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State, Nation, Regime, Government · Acedra
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State, Nation, Regime, Government
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0:05
The first thing I wanted to deliver to you,
0:08
I'm going to speak to you about some of our foundations and it's kind of a quick check. So let's rebuild the four words that run the whole course. State, nation, regime, and government. A state is the enduring political organization that claims sovereignty. It controls a territory, governs a population, relies on institutions such as bureaucracy, courts, police and military to enforce decisions. A nation is identity people who see themselves as a shared community because of shared language,
0:46
shared religion, ethnicity, or even a shared history.
0:51
A government is the leadership that temporarily runs the state.
1:00
A regime is deeper than the government. It's the durable rules and institutions that determine how Leaders are chosen, how power is exercised, and how power transfers. This is why elections can change government without changing regime.
1:21
Now compare the big six through this lens. The UK is a stable democratic regime. Governments change, but regime rules preserve meaningful competition and accountability.
1:36
Mexico and Nigeria are also democratic regimes with presidential systems. But each faces pressures that can weaken state capacity and public trust, making democracy in Mexico, Nigeria feel fragile even if elections remain meaningful. Russia and China have formal state institutions and elections and legislations on paper. But regime rules concentrate power and restrict meaningful competition.
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Iran blends elections with unelected authority. Regime rules mean elected offices exist, but unelected bodies shape who can compete and what policies survive.
2:23
I have an AP habit I want everyone to adopt and I believe. Was there someone waiting to get in the room? Okay. No.
2:35
I have an AP habit that I'd like everyone to adopt. When you see a question, decide if it's about state capacity, sovereignty, regime rules, government turnover or national identity or national cleavage. Cleavages. That decision prevents the number one MCQ trap confusing government change with regime change.
3:02
Hey, if I could have you right here, like to get a little bit of participation. I got another poll for you and you can simply just type A, B or C.
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Regime versus government. Check which is the best statement.
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Hey, you guys doing pretty good. That is right. The best statement is that elections can change the government without changing the regime. Regimes equal rules and institutions for power. Government equals current leaders. right because they match the topic but not the task. So in MCQs you use four steps you1 name the concept. Is this about regime change, legitimacy, sovereignty, political culture, election rules, what is the questions topic? And then predict the answer in your
4:04
own words before looking at the options. Just read the MCQ and just think what that answer could possibly be. And then you're going to look to see which of the options best match what's in your head. Eliminate two easy. You'll be able to eliminate two options that don't match either the definition or don't answer words like most likely or best explains. Because remember this is comparison. You're comparing scene. So something is usually going to be most
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likely or something will be best explained. And choose using evidence from the stem questions from the question itself. Words like revolution, censorship, plurality, beliefs and values, judicial independence, those are neon signs. Should tell you what you are working on. Now add the legitimacy lens. Legitimacy is the belief that a government has the right to rule. Democracies like uk, Mexico and Nigeria lean heavily on elections as their right to rule.
5:12
Authoritarian or hybrid systems such as China, Russia and Iran lean more on performance. Does the government get things done as is the case with China and Russia? Or nationalism, China and Russia? Or ideology, ideology and religion? Which ideology China runs on with being a communist and religion very much as Iran. That's what they use for their legitimacy, not elections. That's why you'll keep seeing questions about information control, participation limits and economic performance.
5:50
It's legitimacy maintenance for those authoritarian states.
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All right, well, in all these MCQs, you got to look for traps. The AP government loves traps. And you're looking to be specific with language. Is the question about government or regime is, a definition swap, culture or legitimacy? Are they trying to use election formulas to prompt an answer from you? All right, I'd like to move to executive, executive systems for our big six countries in our unit two. That's where institutional design matters. Executive systems shape accountability.
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In parliamentary systems, the executive emerges from the legislature. The head of government is typically selected by the legislature and can be removed through confidence dynamics, such as a no vote of confidence. In presidential systems, the president is directly elected for a fixed term with a separate mandate from the legislature. He's elected on different reasons.
