Free VCE Year 11 Politics Flashcard Review

'Power to' is the capacity to achieve an outcome (legislate, fund, mobilise); 'power over' is the capacity to compel other actors or people, sometimes coercively or illegitimately.

When people believe an actor has the right to exercise power, they accept its decisions as rightful, so the actor's capacity becomes recognised authority rather than mere force.

Democratic processes: incentives to seek electoral support and accept scrutiny. Ideology: justification through shared beliefs. Coercion: compliance through fear. Economic performance: emphasis on delivering results. These are analytical possibilities, not guarantees about every government.

Popular sovereignty locates ultimate authority in the people, expressed through elections and section 128 referendums; parliamentary sovereignty is parliament's supreme law-making capacity, which in Australia is limited by the Constitution and High Court review.

The Constitution limits Commonwealth legislative subjects; states retain broad powers. Responsibilities such as health overlap. Under section 109, a valid Commonwealth law prevails over an inconsistent state law to the extent of inconsistency; the High Court resolves constitutional disputes.

Federal ministers must be, or become within three months, members of either house under section 64. They are accountable to Parliament; the government must retain the confidence of the House of Representatives.

Ministers are drawn from Parliament, so legislative and executive roles overlap. Commonwealth judicial power is separately exercised by courts under Chapter III, including state courts invested with federal jurisdiction.

States, government leaders, institutions of global governance, political parties, media, non-government organisations, corporations, social movements, and groups and individuals.

Authority and office, leadership qualities, parliamentary sovereignty, popular sovereignty through elections and referendums, economic resources, and technological, military, diplomatic, social or cultural capacity.

Social movements, campaigns and protests, citizen power such as voting and petitions, party membership, submissions to parliamentary committees, and the media.

Misinformation is false content shared without intent to deceive; disinformation is knowingly false or manipulated content spread to deceive. Motives may be political, financial or otherwise.

The scale of the consequences, their durability, the extent to which actors achieved their interests, the effect on political stability and/or change, and the effectiveness of the responses.

States (Australia, Russia); regional groupings (EU, ASEAN, Pacific Islands Forum); institutions of global governance (UN, IMF, WTO, with courts also playing governance roles); non-state actors (nations, corporations, NGOs, individuals and illegal groups). The ICJ is a UN organ; the ICC is a separate court with different jurisdiction.

A state has defined territory, a permanent population, a government and widely recognised sovereignty. A nation shares an identity and may span states, as Kurdish communities do, or exist within a state, as First Nations in Australia do. Nationhood alone does not confer UN membership or every sovereign power.

Sovereignty means supreme state authority over territory and people and independence from outside control. VCAA associates its development with Westphalia (1648); this is a historical framework, not proof that modern sovereignty appeared everywhere at once.

Domestic law-making and enforcement; border regulation; international relationships such as treaty-making within applicable rules; and diplomatic/consular representation. Capacity, constitutional arrangements and international obligations constrain their exercise. Statehood does not automatically confer membership or voting rights in every organisation.

Political: Russia’s veto of the 25 February 2022 substantive Security Council draft. Military: Russia’s full-scale invasion. Economic: the EU’s March 2022 prohibition on specified banks’ financial messaging. Diplomatic: UN/Türkiye grain negotiations in 2022. Cultural: appeals to shared values in Zelenskyy’s March 2022 Australian parliamentary address. Technological: Starlink connectivity documented by USAID’s Inspector General. Some examples involve more than one form of power.

Connections through trade, finance, communication, migration, environment and security. They can expand a company’s or NGO’s reach, while dependencies can create vulnerability to supply or service restrictions. Effects depend on the actor and context; greater non-state power is not automatic.

Realist approaches emphasise state power and security competition. Mearsheimer’s account highlights great-power dominance and competition that can lead to war. Use this lens to investigate capabilities and threats without assuming all realists endorse the same policy or dismiss every institution.

Liberal approaches examine domestic and international influences on state choices. Moravcsik stresses the social groups shaping state preferences and interdependence among those preferences. Analyse when cooperation is possible; do not assume trade or institutions always prevent conflict.