Exam 1 Flashcards
Conservatism
A set of beliefs that includes advocacy of a limited role for the national government in helping individuals, support for traditional values and lifestyles, and a cautious response to change.
Government
- An institution
- Where decisions are made that resolve conflicts and allocate benefits and privileges.
Limited Government
There is minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is not allowed by law, usually in a written Constitution.
Political Culture
Patterned set of ideas, values, and ways of thinking about government and politics that characterized its people.
-Census about rights to liberty, equality, and property
Political Ideology
Closely linked set of beliefs and politics
-Stems from coming from different institutions such as family and school.
Legitimacy
When authority is broadly accepted, it has legitimacy
-Popular acceptance of the right and power of a government or other entity to exercise authority.
Democratic Republic
A republic in which representatives elected by the people make and enforce laws and policies.
Liberalism
- Political philosophy founded on ideas of liberty and equality.
- Support freedom of speech, free markets, civil rights.
Majority Rule
The principle that the greater number should exercise greater power
Popular Sovereignty
Concept that ultimate political authority is based on the will of the people
Representative Democracy
A democracy supported by representatives elected by its constituents.
- Adaptation of direct democracy
- Supplement by the initiative (voters propose a law) or the referendum (legislative are referred by the legislature to the voters for approval or disapproval)
Bill of Rights
Part of the Constitution
-First 10 amendments, written together to protect the rights that the founding fathers wanted all citizens to have.
Politics
Struggle over power or influence within organization or informal groups that can grant or withhold benefits or privileges.
Order
A state of peace and security.
-Maintaining by protecting members of society from violence and criminal activity is the oldest purpose of government.
Elite Theory
Holds that society is ruled by a small number of people who exercise power to further their self-interests
Republic
Sovereign power rests with the people, rather than with a king or a monarch.
Universal Suffrage
Right of all adults to vote for their representatives
Federalist
- Person who advocates or supports a system of government.
- Madison (Federalist 51), pro government, use of the madisonian model (checks and balances)
Natural Rights
Those rights that men possessed as a gift from nature (or God) prior to the formation of governments.
Separation of powers
Principal of dividing governmental powers among different braches of government.
Bicameral
Legislative body having two branches or chambers
Judicial Review
Doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary.
-Court invalidate laws and decisions that are incompatible with a higher authority (written constitution)
Supremacy Doctrine
- Supremacy Clause
- Federal law preempts state law, even when the laws conflict
- A federal court may require a state to stop certain behavior if it interferes with federal law.
Checks and Balances
A major principle of the American system of government whereby each branch of the government can check the actions of the others.
Confederation
An organization that consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league
Great Compromise
- “Connecticut Compromise”
- Reached during the US Constitutional Convention
- Agreement allowed for the creation of the two house of the U.S. Congress. House based on population, Senate based on proportions (2 per state).
- Compromise was reached to address the feeling from the smaller states that their interest would be drowned out by the larger states.
Enumerated Powers
List of items found in Article I Section 8, set forth the authority of Congress.
-Congress may exercise the powers that the Constitution grants it.
Dual Federalism
Referred to as divided sovereignty
-A political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government.
Commerce Clause
- Describes an enumerated power
- States that Congress has power to regulate commerce (trade/business) with foreign nations, and among the several states and with the Indian Tribes.
Elastic Clause
- Another name for the Necessary and Proper Clause
- Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution.
Concurrent Powers
Powers shared by the federal and state governments
-Ability to make laws, roads, defense, health, and environment.
Unitary System
System of political organization in which most or all of the governing power resides in a centralized government
-Central government commonly delegates authority to subnational units and channels policy decisions down to them for implementation.
Police Power
Power of a government to impose what it considers reasonable restrictions on the liberties of its citizens for the maintenance of public order and safety
Supremacy Clause
- Article IV, Clause 2
- Establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land.
- Provides state courts are bound by the supreme law, in case of conflict between federal and state law, the federal law must be applied.
