Law in the context of "European Union law"

Political science is the social scientific study of politics. It deals with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws. Specialists in the field are political scientists.
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Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/ KUL-chər) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these groups. Culture often originates from or is attributed to a specific region or location.

Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted as a typical behavior for an individual, and duty, honor, and loyalty to the social group are counted as virtues or functional responses in the continuum of conflict. In religion, analogous attributes can be identified in a social group.

A social norm is a shared standard of acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.

Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ought to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness and logic of consequences; the former entails that actors follow norms because it is socially appropriate, and the latter entails that actors follow norms because of cost-benefit calculations. Others see social norms emerging as part of an evolutionarily stable strategy, where they stabilize through third-party punishment.

A principle may relate to a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs or behavior or a chain of reasoning. They provide a guide for behavior or evaluation. A principle can make values explicit, so they are expressed in the form of rules and standards. Principles unpack values so they can be more easily operationalized in policy statements and actions.

In law, higher order, overarching principles establish rules to be followed, modified by sentencing guidelines relating to context and proportionality. In science and nature, a principle may define the essential characteristics of the system, or reflect the system's designed purpose. The effective operation would be impossible if any one of the principles was to be ignored. A system may be explicitly based on and implemented from a document of principles as was done in IBM's 360/370 Principles of Operation. It is important to differentiate an operational principle, including reference to 'first principles' from higher order 'guiding' or 'exemplary' principles, such as equality, justice and sustainability. Higher-order, 'superordinate' principles (Super-Ps) provide a basis for resolving differences and building agreement/alignment.

In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "legal person" is that some legal persons are not human persons: companies and corporations (i.e., business entities) are persons, legally speaking (they can legally do most of the things an ordinary person can do), but they are not, in a literal sense, human beings.

Legal personhood is a prerequisite to legal capacity (the ability of any legal person to amend – i.e. enter into, transfer, etc. – rights and obligations): it is a prerequisite for an international organization being able to sign international treaties in its own name.

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. Rights are an important concept in law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.

The history of social conflicts has often involved attempts to define and redefine rights. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived".

Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under consideration to distinguish it from other business. Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to outlaw, to provide (funds), to sanction, to grant, to declare, or to restrict. It may be contrasted with a non-legislative act by an executive or administrative body under the authority of a legislative act.

Governance is the overall complex system or framework of processes, functions, structures, rules, laws and norms born out of the relationships, interactions, power dynamics and communication within an organized group of individuals. It sets the boundaries of acceptable conduct and practices of different actors of the group and controls their decision-making processes through the creation and enforcement of rules and guidelines. Furthermore, it also manages, allocates and mobilizes relevant resources and capacities of different members and sets the overall direction of the group in order to effectively address its specific collective needs, problems and challenges.

The concept of governance can be applied to social, political or economic entities (groups of individuals engaged in some purposeful activity) such as a state and its government (public administration), a governed territory, a society, a community, a social group (like a tribe or a family), a formal or informal organization, a corporation, a non-governmental organization, a non-profit organization, a project team, a market, a network or even on the global stage. "Governance" can also pertain to a specific sector of activities such as land, environment, health, internet, security, etc. The degree of formality in governance depends on the internal rules of a given entity and its external interactions with similar entities. As such, governance may take many forms, driven by many different motivations and with many different results.