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In presidential systems, there is a clear separation of powers, but there is, of course, potential gridlock. The, the existence or the condition of legislatures not working well with executives. Now let's apply this to the big six with some, a little bit more precision.
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The UK is a parliamentary system. The prime minister leads government. The monarch is symbolic. The UK has strong party discipline and parliamentary responsibility. Means governments rise and fall through government control. I'm sorry, Governments rise and fall through parliamentary control.
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In Mexico, it's a presidential system. The president is directly, directly elected, has a fixed term. The president's relationship with the legislature shapes how much policy can be passed in Mexico.
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Nigeria is also a presidential system with of course, direct election. Removal of the president is possible with impeachment in the legislature.
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Not a, no confidence vote as you would see in parliament.
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Russia is semi presidential on paper, but the president dominates in practice. Semi presidential on paper, meaning that the president rules in union with the parliament. However, in Russia, as you know, the president Putin rules all by himself. Institutions exist, such as parliament, such as a Duma, what they call a congress. But the constraints the Duma has on the president are far weaker and perhaps don't even exist.
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In Iran, there is a dual executive logic. Iran is definitely an outlier. There is a president of Iran which exists, but as we know, the supreme leader has real decisive Authority. Unelected institutions such as the Republican Guard
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shape competition for power and the policy boundaries that presidents can use. Presidential power has boundaries in real practice by the Ayatollah, the Republican Guard, and the Council of Guardians.
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So in Iran, the informal power structure is truly power.
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China has a party state, executive, a type of presidential system, but not strongly so.
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Party state, meaning it is the Communist Party which runs the state. Real power is in CCP leadership. State offices of China implement party decisions. They do not have election mandates from people as you do see in Mexico and, and Nigeria. It is the party that sets all policies and shapes decisions. So here's an exam habit. After you identify an executive system, always add an impact sentence. That matters because executive design affects accountability and how leaders can be constrained or
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how they could be removed.
10:38
Okay, with this, I'd like to go to our second and last MCQ chunk back to your MCQ. I want to give you six minutes to go through questions 11 through 20.
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And once again, when you're done, I will post the answers. So let me put up a six minute timer.
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I'm very thankful that you guys are here to do this practice.
12:44
Mr. The MCQ that you posted, is it an American test or is it an international one?
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AP government is just AP government no matter what country you're in.
12:59
Okay. No, no, because usually in aps, they, they have two tests. One that's only for America and then one that they send out to the whole world. Well, at least different types that they send out to the whole world. And according to like, I think a teacher, the American ones, I, by chance, by chance, used to always been like, be easier.
13:23
It's the opposite. The American one is hard. Well, well, hold on. I. I'm afraid some of your information is, erroneous.
13:33
AP doesn't do that. You. You were taking the AP exam. There's no international version of the ap.
13:40
Someone misunderstands your AP exam and scores are just as valid as anybody else's. You are taking the AP exam. I. It's unfortunate that you've heard that, but I know it's not the case.
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This teacher may have been confused with the bridge system. The British system has exams for people in Britain and they have an international version, but they're the only major curriculum in the world that does that.
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There you go. Both IB and AP are simply just that. There's no international version.
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What AP does have perhaps would be some topics that are less likely to be seen internationally, such as AP US Government.
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But where AP comparative government is popular internationally, but it's also still in the United States.
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If your teacher noticed anything was in sessions and teacher support material. Often leaders of these professional developments, they're almost, you know, they're always American.
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And when they speak, they often use American examples in American language. Just because the bulk of AP students are in the United States.
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And perhaps that may have caused some confusion for someone who is sitting on a, professional development ran by Americans for Americans.
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But AP is taught worldwide.
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There's no secondary version.
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I hope that helps.
15:46
Thank you.
15:52
Was that a teacher here at Ask?
15:56
Yeah.
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Well, maybe you can go back and help that person out with what you just learned. Sounds good.
