Exam 1

Question 1

Conservatism

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

Government

Answer 2

• An institution

- Where decisions are made that resolve conflicts and allocate benefits and privileges.

Question 3

Limited Government

Answer 3

There is minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is not allowed by law, usually in a written Constitution.

Question 4

Political Culture

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Political Ideology

Answer 5

Closely linked set of beliefs and politics

-Stems from coming from different institutions such as family and school.

Question 6

Legitimacy

Answer 6

When authority is broadly accepted, it has legitimacy

-Popular acceptance of the right and power of a government or other entity to exercise authority.

Question 7

Democratic Republic

Answer 7

A republic in which representatives elected by the people make and enforce laws and policies.

Question 8

Liberalism

Answer 8

• Political philosophy founded on ideas of liberty and equality.
• Support freedom of speech, free markets, civil rights.

Question 9

Majority Rule

Answer 9

The principle that the greater number should exercise greater power

Question 10

Popular Sovereignty

Answer 10

Concept that ultimate political authority is based on the will of the people

Question 11

Representative Democracy

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

Bill of Rights

Answer 12

Part of the Constitution

-First 10 amendments, written together to protect the rights that the founding fathers wanted all citizens to have.

Question 13

Politics

Answer 13

Struggle over power or influence within organization or informal groups that can grant or withhold benefits or privileges.

Question 14

Order

Answer 14

A state of peace and security.

-Maintaining by protecting members of society from violence and criminal activity is the oldest purpose of government.

Question 15

Elite Theory

Answer 15

Holds that society is ruled by a small number of people who exercise power to further their self-interests

Question 16

Republic

Answer 16

Sovereign power rests with the people, rather than with a king or a monarch.

Question 17

Universal Suffrage

Answer 17

Right of all adults to vote for their representatives

Question 18

Federalist

Answer 18

• Person who advocates or supports a system of government.

- Madison (Federalist 51), pro government, use of the madisonian model (checks and balances)

Question 19

Natural Rights

Answer 19

Those rights that men possessed as a gift from nature (or God) prior to the formation of governments.

Question 20

Separation of powers

Answer 20

Principal of dividing governmental powers among different braches of government.

Question 21

Bicameral

Answer 21

Legislative body having two branches or chambers

Question 22

Judicial Review

Answer 22

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)

Question 23

Supremacy Doctrine

Answer 23

• 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.

Question 24

Checks and Balances

Answer 24

A major principle of the American system of government whereby each branch of the government can check the actions of the others.

Question 25

Confederation

Answer 25

An organization that consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league

Question 26

Great Compromise

Answer 26

• “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.

Question 27

Enumerated Powers

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Dual Federalism

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Commerce Clause

Answer 29

• 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.

Question 30

Elastic Clause

Answer 30

• 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.

Question 31

Concurrent Powers

Answer 31

Powers shared by the federal and state governments

-Ability to make laws, roads, defense, health, and environment.

Question 32

Unitary System

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

Police Power

Answer 33

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

Question 34

Supremacy Clause

Answer 34

• 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.