a wealthy and powerful state.
Nation is a collection of people with a common culture, and by implication a common territory.
Natural Law: denotes a system of rules and principles for the guidance of human conduct which, independently of enacted law or of the systems peculiar to any one people, might be discovered by the rational intelligence of man, and would be found to grow out of and conform to his nature, meaning by that word his whole mental, moral, and physical constitution.
Naturalization: the proceeding whereby a foreigner is granted citizenship and accorded the rights and privileges possessed by all natural born citizens.
Oligarchy: A form of government in which a small group (landowners, military officers, or wealthy merchants for example) controls most of the governing decisions.
Political culture: A society's predominate attitudes, beliefs, values, ideals, sentiments, and evaluations about the political system of the geographic area in which they live.
Political ideology: Describes a coherent and consistent set of beliefs regarding the distribution of power and the content and scope of policy.
Political philosophy: the study of the relationship between individuals and government.
Political sociology: The study of power and relationships between society and politics.
Power: the capacity of an individual, group or institution to influence other individuals, groups or institutions.
Race: A social construction (label) that is used to 'categorize' people based upon skin color. This construction is falling out of favor because of increased numbers of multi-racial births and a propensity of individuals to no longer identify themselves using this construction.
Refugees: people who are forced to flee their homes due to persecution, whether on an individual basis or as part of a mass exodus due to political, religious, military or other problems.
Slave codes: laws created in the early colonies to proscribe certain behavior among African slaves.
Social Contract Theory: the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society.
State: All the government, or the public sector as well as the sinews that connects and binds societies together.
Totalitarian nation-state: A state characterized by a government that maintains and exercises absolute political authority and centralized control over the economy.
Wedge issue: Is defined as a controversial social or political issue used to create cleavages or the appearance of cleavages that divide groups in a society.