Short definitions of the core political concepts of humanist, liberal-democratic, and republican thought. Each term in six languages.
Political decision extinguishing criminal responsibility over a set of offenses, generally political or related. Distinct from pardon (individual) and prescription. Historically used in transitions to democracy (Argentina 1973, Spain 1977, Chile 1978). Its justification strains reconciliation against transitional justice — still open debate.
Political tradition rejecting the hierarchical authority of the state and proposing forms of social organization based on voluntary cooperation and self-management. Its historical references include Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. Revista Conciencia Democrática analyzes this tradition from the republican-constitutionalist perspective.
Political regime characterized by the weakening or suppression of constitutional brakes, concentration of power in a leader or party, restriction of pluralism, and replacement of free elections by ritual procedures without real alternative.
Political regime in which power is concentrated in a single person or closed group without real institutional brakes. Historically: absolute monarchies, military dictatorships, single-party regimes. Contemporary: illiberal democracies (Hungary, Turkey) where executives erode brakes without formally abolishing elections.
Parliamentary organization in two chambers (upper and lower, senate and house) with complementary or parallel functions. Defended by Madison in The Federalist as additional brake against hasty legislator. Variants: symmetric (US, Argentina, Brazil), asymmetric (Germany), federal (upper house represents states/regions).
Set of ministers forming the executive team under coordination of the head of state (presidentialism) or prime minister (parliamentarism). British cabinet government is the historical model. Formal meetings: councils of ministers. Some systems regulate publicity and registration (transparency).
State or private restriction on free circulation of information, ideas, or cultural works. Liberal democracies reject prior censorship, accept posterior limits under judicial control. Self-censorship is internalization without explicit coercion — concerning in eroded democracies.
Full member of the political community with civil, political, and social rights (T.H. Marshall) and corresponding duties. Citizenship is not merely a legal status but an active practice of participation in public life.
Agreement between parties to form government or sustain legislative majority. Frequent in proportional systems (Germany, Israel, Italy, Belgium). Types: minimal winning, oversized, national unity. Important in Latin American 'coalitional presidentialism' (Abranches).
Treaty between state and Holy See regulating religious affairs. Cases: Italian 1929 (revised 1984), Spanish 1953 (revised 1979), Polish 1993. Intermediate form between strict secularism and confessional state.
Political tradition privileging prudence, institutional continuity, moderation of change, and respect for inherited customs. Its references include Burke, Tocqueville, and Oakeshott. It coexists with democratic constitutionalism in its Anglo-Saxon variant.
Fundamental norm that organizes political power, defines competences, guarantees rights, and establishes procedures of change. Typically rigid (its modification requires special majorities) and supralegal (ordinary laws must respect it). It is the legal armor of the rule of law.
Assembly with power to draft or reform the Constitution. Convened in moments of political refoundation. Examples: Philadelphia 1787, Santa Fe 1853 (Argentina), Querétaro 1916-17 (Mexico), French Constituent Assembly 1789, Brazilian Constituent 1987-88. Distinct from ordinary parliament by its exceptional character and the scope of its decisions.
Philosophical tradition holding that each person is a citizen of the world (cosmopolites) and that moral obligations transcend national borders. From Greek Stoics to Kant (Perpetual Peace, 1795) and contemporaries Martha Nussbaum and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Productively tensions with civic republicanism, which emphasizes belonging to a concrete political community.
Normative act issued by the executive, generally with rank inferior to law. Variants: regulatory decree (applies a law), decree of necessity and urgency (Argentina, Italy: force of law but requires subsequent parliamentary ratification), decree-law. Excessive or abusive use of decrees signals democratic erosion: the executive legislates without parliament.
Political practice consisting of appealing to the emotions, prejudices, and immediate desires of the majority to gain power, ignoring or sacrificing the common good and truth. Aristotle already analyzed it as a degeneration of democracy. The demagogue simplifies complex problems, finds visible enemies, and promises impossible solutions.
Political system in which authority derives from the people and is exercised through free and periodic elections. In its modern liberal form it combines majority rule with the protection of individual rights and respect for minorities.
Geographic dispersion of an ethnic, national, or religious community outside origin territory maintaining collective identity. Originally Jewish people; generalized to Armenians, Africans, Irish, Venezuelans, Syrians. Contemporary importance: external voting, remittances, transnational political pressure.
Coexistence of different identities, opinions, values, languages, religions, and ways of life within a single political community. Liberal democracy recognizes it as irreducible fact and as value: plurality enriches public debate and limits dogmatism. Distinct from pluralism (political attitude toward diversity) and moral relativism.
Procedure by which citizens select their representatives and rulers. In a full democracy it must be free (without coercion), competitive (with real options), periodic, supervised by impartial authority, and with results respected by all actors.
Minority group with disproportionate political, economic, or cultural power. Pareto, Mosca, Michels (Iron Law of Oligarchy). Liberal democracies don't eliminate elites but seek: circulation, plurality, accountability. CRITIQUE is central in contemporary populist rhetoric.
