Civil Society

	Comparative Politics Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics within (as opposed to between) countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government (the comparative study of forms of government). While historically the discipline explored broad questions in political science through between-country comparisons, contemporary comparative political science primarily uses subnational comparisons.^[1] The name comparative politics refers to the discipline's historical association with the comparative method, described in detail below [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Street-level Bureaucracy Street-level bureaucracy is the subset of a public agency or government institution where the civil servants work who have direct contact with members of the general public. Street-level civil servants carry out and/or enforce the actions required by a government's laws and public policies, in areas ranging from safety and security to education and social services. A few examples include police officers, border guards, social workers and public school teachers. These civil servants have direct contact with members of the general public, in contrast with civil servants who do policy analysis or economic analysis, who do not meet the public [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Adhocracy Adhocracy is a flexible, adaptable and informal form of organization that is defined by a lack of formal structure that employs specialized multidisciplinary teams grouped by functions. It operates in an opposite fashion to a bureaucracy.^[1] The term was coined by Warren Bennis in his 1968 book The Temporary Society,^[2] later popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations^[3]). The concept has been further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg. Adhocracy is characterized by an adaptive, creative and flexible integrative behavior based on non-permanence and spontaneity [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Policy A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies to assist in subjective decision making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work-life balance policy. In contrast policies to assist in objective decision making are usually operational in nature and can be objectively tested, e.g. password policy.^[1] The term may apply to government, public sector organizations and groups, as well as individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Public Policy Doctrine In private international law, the public policy doctrine or *ordre public* (French: lit. "public order") concerns the body of principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. This addresses the social, moral and economic values that tie a society together: values that vary in different cultures and change over time. Law regulates behaviour either to reinforce existing social expectations or to encourage constructive change, and laws are most likely to be effective when they are consistent with the most generally accepted societal norms and reflect the collective morality of the society. In performing this function, Cappalli^[who?] has suggested that the critical values of any legal system include impartiality, neutrality, certainty, equality, openness, flexibility, and growth [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
	Domestic Policy Domestic policy are administrative decisions that are directly related to all issues and activity within a nation's borders. It differs from foreign policy, which refers to the ways a government advances its interests in world politics. Domestic policy covers a wide range of areas, including business, education, energy, healthcare, law enforcement, money and taxes, natural resources, social welfare, and personal rights and freedoms. A nation's form of government largely determines how its domestic policy is formed and implemented. Under authoritarian governments, a ruling group may pursue its domestic policy goals without the input or consent of the people being governed. But in democratic societies, the will of the people has a much greater influence. In a democracy, the formal design of domestic policy is chiefly the responsibility of elected leaders, lawmaking bodies, and specialized government agencies [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	International Relations IR theories can be categorised on the basis of normativity. In line with the is–ought problem, non-normative empirical theories seek to explain why certain events or trends exist in world politics (what the world is), whereas Peace of Westphalia of 1648 in Europe, a stepping stone in the development of the modern state system. During the preceding Middle Ages, European organization of political authority was based on a vaguely hierarchical religious order. Contrary to popular belief, Westphalia still embodied layered systems of sovereignty, especially within the Holy Roman Empire.^[4] More than the Peace of Westphalia, the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 is thought to reflect an emerging norm that sovereigns had no internal equals within a defined territory and no external superiors as the ultimate authority within the territory's sovereign borders [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Separation Of Powers The separation of powers is an approach to governing a state. Under it, a state's government is divided into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is the trias politica model. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, where the executive and legislative branches overlap. The intention behind a system of separated powers is to prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances. The separation of powers model is often imprecisely and metonymically used interchangeably with the trias politica principle [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]
picture info	Legislature A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. Legislatures form important parts of most governments; in the separation of powers model, they are often contrasted with the executive and judicial branches of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation [...More Info...] [...Related Items...]