Virtuous English AcademyPolitics & Power — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about politics & power — parliaments, policy and the state. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using politics & power words in English
Political vocabulary carries connotations that dictionaries often understate, and using a loaded word neutrally is a real error of tone. Regime is the clearest case: it looks like a neutral synonym for government and is not. This page also fixes one uncountable noun that learners regularly pluralise — legislation — and the British convention of dropping the article before Parliament.
What to watch out for
Regime is not a neutral word
In modern English, regime almost always implies an authoritarian or illegitimate government: the regime crushed the protests. For a democratic government, use government or administration. The neutral technical sense survives in phrases like a regulatory regime and a training regime, but describing an elected government as a regime is a political statement, not a stylistic choice.
Legislation is uncountable; a law is countable
Say new legislation has been introduced — no article, no plural, singular verb. There is no a legislation and no legislations. For countable units use a law, an act, a bill or a statute. Note the sequence: a proposal is a bill until it passes, at which point it becomes an act. The body that makes it is the legislature.
British Parliament takes no article
When it means the institution, British English writes in Parliament, Parliament has voted — capitalised and with no the. The article returns for the building or for a specific parliament: the Scottish Parliament. Related plurals to watch: referendum takes either referendums or referenda, with the English plural now more common in British journalism.
Words learners mix up
Political vocabulary sorts into three questions a reader asks of any report: who holds the power, through what machinery it is exercised, and how it is resisted. The words inside each group are near-synonyms only until you need to be accurate.
Who holds the power?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| monarchy | Rule by a hereditary sovereign. Says nothing about how much power that sovereign actually has — Britain and Saudi Arabia are both monarchies. | A constitutional monarchy with a ceremonial head of state. |
| republic | A state with no monarch, where the head of state is elected or appointed. The opposite of monarchy, not of dictatorship. | The republic was declared in 1918. |
| dictatorship | Rule by one person or group with no meaningful constraint. A description of how power is held. | Forty years of military dictatorship. |
| tyranny | The abuse of that power. A moral judgement rather than a constitutional category, and it can be used of a majority as easily as of one ruler. | Protection against the tyranny of the majority. |
| regime | The particular government in power, almost always with a suggestion that it should not be. | Sanctions imposed on the regime. |
The first two answer a different question from the last three: monarchy and republic describe the constitutional form, dictatorship and tyranny describe the exercise of power. That is why a republic can be a dictatorship and a monarchy need not be. Keep sovereignty separate again — it is the authority of a state over itself, which is why it appears in arguments about treaties rather than about elections.
The machinery, and who works it
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| legislature | The body that makes law. The general term; Parliament and Congress are particular ones. | A bicameral legislature with an upper house. |
| cabinet | The senior ministers who decide policy collectively. Takes a singular or plural verb in British English. | The cabinet met for four hours. |
| bureaucracy | The permanent administrative apparatus — and, in everyday use, its slowness. | Buried in bureaucracy for eighteen months. |
| governance | How an organisation is directed and held answerable. Abstract and uncountable, and it applies to companies and charities as much as to states. | Weak corporate governance. |
| mandate | The authority an election result gives a government to act. Countable, and always contested after a close vote. | They claimed a mandate for reform. |
Govern is what a government does; governance is the system of rules and answerability under which it does it — so a country can be governed firmly and still have poor governance. And bureaucracy carries a built-in complaint: the neutral word for the same people is the civil service.
Four ways of not agreeing
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| opposition | The parties not in government, treated as an institution. Capitalised in British reporting: the Opposition. | The opposition forced a vote. |
| dissent | Disagreement with the official line, often from inside. Uncountable, and it is the word used where disagreement carries a cost. | The suppression of dissent. |
| veto | A formal power to block a decision outright. Both noun and verb, and it is procedural rather than rhetorical. | Russia used its veto at the Security Council. |
| lobby | To press decision-makers privately on behalf of an interest. Also a noun for the group doing it. | They lobbied ministers for an exemption. |
Note how much of the force sits in whether the disagreement is licensed. Opposition and a veto are built into the system; dissent is what the system did not plan for, which is why censorship is its usual companion. An activist works outside the machinery entirely.
