The visual guide to
AP® Comparative Government and Politics
5 units, 102 topics. Each topic is explained in writing, drawn as a lesson you can watch, and checked with practice questions.
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Each unit is as wide as its share of the exam's multiple-choice section.Filled: topics you've opened.
Unit 1Political Systems, Regimes, and Governments
- Comparing Countries with Data
- Correlation, Causation, and Confounding Variables
- GDP per Capita, HDI, and the Gini Index
- Freedom House and Transparency International Rankings
- State, Nation, Regime, and Government
- Sovereignty and Recognition
- The Democracy and Authoritarianism Spectrum
- Rule of Law and Rule by Law
- Types of Authoritarian Regimes
- The Path of Democratization
- Democratic Consolidation and Backsliding
- Mexico's Transition from One-Party Rule
- Traditional, Charismatic, and Rational-Legal Authority
- Sources of Power in the Six Course Countries
- Coups, Revolutions, and Peaceful Transfers of Power
- Federal and Unitary Systems
- Devolution in the United Kingdom
- Recentralization in Russia's Federal System
- Sources of Political Legitimacy
- Sustaining and Losing Legitimacy
- Internal Actors and Regime Stability
Unit 2Political Institutions
- Parliamentary Systems and Fused Powers
- Presidential Systems and Separated Powers
- Semi-Presidential Systems and the Dual Executive
- Making Policy in Parliamentary and Presidential Systems
- Checks on the Executive Across System Types
- The UK Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Monarch
- China's President, Premier, and Party General Secretary
- Iran's Supreme Leader and Elected President
- Russia's President and Prime Minister
- Mexico's Single-Term Presidency
- Nigeria's Presidency and Federal Character
- Executive Term Limits Compared
- China's Removal of Presidential Term Limits
- Removing an Executive by Vote of No Confidence
- Impeachment and Removal in Presidential Systems
- Unicameral and Bicameral Legislatures
- The House of Commons and the House of Lords
- The Legislatures of Mexico and Nigeria
- The Legislatures of China, Iran, and Russia
- What Constrains a Legislature
- Iran's Guardian Council and Expediency Council
- Judicial Structures and Judicial Review
- How Judges Are Appointed Across the Six Countries
- Religious Law in the Courts of Iran and Nigeria
- Measuring Judicial Independence
- Courts as a Check on Executive Power
Unit 3Political Culture and Participation
- What Civil Society Is and Who Belongs to It
- Civil Society Under Democratic and Authoritarian Regimes
- Political Culture and the Order-Liberty Balance
- Political Socialization and Its Agents
- Mapping Political Ideologies
- Populism, Nationalism, and Fascism
- Political Values, Beliefs, and Policy Choices
- Post-Materialism and Generational Value Change
- Forms of Political Participation
- Referendums and Direct Democracy
- Turnout and Participation Across the Six Countries
- Media Freedom and State Control of Information
- Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Compared
- Mapping Ethnic, Religious, and Regional Cleavages
- Crosscutting and Coinciding Cleavages
- Separatism and How States Respond to It
Unit 4Party and Electoral Systems and Citizen Organizations
- First-Past-the-Post in Single-Member Districts
- Proportional Representation and Party Lists
- Mixed-Member Electoral Systems
- The Same Votes Run Through Different Systems
- Measuring How Far Seats Drift from Votes
- Electoral Systems in the Six Course Countries
- Thresholds and Their Effect on Small Parties
- District Boundaries and Malapportionment
- Runoffs, Pluralities, and Distribution Requirements
- Quotas, Reserved Seats, and Ballot Access
- Dominant, Two-Party, and Multiparty Systems
- How Electoral Rules Shape the Number of Parties
- Party Seat Shares Across Elections
- Rules That Protect a Ruling Party
- Party Discipline and Policy Making
- Catch-All Parties and Coalition Building
- How a Social Movement Scales Up
- Social Movements Across the Course Countries
- Pluralist and Corporatist Interest Systems
- Mexico's Shift from Corporatism Toward Pluralism
Unit 5Political and Economic Changes and Development
- What Economic Globalization Moves Across Borders
- Multinational Corporations Against the State
- Privatization and Nationalization Compared
- China's Special Economic Zones
- Globalization's Challenge to Sovereignty
- Sanctions and External Political Pressure
- What Economic Liberalization Actually Changes
- Growth, Inequality, and the Liberalization Tradeoff
- The IMF, the World Bank, and Structural Adjustment
- Supranational Organizations and Pooled Sovereignty
- Import Substitution and Trade Strategy
- Social Welfare Policy and Legitimacy
- Gender Policy Across the Course Countries
- Industrialization, Pollution, and Policy Response
- Tariffs, Trade Liberalization, and Austerity
- Migration, Urbanization, and Population Change
- Political Consequences of Demographic Change
- Rentier States and the Resource Curse
- Who Owns the Natural Resources