POLS 206 TAMU Midterm Haydon

What is Government?

a system or organization for exercising authority over a body of people

Information Bubble

A closed cycle in which all information we get reinforces the information we already have, solidifying our beliefs without reference to outside reality checks

Laissez-faire Capitalism

An economic system in which the market makes all decisions and the government plays no roles

Regulated Capitalist

A market system in which the government intervenes to protect rights and make procedural guarantees

Procedural Guarantees

Governmental assurance that the rules will work smoothly and treat everyone fairly, with no promise of particular outcomes

Substantive Guarantees

Government assurance of particular outcomes or results

Role of the People

Authoritarian people are subjects. Nonauthoritarian people are citizens

Democratic Theory of Citizenry

Power is drawn from the people, that people are sovereign, that they must consent to be governed and that their government must respond to their will

Authoritarian State

State hold all the power over the social order

Totalitarian System

State has absolute power over every aspect of life

Authoritarian Capitalism

A system in which the state allows people economic freedom but maintains stringent social regulations to limit noneconomic behavior

Non-authoritarian

Individuals (citizens) decide how to live their lives, government's role is limited to procedural guarantees of individual rights

Popular Sovereignty

The concept that the citizens are the ultimate source of political power

Elite Democracy

Democracy is merely a system of choosing among competing leaders-elections are symbolic: to perpetuate the illusion that citizens have consented to their government

Pluralist Democracy

individual participation is not important but membership in groups that participate in government decision making on their members' behalf.

Participatory Democracy

All individuals have the right to control all circumstances of their lives, and direct democratic participation should not take place only in government but everywhere else as well

Advanced Industrial Democracy

A system in which a democratic government allows citizens a considerable amount of person freedom and maintains a free-market economy

Communist Democracy

A utopian system in which property is communally owned and all decisions are made democratically

Subjects

Individuals who are obligated to submit to a government authority against which they have no rights

Citizens

Members of a political community with both rights and responsibilities

Enlightenment Period

Late 1600s and 1700s, Ideas about science and the possibilities of knowledge began to blow away the shadows and cobwebs of medieval superstitions. Human beings are rational

Social Contract Theory

The notion that society is based on an agreement between government and the governed in which people agree to give up some rights in exchange for the protection of others

Pure Democracy

All citizens would have direct power to control government

Jus Soli

"Right of the soil" birthright citizenship

Jus Sanguis

The right by blood. If you are born outside the US to American parents, you are a citizen

Asylum Seekers

People seeking protection or sanctuary, especially from political or religious persecution

Political Refugees

Individuals who flee an area of a country because of persecution on the basis of race, nationality, religion, group membership, or political option

Political Culture

The broad pattern of ideas, beliefs, and values that a population holds about its citizens and government

Values

The central ideas, principles, or standards that most people agree are important

Procedural Guarantees

government assurance that the rules will work smoothly and treat everyone fairly, with no promise of particular outcomes

Individualism

The belief that what is good for society is based on what is good for individuals

Core American Values

Freedom, Economic Freedom, Equality

Religion

Tests for voting qualifications and participation

Property

You have to own property to participate in government. Voters to participate had to have property to pay taxes and vote

Women Voting (Gender)

Women were allowed to vote when they met the property requirements and when there were no voting males in the house

Race

Africans were initially subject to the same laws as Europeans

Intolerable Acts (1774)

Series of punitive measures passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.

1. Closed Boston Harbor until damages from Party were paid

2. MA Government Act restricted MA; Democratic town meetings and turned the governors council into an appointed body

3. Administration of Justice Act, Which made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in MA

4. Quartering Act, Which required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, Including in their private homes as a last resort

John Locke

"Father of Liberalism"

Two treatises on Government. Religious tolerance. Theory on value and property, ownership of property is created by the application of labor. Political theory- social contract theory

Popular Sovereignty

A belief that ultimate power resides in the people.

Decleration of Independence

1776 - political document that dissolved the colonial ties between the US and Britain

Common Sense

Pamphlet written by Thomas Pain in 1776 that persuaded many Americans to support the revolutionary cause

Confederation

A government in which independent states unite for common purpose but retain their own sovereignty

Winners and Losers under the Articles

Domestic politics difficult as well as international

Popular Tyranny

The unrestrained power of the people

Shay's Rebellion

Grassroots uprising in 1787 by armed MA farmers protesting foreclosures

Constitutional Convention

Assembly of 55 delegates in the summer of 1787 to recast the Articles of Confederation - the result was the US Constitution

Federalism

A political system in which power is divided between the central and regional units

Federalists

Supporters of the constitution who favored a strong central government

Anti-Federalists

Advocates of states' rights who opposed the Constitution

Federalist Papers

a series of essays written to defend the Constitution

Federalist 10

Madison's response to controlling factions through the creation of a large republic.

Factions

Political groups that agree on objectives and policies; the origins of political parties.