Fundamental principle of democratic order. Comprises equality before the law (rule of law), political equality (one citizen, one vote), equality of opportunity (access to education, health, public office), and moral equality (inalienable human dignity).
20th-century totalitarian regime characterized by leader cult, extreme nationalism, violent suppression of pluralism, militarization of society, and dissolution of the state-society distinction. Mussolini's Italian regime (1922-1943) gave name to the phenomenon. Tradition critically theorized by Arendt, Eco, and Stanley Payne.
Manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor a party. Named after Elbridge Gerry (governor of Massachusetts, 1812) whose district was shaped like a salamander. One of the pathologies of American representative democracy, but exists in any single-member district system. Antidotes: independent districting commissions, pure proportionality.
Set of institutions and persons exercising the executive power of the state. In presidential systems it is independent of the legislature; in parliamentary systems it emerges from the parliamentary majority and is accountable to it.
Relatively coherent system of ideas, values, and proposals that guides political action. Major ideologies of the democratic order include liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, and Christian democracy. Bobbio analyzed the persistence of the left-right axis as its main organization.
Constitutional procedure to remove an elected official (president, judge, minister) for grave crimes or misconduct, requiring qualified parliamentary majority. Paradigmatic cases: Brazil (Collor 1992, Rousseff 2016), South Korea (Park 2017), United States (Andrew Johnson 1868, Clinton 1998, Trump 2019 and 2021). Fundamental republican brake — distinct from popular recall.
Cardinal virtue and principle of political theory. Rawls defines it as fairness: principles that free and equal persons would accept behind the veil of ignorance. Aristotle distinguishes distributive justice (of goods) and commutative (of exchanges).
Classical dichotomy for locating political positions on an axis. Historical origin: French National Assembly (1789), monarchists right, revolutionaries left. Bobbio (Right and Left, 1994) distinguished them by attitude toward equality. Variants: economic liberalism vs cultural progressivism, libertarian-authoritarian axis.
Political tradition defending individual rights, civil liberties, tolerance, limited government, and equality before the law. From Locke and Constant to Rawls, political liberalism is distinct from economic liberalism.
Central concept of political philosophy. Berlin distinguishes two senses: negative liberty (absence of interference) and positive liberty (self-determination). Republicanism adds a third: liberty as absence of arbitrary domination (Pettit, Skinner).
Activity of interest groups seeking to influence public decisions. Regulated in US (Lobbying Disclosure Act, 1995) and EU. In many Latin American countries unregulated. Distinct from corruption (legal), but lack of transparency causes state capture.
System where law requires voting under penalty. Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Australia, Uruguay, Luxembourg. For: high representativeness, civic duty (Lijphart). Against: tension with negative liberty.
Group within a society that differs from the majority by ethnic, religious, linguistic, sexual, or other characteristics, possibly subject to discrimination or special protection. Liberal democracy protects minorities against the 'tyranny of the majority' (Tocqueville, Mill, Madison) through individual rights, separation of powers, and constitutional guarantees.
Form of government in which the head of state is hereditary and lifelong, exercised by a monarch. In its modern constitutional versions (UK, Spain, Scandinavian countries), the monarch is an institutional symbol with limited powers; effective government is parliamentary and democratic.
Political doctrine recognizing and institutionally accommodating cultural diversity within a single state: multiple official languages, plurireligious holidays, collective rights for minorities. Will Kymlicka is its most systematic contemporary theorist. Criticisms: clash between collective and individual rights (Susan Moller Okin); risk of communal closure eroding common political belonging.
Ideology and movement affirming the nation (cultural, ethnic, or civic) as central political category. Distinguish civic nationalism (nation as voluntary constitutional pact — Habermas, constitutional patriotism) from ethnic-cultural nationalism (nation as blood or heritage belonging — risk of exclusion). Anderson (Imagined Communities) and Gellner analyzed it as modern construction.
Regime in which a small minority (generally the wealthiest) concentrates political power and exercises it in their own interest. One of the degenerate forms in Aristotle's classical typology. Robert Michels formulated the "iron law" of oligarchy in organizations.
Independent public official investigating citizen complaints against state administration and promoting rights. Originated in Sweden (1809), generalized in 20th century. Latin America: Defensor del Pueblo. Brazil: Ouvidor. Mechanism of horizontal accountability.
Set of political actors who are not part of the government and compete to replace it in future elections. The existence of a legal, free, and recognized opposition is one of the defining markers of democracy versus authoritarian regime.
Representative assembly of citizens, charged with passing laws, controlling the government, and authorizing the budget. May be unicameral or bicameral. Its name derives from parler (to speak): the place of public debate before decision.
Affective attachment to the political homeland. Habermas and Sternberger distinguish constitutional patriotism (love for shared democratic institutions and principles) from ethnic nationalism (attachment to blood identity). Civic patriotism is compatible with democratic openness and pluralism; ethnic nationalism tends toward closure and exclusion.