17:13
And here are my answers while you're counting up how many you got right out of 20. If you can post that in the chat,
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we'll go over a few of the MCQs. As I did before, I would like to fill this air time with how legitimacy and data and globalization combine with each other, which was kind of a focus of these questions you did here. So here's the bridge between units 1 and 2 into unit 5. Legitimacy and stability are often tied to economic performance and global pressures. Democracies like the uk, Mexico and Nigeria rely heavily on elections for legitimacy. But performance of the government still matters.
18:01
If the state cannot deliver security or services to people, the trust that people have in the government drops.
18:11
Authoritarian and hybrid systems like China, Russia and Iran
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often need additional legitimacy strategies says they don't use elections or not in any real way.
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So for legitimacy, these authoritarian and hybrid states really lean on the performance of their government. Can they get things done? Nationalism, ideology, such as in China, or religion as in Iran.
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And these strategies manage threats
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through censorship, censorship and coercion. In order for performance and nationalism and a focus on ideology or religion to work in these authoritarian and hybrid states, they have high censorship, high propaganda and heavy use of coercion. Usually police, military or the threats of it imprisonment. Because they cannot allow any voices to criticize the performance of the government or to question nationalism or question ideology or offer different religions.
19:30
Because any thing different than the official government narrative is a threat to authoritarian and hybrid states such as China, Russia and Iran.
19:43
Now let's add in globalization and I mean sanctions, trade and investment can pressure sovereignty of any one of these nations and reshape domestic outcomes. That's why data questions about gdp, sanctions or policy changes are not just economics, they're legitimacy questions. Your exam mechanism sentence usually is because economic performance declined or was externally constrained.
20:17
Therefore legitimacy pressure increased which can affect stability. So perhaps in a little bit more student language, with the sanctions on Russia, Russia sees this as a challenge because as a state, they're not able to perform economically in a way that gives Russians great confidence in Putin being the leader, which is the point of the sanctions. In addition, sanctions on Iran makes it difficult for the Iranian government to deliver basic services, from electricity to water or even just goods.
20:59
And this is supposed to threaten the stability and threaten the legitimacy of the Iranian regime, because people are supposed to be unsatisfied.
21:13
Now, in China, there's no sanctions on China, so they don't have that problem. But what you do see in China, they often made. They make trade alliances so they could have the money to provide those services to their people, thus legitimacy legitimizing the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
21:38
But again, to maintain this in China, heavy censorship.
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Now, you don't see much police action against Chinese citizens. You see it where there are challenges, such as in Hong Kong or, Hong Kong, which offers a different economic system, free trade, capitalism, or the Uyghurs, where their adherence to their Islamic faith challenges the narrative of the state having complete control. But you do see strong internal regime, police force, strong course of power in Iran, because as Iran is being challenged for legitimacy, and it was during
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the sanctions, and people want to express other ideas, religious ideas and other ideas to approach the government. And now with the bombing, which does put into question Iran's ability to keep people safe,
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the questions are valid from people. And so Iran, to maintain its regime, doubles down on force.
22:50
I see. Hussein shared.
22:53
How did the rest of you guys do? Michelle Youssef?
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I got a eight. That's good. You, Hussein, what's your question, buddy?
23:03
Mr. Where can I find more questions like this?
23:07
Oh, I'll get. I'll get to that at the end of the session. All right, so now question 11. If I'd like to revisit some of these. These things. This asks about the limitation of the data. What's missing, what's unclear that weakens the conclusion.
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The answer was B.
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And so limitation questions, they reward what's undefined or what's not clearly measured. Without that, the analysis is incomplete. So you're looking for some incomplete data. In question two, this asks about the sources of political legitimacy in two AP course countries.
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UK and Nigeria heavily rely on elections. Classic procedural legitimacy. Elections happen, therefore they are legitimate.
23:59
Question 18. This explains what best.
