AP Government Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Give the term for the right to use power

Authority

Give the term for appointed officials who operate government agencies

and large corporations.

Bureaucrats

Give the term for what makes a law or constitution a source of right.

Legitimacy

Give the term for a theory that appointed civil servants make the key

governing decisions.

Bureaucratic Theory

Give the term for a form of democracy in which the true interests of the

masses were discovered through discussion within the Communist Party, and

then decisions were made under central leadership to serve those interests.

Democratic Centralism

Give the term for an identifiable group of persons who possess a

disproportionate share of some valued resource.

Elite

Give the term for a political system in which leaders are constrained to

follow closely the wishes of the people.

Majoritorian Politics

Give the name for a German historian and sociologist who criticized the

theories of Karl Marx, arguing that all institutions have fallen under the control of

large bureaucracies whose expertise is essential to the management of

contemporary affairs.

Max Weber

Give the term for a theory that holds that political resources are sufficiently

divided among different kinds of elites, giving each relevant interest the chance

to influence the outcome of decisions.

Pluralist Theory

Give the term for the ability of one person to cause another person to act

in accordance with the first person’s intentions.

Power

Give the term for a political theory espoused by C. Wright Mills which

holds that nongovernmental elite make most political decisions.

Power Elite

Give the term for a word used to describe at least three different political

systems that each embody the principle of popular rule, in only in the interest of

the people.

Democracy

Give the term for the ideology espoused by Karl Marx which holds that

government is a reflection of economic forces, primarily based on the pattern of

ownership of the means of production.

Marxist Theory

Give the term for power used to determine who will hold government office

and how the government will behave.

Political Power

Give the term for a theory that a few top leaders make the key decisions

without reference to popular desires.

Elitist Theory

Give the term for a political system in which political power is conferred on

those selected by voters in competitive elections.

Representative Democracy

Give the term for a form of democracy in which all, or most, of the citizenry

participate directly by either holding office or making policy.

Direct Democracy