charismatic authority authority based on an individual's outstanding traits, which attract followersroutinization of charisma the transfer of authority from a charismatic figure to either a traditional or a rational-legal form of authoritycity-state an independent city whose power radiates outward, bringing the adjacent area under its rulemonarchy a form of government headed by a king or queendemocracy a government whose authority comes from the people; the term, based on two Greek words, translates literally as "power to the people"direct democracy a form of democracy in which the eligible voters meet together to discuss issues and make their decisionsRepresentative democracya form of democracy in which voters elect representatives to meet together to discuss issues and make decisions on their behalfcitizenship the concept that birth (and residence or naturalization) in a country imparts basic rightsuniversal citizenship the idea that everyone has the same basic rights by virtue of being born in a country (or by immigrating and becoming a naturalized citizendictatorship a form of government in which an individual has seized poweroligarchy a form of government in which a small group of individuals holds power; the rule of the many by the fewtotalitarianism a form of government that exerts almost total control over peopleproportional representation an electoral system in which seats in a legislature are divided according to the proportion of votes that each political party receivesnoncentrist party a political party that represents ideas that are not at the center of political opinioncentrist party a political party that represents the center of political opinioncoalition government a government in which a country's largest party does not have enough votes to rule, and to do so aligns itself with one or more smaller partiesvoter apathy indifference and inaction on the part of individuals or groups with respect to the political processspecial-interest group a group of people who support a particular issue and who can be mobilized for political actionlobbyists people who influence legislation on behalf of their clientspolitical action committee (PAC) an organization formed by one or more special-interest groups to solicit and spend funds for the purpose of influencing legislationanarchy a condition of lawlessness or political disorder caused by the absence or collapse of governmental authoritypluralism the diffusion of power among many interest groups that prevents any single group from gaining control of the governmentchecks and balances the separation of powers among the three branches of U.S. government—legislative, executive, and judicial—so that each is able to nullify the actions of the other two, thus preventing any single branch from dominating the governmentpower elite C. Wright Mills' term for the top people in U.S. corporations, military, and politics who make the nation's major decisionsruling class another term for the power elitewar armed conflict between nations or politically distinct groupsdehumanization the act or process of reducing people to objects that do not deserve the treatment accorded humansterrorism the use of violence or the threat of violence to produce fear in order to attain political objectives
