POLS 1101 Chapter 1: Government, Power, and Civic Engagement

Vocabulary flashcards generated from POLS 1101 Chapter 1 covering core political terms, economic systems, types of goods, democratic principles, governance theories, and civic engagement.

Capitalism

An economic system where private businesses own most productive resources and provide goods or services in exchange for profit.

Socialism

An economic system in which government or public institutions play a larger role in ownership, planning, redistribution, and major public services.

Private goods

Goods sold by private businesses that are normally available only to people who can pay, such as food, clothing, and housing.

Public goods

Goods that are broadly available to all and usually financed collectively through taxes, such as national security and public education.

Toll goods

Goods available to many people, but only if they pay a price or meet an access requirement, such as private school education or cable TV.

Common goods

Shared resources that many people can use but that exist in limited supply, such as fish stocks and clean drinking water.

Excludable goods

Goods where access is restricted and not everyone can use them, often because only those who pay may access the good or service.

Non-excludable goods

Goods where all people have access and no one may be excluded, usually provided without direct charge.

Rivalrous goods

Goods that can only be used by one person at any given time.

Non-rivalrous goods

Goods that many people can use or benefit from at the exact same time.

Popular sovereignty

The core democratic principle that the people are the ultimate source of legitimate political authority.

Political power

The ability of citizens to influence institutions, leaders, rules, and public policy directly or through representatives.

Accountability

The restraint of political officials through elections, rights, courts, public debate, transparency, and constitutional limits.

Majority rule

The democratic principle that when a lawful decision is put to a vote, the side with more support normally wins.

Minority rights

Basic constitutional rights retained by people who are outnumbered, which a majority cannot lawfully remove.

Representative democracy

A system of government where citizens elect officials who make laws and public decisions on their behalf.

Direct democracy

A system of government in which citizens vote directly on policy questions rather than only choosing representatives.

Referendum

A direct-democracy mechanism where voters approve or reject a law, amendment, or public measure placed on the ballot.

Initiative

A direct-democracy tool where citizens gather required support or signatures to place a proposed law or amendment before voters.

Town meeting

A local form of direct democracy where residents gather to debate and vote directly on local government issues.

Absolute monarchy

A political system where one hereditary ruler holds broad political power with few effective limits, such as in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

Oligarchy

A non-democratic political system where a small elite controls political power, such as in China and Cuba.

Authoritarianism

A non-democratic political system where meaningful opposition, civil liberties, and political competition are sharply restricted.

Totalitarianism

A political system where government seeks extensive control over politics, information, organizations, and social life, such as in North Korea.

Elite theory

A theory of governance proposing that political influence is concentrated among a small group with wealth, status, institutional access, or powerful networks.

Pluralism

A theory proposing that political influence is distributed among organized groups that compete through multiple access points.

C. Wright Mills

The theorist who argued that business, military, and political elites form overlapping networks of political influence.

Agenda setting

The power to decide which issues or policy choices receive serious consideration in public debate.

Elite recruitment

A narrow pathway into national leadership, illustrated in the textbook by presidential educational backgrounds.

Robert Dahl

The political scientist who argued that politicians seek an 'electoral payoff' by responding to politically active citizens and groups.

Counter-mobilization

The process where opponents organize and use alternate political venues to challenge a newly powerful group.

Tradeoffs

Public policy compromises balancing competing pressure from elites, organized groups, voters, and institutions, often reducing one value to advance another.

Social capital

Networks, trust, shared responsibility, and willingness to cooperate among citizens.

Robert Putnam

The scholar who argued that a decline in small, interactive groups may weaken citizens' civic skills and social trust.

Fifteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Nineteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that extended voting rights to women nationally.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Federal legislation that strengthened protection against racial discrimination in voting.

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

The constitutional amendment ratified in 1971 that lowered the national voting age to eighteen.