[MikeLXXXVIII]

I know this is a very random thread, but I am having problems with the vocabulary of these writers. Like the terms as "cleavages", "bottleneck", "threshold".
Got an exam in 10 days and have to read around 980 pages so it can be troublesome when these words appear from time to time.

Even if you can guess to some extent their meaning it still is very impressive, as they are describing different processes within politics,voters, interest groups.

If no one knows, it would be useful if anyone knew of any online academic dictionaries.

[stepurhan]

Not studied political science specifically but I can can give you definitions that are likely to apply to what you're looking at.

Cleavages - An odd word in that in means sticking together as well as pulling apart. In the context of your subject I'd say you're probably looking at the first definition, groups thrown together for political expediency (e.g. in a 3 party system, 2 parties uniting to attack the ruling party on an issue)

Bottleneck - In any system a bottleneck is the limiting factor. For examply, if in a factory the painting section can only get through 100 units a day then every other part of the factory being able to produce 200 is irrelevant. The factory can only produce 100 units a day. In politics bottlenecks are likely to be groups whose approval must be sought (e.g. All UK law has to be approved by the House of Lords. If they disagree with the House of Commons then laws get held up as a result)

Not sure about threshold in this context. Do you have an example of use?

[aries323]

I would say that a bottleneck also could be that in a economy you could have unemployment in one sector and lack of employment in another.

In Denmark, for instance, you have a lack of people being employed in the health sector while, at the same time, you have people being unemployed in the building sector.

The bottleneck is that you need to get people moved from sector of your country's economy to another...

Not sure about the treshold word, too, though...

[MikeLXXXVIII]

Thanks for the help guys! I actually did find a proper description about cleaveages in the books I am reading at least.

What I could find about the threshold was around this:

The political sociologist Stein Rokkan enumerates four thresholds for mass incorporation in democratic politics. His argument is that nation-building is only completed when the whole adult population becomes part of the polity and a democratic system is established. Normally this process of integration takes the form of political opposition to an established elite, an opposition that needs to surpass the first thresshold the opposition requires legitimacy, in other words, there must be freedom of expression.

[stepurhan]

So threshold is a barrier that must be passed to make something possible.

In the case you quoted, opposition only has meaning with freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech the opposition can't operate effectively becuase they are prevented from getting their message out to people. In the context of the argument as a whole, full democratic engagement requires belief the the opposition is effective (as opposed to something created by the ruling party to make it appear that they have been chosen when they are actually dicatators)