Chapter 1: American Political Culture Flashcards
Define: government
Institutions and procedures through which a territory and its people are ruled
Define: politics
Conflict over the leadership, structure, and policies of governments
How does the level of trust in the government vary between different ethnic groups?
African Americans and Latinos express more confidence in the federal government than do whites
What developments are vital for the health of a democracy?
Politically engaged citizens and public confidence
What factors contributed to the decline in trust during the 2000s?
Revelations about the faulty information that led up to the war in Iraq, ongoing concern about the war, inability to get the economy moving, intense partisan conflict over the government’s role in the economy
What did 54% of those surveyed believe about the Bush administration?
That the Bush administration had deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
What caused public approval in government to hit a record low in 2011?
When House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama failed to reach a compromise over the federal debt limit
Define: political efficacy
The ability to influence government and politics; the belief that ordinary citizens can affect what government does, that they can make government listen to them
How does the view that the “government is NOT really run for the benefit of all the people” vary across the age spectrum?
It is widely shared across the age spectrum (57 percent of the public in 2012)
How does declining political efficacy affect democracy?
A self-perpetuating cycle of apathy, declining political participation, withdrawal from political life
What is the first prerequisite for achieving an increased sense of political efficacy?
Knowledge; political indifference is simply a habit that stems from a lack of knowledge about how your interests are affected by politics
Define: citizenship
Informed and active membership in a political community; enlightened political engagement
Why do citizens need knowledge?
To assess their interests and to know when to act on them, to be more attentive to and engaged in politics because they understand how and why politics is relevant to their lives, to ascertain what they cannot or should not ask of politicians and the government
What two questions are of special importance in determining how governments differ?
Who governs? How much government control is permitted?
Define: autocracy
A form of government in which a single individual–a king, queen, or dictator–rules
Define: oligarchy
A form of government in which a small group–landowners, military officers, or wealthy merchants–controls most of the governing decisions
What is the difference between and oligarchy and a democracy?
A democracy is an oligarchy with more participation and influence from the people over decision making
Define: democracy
A system of rule that permits citizens to play a significant part in the governmental process, usually through the election of key public officials
Define: substantive limits
WHAT governments are permitted to control
Define: procedural limits
HOW governments are permitted to control
Define: constitutional government
A system of rule in which formal end effective limits are placed on the powers of the government
Define: authoritarian government
A system of rule in which the government recognizes no formal limits but may nevertheless be restrained by the power of other social institutions, such as autonomous territories, an organized religion, organized business groups, or organized labor unions
Define: totalitarian government
A system of rule in which the government recognizes no formal limits on its power and seeks to absorb or eliminate other social institutions that might challenge it. Dominates or controls every sphere of political, economic, and social life (i.e. Soviet Union under Stalin, Nazi Germany, prewar Japan and Italy, North Korea
What percentage of the global population can be classified as living in a constitutional democracy?
45 percent, those living in 87 countries