24:04
This asks what best explains a rise in Iran's GDP in the year that you saw and this is tied to sanctions and global pressure. Sanctions. When sanctions are lifted, there is an economic rebound. Global pressures can constrain or restrict sovereignty and shape legitimacy. Every time there is sanctions, that is supposed to be a challenge to the current regime and cause the population, cause the nation to question the legitimacy that's meant for, sanctions are supposed to cause revolution.
24:46
That is the goal. All right, in question 19, that's asking about the implication of GDP decline in regime legitimacy.
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So it's a. It's a performance. Legitimacy. And economic downturns always undermine public support for government.
25:07
And then pressure from people on the stability of the government, it rises. No one likes being broke or feeling like they're poor.
25:19
All right, I'd like to move on to a mini debate that I'm going to have. You have.
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And if you look into the chat, the debate here, if you've ever done a parliamentary debate. So someone has puts out a motion, and then people will argue for and against it. And Michelle, I'd like to argue. I'd like to have you argue against it. Yousef, argue for it. And Elraz, I'd like you to kind of listen to these guys and judge them. So the motion on the floor is. Economic performance is the most important source of legitimacy.
26:03
Now, in arguing for this, you'd have to say that you'd argue that economic importance, economics is more important than other reasons. Michelle, what are those other reasons? And Yousef, you would have to pick any other reason and argue why that is more important than economics.
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Would you like some examples of other regions, other reasons? Yes, of course. You're looking for reasons of legitimacy and reasons for legitimacies. Economic, religious nationalism. We're nationally or elective. We elect our people, therefore, more, legitimate. We are of the same nation. And so that. That makes our government more legitimate. We share. We are the same religion, therefore, we are more.
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More, legitimate. Those are your.
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Now, I want both of you guys to take a side and use two countries.
27:32
Sir, along with economic, is ideology kind of the same thing as economic? Because ideology.
27:42
No. Nope nope nope.
27:47
An ideology would be something like the communist, communism. Is it important that everyone has the same ideology or is it economic? Am I arguing for or against it? Again, you are. You're arguing for economics.
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I don't expect. I thought you said he was. I thought you said he was arguing against the economics. Okay, Michelle, you're against. And Yousef, you. You are for economics. Okay?
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Now, I imagine you'll do this in the top. The top of your Head. And that's totally fine.
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Remember, it's an exam. You don't have to get it perfect.
28:26
I'm ready. Should I give you guys a few seconds to get ready?
28:30
I can go. I'm ready. All right, state your position. And why use two countries?
28:41
Okay, so I would think that economic, Well, at least I'm forced to think that economic performance is not the most important source of legitimacy. But we can see this is an obvious one, that in Iran, it's. It does not care. Like, especially since they've been sanctioned and they've been going through many kinds of types of oppression, the thing that's pulling them together and the thing that the IRGC or the Guardian Council is basically looking at is religion. And religion, in that case is more
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important because they don't care about how much economic prosperity, each candidate can bring.
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And plus, after the revolution, at least I wouldn't say the majority, but I would say the basis of, like, the country is of choosing leader is basically who's the most religious and who can guide the most righteously in Islam.
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All right, we also have China with the Communist Party, where they favor an ideology in order to, like, kind of hold the tight power over economic prosperity.
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All right. All right, Yusuf, what do you have?
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So I think, first of all, when you talk about Iran, it's more that they use religion as an excuse to control the citizens. Like we're. We're not very sure if the citizens really believe that the government is legitimate. Well, you're taking a position that you're. You believe that economics. Yeah. Is the most. Okay, so get to that. I'm not debating him. You're presenting your side. So as compared to when a country does economically well, there's jobs available, the prices are stable, and,
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like, incomes are rising, people are making money. So the people are going to feel that those in power are competent and they're able to provide them with opportunity and that they deserve authority and power and control because they know what they're doing. They're giving them jobs. So, for example, China, relies on economic performance for legitimacy. And there's rapid growth. There's economic growth in China, and people like, you know, living standards are raised and stuff like that.