Increasing hardening of political camps and reduction of common ground. Pippa Norris and Lilliana Mason distinguish ideological polarization (opinion differences) from affective polarization (contempt for the other). The second is more dangerous for liberal democracy because it makes institutional compromise impossible. Causes: algorithmic social media, gerrymandering, residential segregation, partisan media.
Protection a state grants to persons persecuted for political, religious, ethnic, or opinion reasons in their country of origin. Regulated by the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees. One of the oldest institutions of international law, present since classical Greece. Distinct from refuge (broader, generalized persecution) and exile (personal decision).
Elected head of state and/or government. Powers vary by system: pure presidentialism (US, AR, BR, MX: head of state + government), semi-presidentialism (France, Portugal: shared with PM), ceremonial presidentialism (Germany, Italy, India: symbolic head of state). Direct popular election grants legitimacy but generates risk of excessive personalization of power (Linz).
Procedure by which a political party elects its candidate for general elections through the vote of its members or (in open primaries) any citizen. Origin: United States. Argentina uses them as PASO (Open Simultaneous and Mandatory Primaries) since 2009. Advantages: internal party democratization. Disadvantages: judicialization and cost.
Head of government in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems. Authority emerges from parliamentary confidence (not direct election). Accountable to the chamber, can be removed by no-confidence vote, appoints cabinet. Distinct from head of state (monarch or ceremonial president). Examples: UK (PM), Spain (President of Government), Italy, Germany (Bundeskanzler).
Systematic communication producing political adherence through manipulation of emotions, symbols, and truth. Edward Bernays (Propaganda, 1928) and Jacques Ellul theorized it. Totalitarian propaganda was extreme form; contemporary operates via social networks and algorithmic micro-targeting.
Minimum number of members or valid votes required for an assembly to validly session, vote, or decide. Variants: installation, voting, qualified majority (2/3, 3/5). Protects representativeness: without quorum, a minority could impose decisions the whole body wouldn't approve.
Direct democracy mechanism in which citizens vote YES/NO on a specific proposal (law, treaty, constitutional reform). Binding in some systems (Switzerland, Uruguay), consultative in others (Spain, UK). Variants: recall, abrogative, constituent. Criticism: binary simplification of complex issues, demagogic manipulation.
Mechanism by which citizens delegate the exercise of power to elected representatives. It is the modern answer to the scale problem: direct democracy is impractical in large societies. Pitkin (1967) distinguishes descriptive, symbolic, formal, and substantive representation.
Form of government — res publica, public thing — characterized by institutions that limit power, separation of functions, civic virtue of citizens, and freedom as absence of arbitrary domination. Distinguished from hereditary monarchy.
Principle of separation between political power and religious institutions. The secular state doesn't identify with any religion, treats believers and non-believers equally, and guarantees freedom of worship. Variants: strict French laicity (1905), American neutrality (1791), concordat models (Italy, Spain). Distinct from state atheism (USSR, China).
Supreme authority within a territory. Popular sovereignty, formulated by Rousseau and Sieyès, holds that the people are the ultimate source of legitimate government authority. It coexists in tension with individual rights and constitutional brakes.
Political organization with territory, population, and legitimate monopoly of force (Weber). The modern state is distinguished by its impersonal character: the office is independent of the person who holds it. In the rule of law, the state itself is subject to law.
Political right to vote. History of suffrage = history of democracy: census-based (19th c.), universal male (early 20th), universal including women (NZ 1893, US 1920, Argentina 1947, Switzerland 1971). Variants: direct/indirect, free/mandatory, secret/open.
Regime or tendency in which political decisions are delegated to technical experts (economists, engineers, scientists) instead of elected representatives. The promise is efficiency and rationality; the democratic critique (Habermas, Sandel) warns that it depoliticizes inherently normative issues and excludes citizens from debate.
20th-century political regime characterized by dissolution of the distinction between state, civil society and private life; single party; comprehensive ideology; control of media and education; systematic terror. Hannah Arendt (Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951) distinguished it from classical authoritarianism. Cases: Stalinism, Nazism, Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
System where two parties dominate and alternate. US, UK, Spain until 2015. Duverger's law links single-member majoritarian systems with two-party systems. Advantages: clear alternation. Disadvantages: polarization, minority exclusion.
Regime in which the ruler exercises power without legal limits and outside the consent of the governed, in their own interest or that of a closed group. The classical concept (Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke) opposed to the republic and to liberty.
Power of an organ (president, chamber, constitutional judge) to block a decision adopted by another. Fundamental instrument of checks and balances. Variants: presidential veto (total or partial over parliamentary laws), suspensive veto, absolute veto. The 'veto player' (George Tsebelis) is any actor whose agreement is necessary to change the status quo.
Individual expression of political preference in an election. In modern liberal democracy it must be universal, free, equal, secret, and direct. Each citizen casts one vote that counts the same as any other's.
