Unit 1: How Are Societies Governed? - Forms of Governance

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering systems of governance, including monarchies, democracies, dictatorships, and totalitarian states, based on Unit 1: How are societies governed?

Monarchy

A form of government where an individual exercises power over a society because they are from a particular family, and who also represents the identity of a nation.

Elective Monarchy

A system where the monarch is voted into power, usually by a small and select group of individuals, such as the system used in the Vatican.

Self-proclaimed Monarchy

A system where an individual declares themselves as the monarch of a country, such as Napoleon Bonaparte declaring himself Emperor of the French people in the early nineteenth century.

Absolute Monarch

A monarch who holds the most power and rules as an autocrat, with the authority to pass laws and overrule government to make decisions regarding the running of a country.

Divine Right of Kings

In Middle Ages Europe, a sacred power attributed to monarchs that could not be challenged.

Constitutional Monarchy

A system of governance where the monarch has partial or ceremonial power, is subject to the laws of a constitution, and serves primarily as a figurehead and symbol of national unity.

Coronation

The official ceremony in which a monarch is crowned.

The Commonwealth

An organization of 53 nations that historically had links to the UK, established to promote peace and human rights, with the British monarch serving as head.

Democracy

A system of governance run by the people, in which citizens have a voice in how the government is run and which laws are passed, typically through voting.

Direct Democracy

A form of democracy where eligible citizens directly make decisions on the laws that are passed, as practiced in Athens in Ancient Greece and through modern referendums.

Representative Democracy

A form of democracy where citizens vote for candidates to represent their interests in governmental positions for a set period of time (typically four to five years).

Republic

A governmental system that features an elected head of state, usually a president, rather than a hereditary monarch.

Dictatorship

An authoritarian form of government where a country is ruled by a single individual (a dictator) who exercises strict control over people's lives and opposes democracy.