Collocations that sound natural
Political nouns are unusually fixed in the verbs they take, and the wrong pairing reads as translated English immediately. These are the frames that recur in serious reporting.
mandate
a clear mandateclaim a mandate fora mandate to governthe mandate expires
Almost always preceded by an adjective of strength — a clear, a strong, no real mandate — because the whole point of the word is that the amount of authority is arguable.
sanction
impose sanctions onlift sanctionstighten sanctionseconomic sanctions
In the punishment sense it is almost always plural and takes impose or lift. Beware the opposite meaning: as a verb, to sanction means to approve, so the strike was sanctioned permits it.
veto
exercise a vetouse its vetoveto the billthe power of veto
You exercise or use a veto rather than do one, and the verb takes the thing blocked as a direct object.
accountability
hold someone to accountdemocratic accountabilitya lack of accountabilityaccountable to
Uncountable. The person is accountable to whoever can remove them and accountable for the decision itself — the two prepositions are not interchangeable.
coalition
form a coalitiona coalition governmentthe coalition collapseda broad coalition
Coalitions are formed, occasionally cobbled together, and they collapse rather than end. The word also works outside politics for any temporary alliance of unlike partners.
legislation
introduce legislationpass legislationa piece of legislationunder current legislation
Uncountable, so the counter is a piece of. Governments introduce or bring forward legislation and a legislature passes it.
Formal, neutral or informal?
Half the words on this page are positioned before they describe anything — they tell the reader where the writer stands. In an essay that is only a problem when it is unintentional.
- regimeLoaded · hostileNeutral only in fixed technical phrases such as a regulatory regime. Applied to a government, it declares that government illegitimate, so in academic writing prefer government or administration unless the judgement is your argument.
- populistContestedDescriptive in political science — an appeal to the people against an elite — but almost always pejorative in journalism. Because both uses circulate, say which you mean rather than relying on the word to carry it.
- partisanDisapprovingLoyal to a party at the expense of judgement. British English uses it mainly as a criticism of institutions expected to be neutral: a partisan broadcaster. Its opposite in that frame is impartial, not independent.
- statesmanApproving · datedA politician elevated by long service and disinterest — the word is praise, and it is also gendered. Stateswoman exists but is rarer, and much modern writing prefers a statesmanlike figure to avoid the choice.
- bureaucracyNegative by defaultFormally just administration by officials, but in ordinary use it means obstruction. If you mean the institution without the complaint, write the civil service or the administration.
- nationalismPositive or negative by regionIn much British and American writing it suggests chauvinism; in postcolonial and Scottish or Catalan contexts it names a movement for self-determination and is neutral or positive. This word genuinely changes value with its setting.
- libertyFormal · rhetoricalThe elevated twin of freedom, at home in constitutional language — civil liberties, at liberty to. Choosing it over freedom in ordinary prose sounds either legal or grand.
- dissentNeutral · but marks the frameUncountable and formal. Calling disagreement dissent implies an orthodoxy it departs from, which is why the word appears far more often about authoritarian states and courts than about ordinary debate.
Sentences to try
Four frames from political reporting. Watch the articles and the countability.
- Parliament voted to approve the new legislation.
- The coalition collapsed after the referendum.
- The opposition demanded a debate on the constitution.
- She won her constituency with a majority of four thousand.
Questions about politics & power vocabulary
Can I use "regime" to mean any government?
Not neutrally. In contemporary English, regime strongly implies an authoritarian, repressive or illegitimate government: the fall of the regime. Applying it to an elected government reads as a judgement rather than a description, so use government, administration or the party name instead. The word does keep a neutral technical meaning in fixed collocations — a regulatory regime, a tax regime, a training regime — where it simply means a system of rules.
Is "legislation" countable?
No. Legislation is uncountable, taking a singular verb and no article: Legislation is needed, a piece of legislation. There is no a legislation and no legislations, though both are common learner errors because the equivalent is countable in several other languages. When you need to count, use laws, acts, bills or statutes. Note the process words: a bill is a proposal, and it becomes an act once it has passed.
Do I say "in Parliament" or "in the Parliament"?
British English says in Parliament, with a capital letter and no article, when it means the institution: The bill was debated in Parliament. The article appears when you name a specific body — the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament — or when you mean the building. The same article-free pattern applies to Congress in American English. When the word means one particular term of office, it becomes countable: the last Parliament sat for four years.