PLLSC 1 EXAM 1

• Authority

the acknowledged right to make a particular decision

• Power

an officeholder’s actual influence with other officeholders and, as a consequence, over the government’s actions

• Collective Action

efforts of a group to reach and implement agreements

• Coordination

organizing a group to reach a common goal

• Prisoner’s Dilemma

Individuals, who would benefit from cooperating with each other, have a powerful and irresistible incentive to break the agreement and exploit the other side

o Tragedy of the Commons

Costless consumption of a public good resulting in its ruination

o Free

Rider Problem

• Public Policy

frequently referred to as dealing in collective goods

• Principal

Someone who possesses decision

• Agent

Someone who makes and implements decisions on behalf of someone else.

• Delegation

Occurs when individuals or groups authorize someone to make and implement decisions for them

• Politics

process through which individuals and groups reach agreement on a course of collective action even as they disagree on the intended goals of the action

• Private Good

benefits and services over which the owner has full control of their use.

• Public Good

Goods collectively produced and freely available for anyone’s consumption.

• Bargaining

A form of negotiation in which two or more parties who disagree propose exchanges and concessions to find a course of acceptable collective action.

• Compromise

Settlement in which each side concedes some of its preferences in order to secure others

• Preference

Individuals’ choices, reflecting economic situation, religious values, ethnic identity, or other valued interests

• Institution

organizations that manage potential conflicts between political rivals, help them find mutually acceptable solutions, and make and enforce the society’s collective agreements

• Focal Point

Focus identified by participants when coordinating their energies to achieve a common purpose

• Regulation

rules limiting access to a common resource and monitoring and penalizing those who violate them

• Transaction Cost

The time, effort, and resources required to compare preferences and make collective decisions

• Conformity Cost

The extent to which a collective decision obligates participants to do something they prefer not to

• Home rule

local governing power

• Shays’ Rebellion

uprising in response to the debt crisis and taxes

• New Jersey Plan

o proposed in response to the Virginia plan

o gave Congress the power to tax

o states represented equally

• Virginia Plan

o Madison’s blueprint for a new constitution.

o Bicameral legislature

o gave the national government enforcement authority

o states represented according to size

• Great Compromise

o upper chamber (Senate) would be composed of two delegates sent from each state legislature who would serve a 6 year term. (17th amendment changed this in 1912)

o population based elective legislature became known as the House of Representatives

o unanimity replaced by a rule allowing a majority of the membership to pass legislation

• Federalist Papers

paper written by Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay (wrote under the pseudonym “Publius”) to convince Americans to support Federalism

• Federalist 10 & Tyranny of the Majority

Madison argued factions cause tyranny of the majority, so he proposed a representative government

• Federalist 51 & Men are not Angels

Madison describes how checks an balances will help to stop self-interested individuals

• Stamp Act

taxed newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards (sparked “no taxation without representation”)

• First Continental Congress

o Took place in 1774 and served as the nucleus of national representation

o George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson there

o Reasserted home rule

o Banned trade with Britain until the taxes were rescinded

o Did not establish a national government

o Lower conformity costs (still collective action problems)

• Second Continental Congress

o War had broken out

o Acted as the national government in order to respond to the events of war

o Most states adopted bicameral (two chamber) legislatures, and all created governorships

• Federalists

argued for a stronger federal government (won and are known as the Founding fathers)

• Anti-Federalists

argued for stronger state governments (lost)

• Articles of Confederation

o Created a highly decentralized governmental system

o Low Conformity Costs, but gave the federal government more power than under the Continental Congress

o Transferred power from the Continental Congress to the new, permanent Congress

• Bill of Rights

first 10 amendments to the Constitution that laid out civil liberties

• Necessary and Proper Clause

Gives Congress the authority “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers

• Checks and Balances

separating government officers into different branches and giving them the authority to interfere with each other’s actions (protects integrity)

• Framers’ Toolkit

design principles that instituted varying trade

• Veto

a blocking action that preserves the status quo (unilateral)

• Command

Authority of one actor to prescribe actions of another (unilateral)

• Agenda Control

the right of an actor to set choices for others (helps collective action move quicker)

• Voting Rules

Governments controlled by popular majority are less likely to engage in tyranny

• Delegation

Occurs when individuals or groups authorize someone to make and implement decisions for them

• Three fifths compromise

the southern states were allowed to count a slave as three-fifths of a citizen

• Logroll

A standard bargaining strategy in which two sides swap support for dissimilar policies (Ex. legislators representing urban districts may vote for an agricultural bill provided that legislators from rural districts vote for a mass transit bill

• Popular Sovereignty

Citizens’ delegation of authority to their agents in government, with the ability to rescind that authority

• Gridlock

The inability of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the president to agree on new policies

• Agency Loss

The discrepancy between what citizens ideally would like their agents to do and how the agents actually behave

What were the pressing issues for the United States following the Revolutionary War?