Federalist 51 (Madison)

Institutions proposed by Constitution would lead to neither corruption nor tyranny. Checks and Balances and separation of powers will prevent it

Federalist 84 (Hamilton)

argued a bill of rights was not necessary in a constitution

Bill of Rights

a summary of citizen rights guaranteed and protected by a government; added to the Constitution as its first ten amendments in order to achieve ratification

Legislate

Makes laws

Administer

Execute Laws

Adjudicate

Interpret Laws

Enumerated Powers

Specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The power to tax and spend the money based by taxes to provide for the nation's defense and general welfare. Eventually supplemented by the 16th amendment

Necessary and Proper Clause

Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) setting forth the implied powers of Congress. It states that Congress, in addition to its express powers, has the right to make all laws necessary and proper to carry out all powers the Constitution vests in the national government

Dual Federalism

Formal distribution of powers in the constitution, and perhaps it was an accurate portrayal of judicial interpretation of the federal system for our first 100 years or so

Layer Cake Federalism

National and State Government are two self-contained layers, each essentially separate from each other and carry out its own functions independently

Differences made by federalism

Local Level Flexibility - local standards to respond to local needs (traffic laws, etc)

Increased Access

citizens have access to officials and processes of government, enhance power to interest groups

John Marshall

3rd Chief Justice of Supreme Court

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819, Marshall)

The Court ruled that states cannot tax the federal government, i.e. the Bank of the United States; the phrase "the power to tax is the power to destroy"; confirmed the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States.

Gibbons v. Ogden

Regulating interstate commerce is a power reserved to the federal government

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Congress did not have the power to outlaw slavery in territories

Devolution

the transfer of powers and responsibilities from the federal government to the states

Laws

Can be created by a single ruler or by a political party. Divined from natural of religious principles

House requirements for office

25 years old, and a citizen for 7 years. House elections held every two years. No restrictions on number of terms.

Federalist 78 (Hamilton)

Judiciary branch isn't too powerful because it doesn't have the power of the purse or sword; can't tax, enforce laws, or bring the nation to war

Civil Liberties

individual freedoms guaranteed to the people primarily by the Bill of Rights. Place limitations on power of government

Bill of Rights

Freedom of expression, religious beliefs, privacy

Civil Rights

the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.

13th Admendment (1865)

abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime

14th Amendment

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

15th Amendment (1870)

U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed

19th Amendment

Gave women the right to vote, ended woman suffrage

26th Amendment

Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18

John Locke

English philosopher who advocated the idea of a "social contract" in which government powers are derived from the consent of the governed and in which the government serves the people; also said people have natural rights to life, liberty and property.

4 Avenues to resolve conflict

courts, congress, president, people

Habeas Corpus Act, 1679

The rights of an accused person to be brought before a judge and informed of the charges and evidence against him or her. Suspended by Lincoln on March 3, 1863

Bills of Attainder

laws under which specific persons or groups are detained and sentenced without trial

Ex Post Facto Laws

Laws that criminalize an action after it occurs

Gitlow v. New York

The 1925 Supreme Court decision holding that freedoms of press and speech are "fundamental personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states" as well as by the federal government.

1st Admendment

Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government

Separationists

supports of a "wall of separation" between church and state

Accommodationists

supporters of government non preferential accommodation of religion

Trinity Lutheran

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources' express policy of denying grants to any applicant owned or controlled by a church, sect or other religious entity violated the rights of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc., under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment by denying the church an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status.

Lutheran Church of Columbia

Under the freeing exercise clause of the First Amendment by denying the church an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status

Free Exercise Clause

the First Amendment guarantee that citizens may freely engage in the religious activities of their choice

police power

the ability of the government to protect its citizens and maintain social order

free speech

Protect speech we despise

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Contains four parts: 1) Raised the residence requirement for American citizenship from 5 to 14 years. 2) Alien Act - Gave the President the power in peacetime to order any alien out of the country. 3) Alien Enemies Act - permitted the President in wartime to jail aliens when he wanted to. (No arrests made under the Alien Act or the Alien Enemies Act.) 4) The Sedition Act - Key clause provided fines and jail penalties for anyone guilty of sedition. Was to remain in effect until the next Presidential inauguration.

John Adams

Espionage Act of 1917

intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of U.S. enemies during wartime

Schenck v. United States

A 1919 decision upholding the conviction of a socialist who had urged young men to resist the draft during World War I. Justice Holmes declared that government can limit speech if the speech provokes a "clear and present danger" of substantive evils.

Clear and Present Danger Test

rule used by the courts that allows language to be regulated only if it presents an immediate and urgent danger

Abrams v. US

defendant's criticism of US involvement with WWI, not protected by first amendment, for it advocated a strike and violent overthrow of gov.

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

the KKK did cross burning and held rally; wasn't unconstitutional because it wasn't imminent