Midterm 1 Flashcards
Liberal Democracy*
book definition
A form of representative democracy .
Characterized by popular sovereignty, political equality, and liberty. This is what American democracy strives towards
Liberal/Representative Democracy vs. Republican/Direct Democracy
(from class)
Mechanism: Representation vs Participation
Principle: Choice vs Self Government
Goal: Individual Rights vs The Common Good
Direct Democracy*
book definition
Citizens meet together and regularly debate/discuss public affairs
“The American Dream”*
Hochschild
The Theory, in reality, these are less than true
Who: Everyone
What: The reasonable anticipation of success, or upward mobility
How: Through actions and traits under one’s control
Why: “True success is associated with virtue”
American Exceptionalism*
De Tocqueville
The poverty of most nineteenth-century immigrants created a culture of equality.
The religious practices of early settlers promoted a culture of self-governance. Inheritence laws prevented the development of an aristocracy.
The land in America was too poor to support a wealthy land-owning class.
“The American Dream”*
Textbook
American value of Individualism - believing that one’s fate is and ought to be in one’s own hands, and this is tied to one’s efforts. Americans favor “equality of opportunity”
Nativism*
To some, a call for national unity through homogeneity
To others, uneducated fear mongering
Crops up whenever there is large waves of immigrants esp 19th century
We see it now directed at Hispanics
Racial profiling, language laws, dehumanizing language towards immigrants
Is diversity an asset or threat to democracy? And how should our gov react to changing populations
Faction*
Madison’s term for groups or parties that try to advance their own interests independent of (or at the expense of) the public good
Madison believed that American Democracy would benefit from the diverse interests of its people, which would create many factions that would all keep each other in check
Madison also proposes that representatives will exercise their own good judgement to keep factions in check
He was also concerned a big faction of poor people would rise up
To prevent a dominating faction he says - the existence of a common widespread problem must be avoided, or members of the faction must be made unable to communicate and organize with one another
Sample Survey*
A set of people who are supposed to represent the whole population are surveyed, and their answers are considered to be representative of the nation
Used to measure public opinion, may influence policy makers and/or the public
A “snapshot”
American Exceptionalism*
class
America is uniquely powerful, wealthy and religious… sense of divine mission, manifest destiny
Sentiment that we are a “city on a hill,” the image of democracy for the rest of the world
Steps of Lawmaking
simplified
- Citizens identify a problem
- Legislator writes a Bill
- Bill referred to committee
- Committee Action
- Floor Action
- Introduced in other Chamber (repeat 1-5)
- Presidential Action –> Law or Veto
- (if vetoed) 2/3 Congress vote -> Law
Cumulative Voting*
Get 1 vote per candidate, voters can spread them out among candidates or “plump” one candidate with all their votes
Theory that this will increase minority representation because they can plump minority candidates, while majority voters will likely spread their votes out among several majority candidates
(Gets tricky if there are a lot of candidates
Rank Choice/Instant Runoff Voting*
Voters rank candidates according to preference (or do not have to vote for multiple candidates)
Mathematically complicated, if one candidate wins, some of their votes go to the next candidates
Non-Monotonic: You can get your preferred outcome by voting in a way that is different than purely expressing your preference (voting strategically)
Shay’s Rebellion*
Led by Daniel Shay’s, Massachusetts, 1786
armed men took over court houses to prevent judges from ordering the seizure of farms and incarceration of farmers for not paying state taxes
Convinced many of the need for a stronger federal gov, proving the dangers of ineffective state governments. In response, the constitutional convention was called to “amend” the Articles of Confederation
Checks and Balances*
textbook
“ambition be made to counteract ambition”
The division of powers between branches of government so that no one branch could extend their power without infringing on that of another branch, who would ideally keep them in check (to ensure the separation of powers)
Writers of constitution were concerned with the potential for legislative tyranny - in contrast to writers of AoC who were more worried about executive tyranny and advocated legislative supremacy
Enumerated Powers*
Powers of the federal government specifically mentioned in the constitution Enhanced to (potentially) included additional powers with the elastic clause
Elastic Clause
Article 1, Section 8, the “necessary and proper clause” gave Congress the power to pass whatever legislation they deemed necessary to carry out the enumerated powers
