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American Government > Chapter 1 > Flashcards

Chapter 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

What is politics?

A

The way we decide who gets power and influence in a world where there is not enough power for all of us to have as much as we’d like.

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2
Q

What are rules?

A

Political directives that help to determine who will win or lose future power struggles.

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3
Q

What is political narrative?

A

A story that is used to persuade others about the nature of power, who should have it, and how it should be used.

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4
Q

What is government?

A

A system or an organization for exercising authority over a body of people.

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5
Q

What is authority?

A

Power that people consider legitimate, that they have consented or agreed to.

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6
Q

What are authoritarian governments?

A

Political systems in which the rulers have all the power and the rules don’t allow the people who live under them to have any power at all.

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7
Q

What are subjects?

A

People who are bound to the will of the rulers and who have no power of their own to push back on an abusive government.

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8
Q

What are non-authoritarian governments?

A

Political systems in which the rules regulate people’s behaviors in some respects but allow them considerable freedom in others.

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9
Q

What are citizens?

A

Individuals who live under non-authoritarian governments.

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10
Q

What is democracy?

A

A type of non-authoritarian government wherein citizens have considerable power to make the rules that govern them.

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11
Q

What is popular sovereignty?

A

the concept that the citizens are the ultimate source of political power.

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12
Q

What is anarchy?

A

No government at all; a system in which individuals (rulers) are free to do as they whish

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12
Q

What is economics?

A

The process for deciding who gets the material resources and how they get them.

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12
Q

What are mixed economies?

A

Economic systems based on modified forms of capitalism.

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12
Q

What is socialism?

A

An economic system in which the government (a single ruler, a party, or some other empowered group) decides what to produce and who should get the products.

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12
Q

What is capitalism?

A

An economic system that relies on the market to make decisions about who should have material goods.

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12
Q

What is a market?

A

The collective decisions of multiple individuals about what to buy or sell, creating different levels of demand and supply.

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13
Q

What is democratic socialism?

A

A mixed economy in which the democratic process is used to achieve socialism.

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14
Q

What is social democracy?

A

A mixed economy that is committed to market capitalism but that uses the democratic process to attain some of the goals a socialist economy is supposed to produce (like more equality).

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15
Q

What is regulated capitalism?

A

A market system in which the government intervenes to protect rights.

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16
Q

What is lassiez-faire capitalism?

A

A form of capitalism wherein there are no restrictions on the market at all.

17
Q

What is capitalist democracy?

A

A political-economic system that grants the most individual control over both political and economic life.

18
Q

What is totalitarianism?

A

A system that combines authoritarian government with a socialist economic system wherein the government makes all the decisions about power, influence, and money.

19
Q

What authoritarian capitalism?

A

A system in which the authoritarian government has strong control over how individuals may live their lives, but individuals do have some market freedom.

20
Q

What is political culture?

A

A set of shared ideas, values, and beliefs that define the role and limitations of government and people’s relationship to that government and that, therefore, bind people into a single political unit.

21
Q

What is limited government?

A

The Enlightenment idea that the power of government should be restricted to allow for maximum individual freedom.

22
Q

What is individualism?

A

A political cultural emphasis on individual rights rather than on the collective whole.

23
Q

What is freedom?

A

In American political culture, defined as individual independence from government.

24
Q

What is equality?

A

In American political culture, defined as forms of political fairness that require minimal government intervention.

25
Q

What are ideologies?

A

competing narratives that explain various political disagreements.

26
Q

What are conservatives?

A

Americans on the political right who believe in less regulation of the economy.

27
Q

What are liberals?

A

Americans on the political left who believe in greater government regulation of the economy.

28
Q

What are economic conservatives?

A

Americans who favor a strictly procedural government role in the economy and the social order.

29
Q

What are libertarians?

A

Americans who favor minimal government role in any sphere.

30
Q

What is good loserism?

A

The willingness to accept a political loss with the confidence that a win will eventually follow, rather than trying to change the rules or delegitimate the process.

31
Q

What are economic liberals?

A

Americans who favor an expanded government role in the economy but a limited role in the social order.

32
Q

What are social conservatives?

A

Americans who endorse limited government control of the economy but considerable government intervention to realize a traditional social order; based on religious values and hierarchy rather than equality.

33
Q

What are social liberals?

A

Americans who favor greater control of the economy and the social order to bring about greater equality and to regulate the effects of progress.

34
Q

What are progressives?

A

Economic liberals who believe in a stronger role for the state in creating equality.

35
Q

What are generations?

A

Groups of people born within the same general time period who share life experiences that help shape their political views.

36
Q

What is media?

A

Channels of communication.

37
Q

What is classical liberalism?

A

An Enlightenment philosophy emphasizing individual freedom and self-rule.

38
Q

What is social contract?

A

The idea that power is derived not from God but instead comes from and is limited by the consent of the governed, who can revolt against the government they contract with if their rights are not protected.

39
Q

What are digital natives?

A

People who have been born in an era in which not only are most people hooked up to electrical media, but also live their lives partly in cyberspace as real as in “real space”.

40
Q

What are mediated citizens?

A

People who are constantly receiving information through multiple channels that can and do shape their political views but who also have the ability to use those channels to create their own narratives.

41
Q

What are naturalized citizens?

A

People who become U.S. citizens through a series of procedures that the law lays out.

42
Q

What is public-interested citizenship?

A

Citizens who put country ahead of self by putting aside their self-interest to advance the public interest.

43
Q

What is self-interested citizenship?

A

Citizens who are focused on their personal lives and use the political system to maximize their interests.

44
Q

What is hashtag activism?

A

The forming of social movements through viral calls to act politically.

45
Q

What is an information bubble?

A

A closed cycle in which all the information we get reinforces the information we already have, solidifying our beliefs without reference to outside reality checks.

46
Q

What are norms?

A

Unspoken, unwritten ideas that support the U.S. Constitution and give structure to democratic government.

47
Q
A

American Government (3 decks)

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