American Government: Foundations - Political Thinking and Political Culture

Vocabulary flashcards covering core definitions, foundational theories, and key terms from the introductory American Government lecture.

Politics

The acquisition and use of power (i.e. influence) and the struggle over who gets what, when, where, and how.

Sovereignty

Supreme authority, which from Montesquieu (1748) on, typically consists of three separate but related functions.

Government

The formal institutions and procedures through which a territory and its people are ruled, historically possessing a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion in society.

Institution

An ongoing organization that performs certain functions for society.

Norms

Unwritten rules of expected behavior that form an inextricable part of culture and serve as the root of the words normal and normative.

Public Policy

Government action produced as a response to a perceived problem of a constituency, formulated by a specific political process, and adopted, implemented, and enforced by a public agency.

Direct Democracy

A form of governance where political decisions are made by the people directly, rather than by their elected representatives, attained most easily in small political communities.

Universal Suffrage

A principle of democratic government establishing the right of all adults to vote for their representatives.

Majority Rule

The principle that the greatest number of citizens in any political unit should select the officials and determine policies.

Limited Government

A concept of constitutional democracy stating that the powers of government should be limited, usually by institutional checks.

Thomas Hobbes

Author of Leviathan (1651), presenting a competing perspective on the nature and purpose of government.

John Locke

Author of Two Treatises of Government (1689), offering a foundational perspective on civil government.

Three Propositions Regarding Law

The principles stating that law is the product of politics, law tends to favor the status quo, and a legal regime must be capable of adapting to change in order to survive.