What is Alternative Vote?

Definition of Alternative Vote (AV)?

Alternative Vote (AV) is a process of selecting a candidate with absolute majority or the candidate with more than half of the votes cast. If after voting and no candidate wins the requisite majority, the candidate with the lowest votes would be eliminated and fresh voting would be conducted for others so as to have the votes of the eliminated candidate be redistributed among other contestants. This process is repeated over and over again until a candidate emerges the winner by garnering the requisite majority. 

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What is Agenda-setting?

Definition of Agenda-setting

Agenda-setting is an art and science of making issues appear very important to the public, geared towards achieving a desired outcome especially for political reasons.

The media often wields this instrument the most since 'people' believe more in them. They could make even the death of a chicken in my village, Aguleri, in Nigeria to become the world's most discussed issue. Bernard Cohen observed that the press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. 

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What is Affirmative Action?

Definition of Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is a policy design geared towards correcting social, economic or political imbalance or discrimination in the society. It is a correctional and re-distributive measures in favour of hitherto disadvantaged group in a society. This policy design could be pursued with wealth redistribution or quota concession.

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What is Administrative Law?

Definition of Administrative Law

Administrative law entails the law relating to the control or the use of governmental power. It includes also rules guiding public decision-making. It is a set of guiding principles put in place in public offices towards ensuring due process and best practices.

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What is Foreign Policy?

Definition of Foreign Policy

Foreign policy is a set of strategies adopted by a country in pursuit of its national interests abroad. They are plan of actions designed by a country which shapes her behaviour while relating with other countries. Foreign policies are purposeful and are geared towards protecting and promoting national interests. Foreign policy therefore could pass as the sum total of socio-economic and political plan of actions implemented by a country towards achieving its national interests.

Foreign policy is effective only when it is implemented.  

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What is a Sitemap?

Definition of Sitemap

A sitemap is simply a compass to navigating the sea of contents on a websites by web crawlers such as Googlebots. Sitemap makes every utility in your website locateable. Web bots follow web links to do their various operations which could be indexing of website contents or serving of targeted advertisements to web users. Without sitemap, websites could have some of their contents not being indexed for the search engine.

Sitemaps are however not only for bots. Humans navigate websites using sitemaps too. Many websites, feature menu tabs and other texts links helping you to navigate the website easily in a bid to locating the utility resource in your interest. Websites that are easily navigated are said to be having good user experience.

A sample sitemap: http://what-iz.blogspot.com.ng/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500

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What is Collective Security?

Definition of Collective Security 

Collective security is a united front for protection against threat especially by countries of the world. Collective Security was suggested by the belief that insecurity anywhere is a threat to security everywhere. Also, by the belief in the dictum that an injury to one is an injury to all.

Security is a universal need and therefore should be indivisible. Collective Security informed the coming together by the countries of the world in San Francisco after the WWII in 1945 to unite for peace and security.

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What is Deterrence?

Definition of Deterrence by UN

Deterrence has been defined by United Nations as a security concept whose objective is to dissuade a potential adversary from initiating war, by threatening the use of force in order either to deny an adversary from gaining his objectives by military means or to punish the adversary should he seek to do so.

Deterrence is in its simplest terms means "check." Just as is observable from the UN definition above, deterrence employs threat of force and threat of punishment. The implementation of the threats shows deterrence has failed. It has failed to deterring an adversary from going for his objectives especially militarily. But if the adversary goes back to his shell out of fear of the threat of the use of force or that of punishment, then deterrence is effective. It has deterred the adversary from going for the controversial objective.

Deterrence has been achieved overtime using economic and military instruments. Many nuclear capable countries don't use the weapons but they require it for deterrence; "Hey! Don't mess up with us, we have nukes." 

I hope this helps.

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What is Government as an Institution of the State?

An institution could be structural or organisational contrivance for a specified function or functions. Government as an institution is such a contrivance by the state to ensure greatest happiness of the greatest number of the citizenry. The body of persons upon whom the destiny of the people is entrusted either to make or mar it is the institution of government. This institution formulates, expresses and implements the will of the state. It performs the function for which it was established for and on behalf of the state such that if the executive arm of government implements the law; the judicial arm interpretes the law; and the legislature makes the law, they do it all for the state. 

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What is Government?