They were concerned with creating a stable political system and preserving their independence.

Explain the process of adopting a constitutional amendment.

Amendments can be proposed either by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress or by an “application” from 2/3 of the states. They are only enacted when 3/4 of the states accept the amendment.

• Confederation

lower-level governments possess primary authority

• Unitary

the national government monopolizes constitutional authority (federalism)

• Commerce Clause

control of interstate commerce to the federal government

• Supremacy Clause

the Constitution is the supreme law of the land

• Elastic Clause/Necessary & Proper Clause

Allows Congress to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”

• Enumerated Powers

powers reserved for Congress

o Ex. Tax & Spend, Regulate commerce with states, other nations, Native American tribes, Coin Money, Post Offices & Roads, War, Army, Navy, Govern D.C.

• 10th Amendment

any powers that are not specifically given to the federal government, nor withheld from the states, are reserved to those respective states, or to the people at large

• Medicaid

a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources

• Preemption

federal laws that assert the national government’s prerogative to control public policy in a field

• Block Grant

Set sum of money given to states from the federal government for a specific purpose

• Matching Grant

federal government matches the sum in relation to state spending on a program (Ex. Medicaid)

• Carrot & Stick

used to induce state cooperation

o Carrot - financial inducements, usually in the form of grants to states.

o Stick – Unfunded mandates

• Dual Federalism

leaves the states and the national government presiding over mutually exclusive “spheres of sovereignty.”

• Shared Federalism

recognizes that the national and state governments jointly supply services to the citizenry

• Crossover Sanction

Stipulations that a state, to remain eligible for full federal funding for one program, must adhere to the guidelines of an unrelated program

• Cutthroat Competition

has prompted state officials to lobby Washington to prevent bidding wars (Ex. Amazon Headquarters)

• Race to the Bottom

cutting back on social services in order not to become a “welfare magnet”

• Unfunded Mandate

States are required to administer policies they might object to, and they may even be asked to pay for the administration of the policies

• 17th Amendment

allows people to cast direct votes for U.S. Senators

• McCulloch vs Maryland

Debate over whether congress could establish national bank in Maryland. Bank was “appropriate and legitimate” for furthering the federal government’s objectives (Elastic Clause)

• Nationalization

Shifting power from the states to the federal government

• Gibbons v Ogden

Neither New Jersey nor New York could grant a particular steam company a monopoly over shipping on the Hudson River, only Congress could (Commerce Clause)

• New Deal

A comprehensive set of economic regulations and relief programs intended to fight the Great Depression

• Great Society

Congress passed more than a hundred new programs that would be carried out by states but funded (and controlled) through federal grants

Why would interest groups choose to shift their focus from state governments to the national government?

It is more efficient because they only have to lobby the federal government instead of 50 separate states and the national government might be more receptive.

• Civil Rights

Protections given BY the government to prevent subjugation of certain groups

• Civil Liberties

protections FROM the government to prevent government overreach

• Missouri Compromise

Missouri would be accepted into the union as a slave state if Miane was accepted into the Union as a free state to maintain balance in the senate

• Fugitive Slave Law

Required Northerners to honor southerner’s property claims to slaves

• Dredd Scott v Sandford

A slave in Missouri resided in the free state of Iowa and filed a suit for his freedom when he was returned to Missouri. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not prevent slavery in the territories.

• Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln declared that all slaves in the south were free

• 15th Amendment

prevented voting discrimination based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

• Plessy v Ferguson

Plessy (7/8 white) sat in a “whites only” car and was arrested. The Supreme Court upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine.

• Brown v Board of Education

Brown was denied entry into an “all white school.” The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal.

• Black codes

laws to prevent black people from voting

• Jim Crow Laws

laws to enforce segregation after it was “outlawed” (Ex. Poll taxes, Literacy tests)

• White primary

allowed only whites to vote in primary elections

• Poll tax

forced poor people out of voting, especially newly freed slaves

• Literacy test

test you needed to pass to vote but was often not plain literacy, but were designed to have no clear answers

• Grandfather clause

protected poor and illiterate white by allowing them to vote if their grandfathers did

• 19th amendment

gave women the right to vote

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

An African-American civil rights organization

• 13th amendment

abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime

• DOMA

denied marriage benefits to same-sex couples

• Obergefell v Hodges

legalized same-sex marriage nationally

• De facto segregation

segregation that is not due to mandates

• De jure segregation

segregation that is mandated by law

• Civil Rights Movement

strategy for African Americans to gain civil rights shifted from litigation to mass protest directed against segregation and the authorities who administered it