Midterm #1 Flashcards
Power
Ability to get others to do what you want.
Government
System or organization for exercising authority over a body of people.
Economics
Production and distribution of a society’s material resources and services.
Elite Democracy
Idea that democracy limits the citizens’ role to choosing among competing leaders.
Pluralist Democracy
Idea that citizen membership in groups is the key to political power.
Participatory Democracy
Idea citizens are actively and directly control all aspects of their lives and participate in all aspects of lawmaking.
Citizens Divine Right of Kings
Doctrine that kings and queens have a God-given right to rule and that rebellion against them is a sin.
Political Culture
Set of attitudes and practices held by a people that shapes their political behavior. It includes moral judgments, political myths, beliefs, and ideas about what makes for a good society.
Immigrants
Citizen or subject of one country who moves to another to live or work.
Naturalization
Legal process of acquiring citizenship for someone who does not have it by birth.
Types of Rights (Procedural vs. Substantive)
Procedural - assurances that the rules will work smoothly and treat everyone fairly without promise of particular outcomes.
Substantive - assure outcomes as fair.
Ideologies
Sets of beliefs about politics and society that help people make sense of their world.
Popular Sovereignty
Concept that the citizens are the ultimate source of political power.
Monarchy Government
Government where power is vested in a king or queen (Saudi Arabia).
Theocracy Government
Government that claims to draw its power from divine or religious authority (Iran).
Fascist Government
One where policy is made for the ultimate glory of the state (1930s Italy).
Oligarchy Government
Small group of elites rules (post-Soviet Russia).
Totalitarian Government
Exercises absolute control
over every aspect of life (North Korea).
Anarchy
Absence of government and laws. No one has true freedom because your rights can be usurped by anyone physically stronger than you or by anyone with a weapon.
Great Compromise
(Maddison) Constitutional solution to congressional representation: equal votes by everyone in a particular country during a given year.
Three-fifths Compromise
Slave population for purpose of representation in the House of Representatives.
The New Jersey Plan
Unicameral legislature, equal representation in both chambers for each state.
The Federalist Papers
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution.
Thomas Paine and Common Sense
Best-selling American book of all time. Ddvocates for a new nation free to govern itself free from Britain.
Categorical and Block Grants
Categorical - Federal government gives money to a state and has specific instructions on how to use it.
Block - Federal government gives the states money but has limited instructions on how to spend it.
Unfunded Mandate
Federal government tells the states to do something but doesn’t give them money to do it.
Bicameral Legislature
Legislature with two houses, or chambers.
Unicameral Legislature
Having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. One chamber of legislature/house. Fewer chambers, easier to get laws passed.
Checks and Balances
Each branch of the government (executive, judicial, and legislative) has some measure of influence over the other branches and may choose to block procedures of the other branches. (Puts us into a gridlock, hard to get stuff done).
Supremacy Clause
Constitutional and national laws are the supreme law of the land. Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land.
Enumerated Powers
Expressly given to the national gov. Congress may exercise the powers that the Constitution grants it, subject to the individual rights listed in the Bill of Rights.
Concurrent Powers
Powers are shared by both the national/federal gov. and state gov.
Types of Direct Democracy (Initiative, Referendum, Recall)
Initiative - state votes on something directly, usually a constitutional amendment passing the legislature totally (popular votes)
Referendum - legislature puts something to vote.
Recall Elections - can ‘un-elect’ their elected officials.
Types of City Government
Mayoral Government - form of government where the mayor and council are partisan and run cities in a partisan way (many big and/or east coast cities).
Council-Manager Government - form of local government in which a professional city or town manager is appointed by elected councilors (most cities are governed this way in most states).
Commission Style - combines executive and legislative functions over a narrow area of responsibility.
Anarchy
Absence of government and laws. No one has true freedom because your rights can be usurped by anyone physically stronger than you or by anyone with a weapon.
Moralistic (State Culture)
Expects government to promote the public interest and the common good, see gov. as positive and encourages citizen participation.
Individualistic (State Culture)
Distrusts government, expects corruption, downplays citizen participation, and stresses individual economic prosperity.
Traditionalistic (State Culture)
Expects government to maintain existing power structure and sees citizenship as stratified with politics coming from the social elite.
Trends in American Demography
Becoming less white as people of other races and ethnicities move in.
Race to the Bottom
Used to describe government deregulation of the business environment or taxes in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions.
Values
Central ideas, principles, or standards that most people agree are important.
Feudalism
Social system in which a rigid social and political hierarchy was based on the ownership of land.
Slavery
Ownership, or forced labor, of one people by another.
Constitution
Rules that establish a government.
Ex Post Facto Laws
Laws that criminalize an action after it occurs.
Establishment Clause
First amendment guarantee that the government will not create and support an official state church.
Parliamentary Systems
Government in which the executive is chosen by the legislature from among its members and the two branches are merged.
Sedition
Speech that criticizes the government.
Libel
Written defamation (damaging one’s reputation) of character.
Due Process of the Law
Guarantee that laws will be fair and reasonable and that citizens suspected of breaking the law will be treated fairly.
Strict Scrutiny
Heightened standard of review used the Supreme Court to assess the constitutionality of laws that limi some freedoms or that make a suspect classification.
Jim Crow Laws
Southern laws designed to circumvent (find a way around) the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and to deny clacks rights on bases other than race.
Virginia Plan
Proposal at the Constitutional Convention that congressional representation be based on population, thus favoring that large states.
Federalism
Political system in which power is divided between the central and regional units.
Separation of Powers
Institutional arrangement that assigns judicial, executive, and legislative powers to different persons or groups, thereby limiting the powers of each.
Checks and Balances
Principle the allows each branch of government to exercise some form of control over the others.
Articles of the Confederation
The first constitution of the United States (1777) creating an association of states with weak central government.
Constitution
Rules that establish a government.
Constitutional Convention
Assembly of 55 delegates in the summer of 1787 to recast the Articles of Confederation; the result was the U.S. Constitution.
Necessary and Proper Clause
Constitutional authorization for Congress to make any law required to carry out its powers.
Federalists
Supporters of the Constitution who favored a strong central government.
Anti-Federalists
Advocates of states’ rights who opposed the Constitution.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994. Theoretically lifted a ban on homosexual service.
Civil Rights
Citizenship rights guaranteed to the people and protected by the government.
Habeas Corupus
Right of an accuse person to be brought before a judge and informed of the charges and evidence against him or her.
Devolution
Transfer of powers and responsibilities from the federal government to the states.
Brown v Board of Education of Topeka
Supreme Court case that rejected the idea that separate could be equal in education.
Griswold v Connecticut
Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy.
De Jure Discrimination
Discrimination arising from or supported by the law.
De Facto Discrimination
Discrimination that is the result not of law but rather of tradition and habit.