The Definitions of Government

The concept of government has generally been defined as the form or way of leadership. This definition implies that the act or action or inaction of government persist in every organisation such as clubs, schools, business units, church, voluntary associations and even the family. Ibezim (1994:01) defined government as "the agency through which the will of the state is realized." The will of the state here implies that the objectives of the state are realized through the agents of the state who are either elected or selected by the people or even imposed on them for purposes of rule-making, rule implementation and rule adjudication. In the same vein, Olisa, Ekwueme and Nwabufo (1991:02) dubbed government as a body people and institutions that make and execute the laws of a state, make and implement its policies, conduct its affairs and maintain law and order within its territory. Furthermore, Dare and Oyewole (1987) contended that government is nothing but the structures and systems by which decisions and rules are determined and enforced by all members of the society. Simply put was the position of Appadorai (1975:12) which argued that government is the agency or mechinary through which the will of the state is formulated, expressed and realized. Government embodies the some total of the legislative, executive and judicial powers in a state.

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What is Enuresis?

Definitions of Enuresis

• Involuntary urination, which may be caused by a variety of factors. These include disorders of the kidneys, bladder, or ureter and/or poor control of the muscles that control the release of urine. (Enuresis 2013)

• Enuresis is the medical term for the inability to control urine in persons who are already toilet trained.(Study.Com, n.d.)

• Enuresis is the involuntary discharge of urine by a child age 5 and over. (Psychology Today 2014)

References

Enuresis (2013). "Defining Enuresis." Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3264

Psychology Today (2014). "Enuresis." Retrieved fromhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/enuresis

Study.Com (n.d.). "What Is Enuresis? - Definition, Causes & Treatment." Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-enuresis-definition-causes-treatment.html

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What is Community?

Definitions of Community

• A community is a group of people who have something in common. (Living as a Community, n.d.)

• Community refers to both the development of a social grouping and also the nature of the relationship among the members. (Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition, n.d.).

• A community is an organic, natural set of relationships, a group in which membership is valued as an end in itself; which concerns itself with many significant aspects of the lives of members; which allows competing factions; whose members share commitment to a common purpose and to procedures for handling conflict in the group; whose members have responsibility for actions of the group; and whose members have an enduring and extensive personal contact with each other.” (Roberts, 1979).

• A group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations. (MacQueen et al., 2001: 1929).

• A group of people who share common culture, values, and/or interests, based on social identity and/or territory, and who have some means of recognising and (inter)acting upon these commonalities. (Gregory (2009: 103)

References

Gregory, D. (2009). ‘Community’ in Gregory, D., Johnston, R., Pratt, G.,Watts, R.J., & Whatmore, S. (eds.) Dictionary of Human Geography, Malden, MA & Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 103-4

Living as a Community (n.d.). "The Origins of Community." Retrieved from http://www.legana.org/studies/community/001origins.htm 

MacQueen, K.M., McLellan, E., Metzger, D.S. & Kegeles, S. (2001). ‘What is Community? An Evidence-Based Definition for Participatory Public Health’ American Journal of Public Health, 91 (12), pp. 1929-1938

Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition (n.d.). "Definition and Characteristics of Communities." Retrieved from http://www.ohcc-ccso.ca/en/courses/community-development-for-health-promoters/module-one-concepts-values-and-principles/definit

Roberts, H. (1979). Community Development: Learning and Action, University of Toronto Press,(ISBN: 0-8020-6351-9 PBK)

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What is Politics?

Definition of Politics

• Politics, in the broadest sense, is the activity through which pepole make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. (Maita, n.d)

• Politics presupposes a diversity of view, if not about ultimate aims, at least the best ways of achieving them". (Miller, 1987, p.390)

• Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have brought together. (Leftwich, 1984, p.112)

• It is the science of governance in the control of the external and internal affairs of the state. (Bueno, 2012)

• Who gets what, when and how. (Lasswell, 1936)

• Authoritative allocation of values. (Easton, 1953)

• Conciliation of conflicting interests. (Crick 1962)

References

Bueno, C. F. (2012). "The General Meaning and Concept of Politics." Retrieved fromhttp://savior.hubpages.com/hub/meaningpolitics 

Crick, B. (1962). “In Defense of Politics.” University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Easton, D. (1953). “The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science.” Alfred A. 

Knopf, New York.

Lasswell, H. (1936). “Politics: Who gets what, when, how”. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Leftwich, A (1984) What is Politics? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell)

Maita, M. (n.d.) "Definig Politics." Retrieved from http://www.maitah.com/PC/defining%20politics.pdf 

Miller, D (1987). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) 

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What Is ? is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. What Is ? may change this privacy policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

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Questions About This Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, you can contact us through any of the available methods listed below:

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Phone: +234(0)8075368602

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