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And if you look at a country that's poorer, like Nigeria, for example, there's poverty, there's unemployment. It's like a poor country. It's, like, more reliant on one thing, like oil. So that's going to undermine the legitimacy, and they're going to think, like, Citizens might think that the government don't know what they're doing. They don't, they don't make enough money for them. So economics is, I think, more important.
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Hussein, how do you feel about these positions?
31:22
I agree, Like, I, there are, I see this as a, like a. I agree with some parts that you said, and I agree with some parts that Michelle said. That, for example, when you mentioned Iran, I thought that that was a very good example. And like, how religiously they're more, like, they focus more on the religion side than they do economically or socially. And then Yusuf, when he started talking about how the employment rates can go up and the living standard gets raised, I
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thought that was a very good point as well.
31:54
Also, when you said that, the comparison between, like, China and Nigeria also is a pretty good comparison. But at the same time, I feel like, like Michelle could have mentioned something more about if they can, like, he should have, like, added some type of counter argument that had to do with something like Nigeria, which would have probably strengthened his argument more. And, yeah, that's, that's my judgment. Mr.
32:22
All right, now, I wrote this earlier, and so I came prepared. I'll show you what I had.
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And you can compare to what you had. Now. One thing I'm noticing, you guys, you were mentioning things conceptually.
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Now Yousef, you mentioned Nigeria, that they could be threatened because oil could go down. But that's not your example. You don't actually know that.
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And here's, here's what I mean, because you here, let me offer what I have. So arguments that would be strong for economics being the determiner, most important determiner for legitimacy. I would use the example China, as Yousef did, and I'd use it just the way he did. I would say that China, relies on performance legitimacy. And he's said that, and he's absolutely correct that China simply does get things done for its people and they do have a lifestyle. It's performance legitimacy, and it
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is how they remain legitimate. I also would have used Iran as an example, but Iran I would have used not because it's not a success.
33:32
I would have said Iran is another example of evidence that economics is, the most important part of legitimacy. Because as Iran is sanctioned, they have had an economic downturn, and therefore their legitimacy falls. It's low. They have, they have mass protests and they have internal police that crack down on protesters all the time and arrest them and execute them.
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Iran not an economic success, and it's threatening their legitimacy. And that negative example, I would say is a perfect example of how important economics are for legitimacy in hybrid and authoritarian states. I would have gone with that. Okay, so a strong, strong against,
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example, strong alternatives to economics. I would have used both the UK and Nigeria because they use elections for legitimacy. Yes, Yousef, Nigeria is indeed poor and it might be the poorest country of all the ones we're looking at, but that poverty doesn't threaten the government of Nigeria.
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The Nigerian government is functional and it's because it looks at elections as legitimacy and it has elections scheduled on time and they're fairly honest. Iran on the other side, I would kind of agree with which both you guys, I would say that Iran does look towards religious legitimacy.
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And they, you know, one of the ways they do stay legitimate because they are not able to be, they're not able to have performance legitimacy. That is their, that is their problem. The one thing that Iran doubles down on is their religious legitimacy. They are officially the only Shia state in the world and they really hammer that down into their people. Another strong con or against economics as being the most important determiner for sovereignty. Russian nationalism, the idea that
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people are Russian, you vote. Russia united their largest party because you are Russian. If you see here, this is how to write a good sentence in your FRQs, generally with an AP comparative government. Your sentence better have two countries.
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It better have two pieces of evidence of something that it's talking about.
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And then the mechanism. And I'm using, mechanism, I am. What I mean is a conjunction because or therefore something that leads to something and then whatever the outcome is. And it's either going to be legitimate legitimacy, stability, or accountability, whatever it is. Look at that sentence frame. You should be writing in sentences like that.
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All right, I think this is it for our session. I really appreciate you guys being here. Don't forget to copy these, copy that sentence structure. That is truly helpful to you. But before we go, just quickly, one last poll. Man.
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