AmGov- Long Story Short Unit 1

Politics

The way we decide who gets power and influence in a world where there is not enough power for all of us to have as much as we'd like.

Rules

Political directives that help to determine who will win or lose future power struggles.

Political narrative

A story that is used to persuade others about the nature of power, who should have it, and how it should be used.

Government

A system or an organization for exercising authority over a body of people.

Authority

Power that people consider legitimate, that they have consented or agreed to

Authoritarian Government

Political systems in which the rulers have all of the power and the rules don't allow the people who live under them to have any power at all.

Subjects

People who are bound to the will of the rulers and who have no power of their own to push back on an abusive government.

Non-Authoritarian Government

Political systems in which the rules regulate people's behaviors in some respects but allow them considerable freedom in others.

Citizens

Individuals who live under non-authoritarian governments.

Democracy

A type of non-authoritarian government wherein citizens have considerable power to make the rulers that govern them.

Popular Sovereignty

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

Anarchy

No government at all, a system in which individuals are free to do as they wish.

Economics

The process for deciding who gets the material resources and how they get them.

Socialism

An economic system in which the government (a single ruler, a party, or some other empowered group) decides what to produce and who should get the products.

Regulated Capitalism

A market system in which the government intervenes to protect rights.

Capitalism

An economic system that relies on the market to make decisions about who should have material goods.

Market

The collective decisions of multiple individuals about what to buy or sell, creating different levels of demand and supply.

Laissez-Faire Capitalism

A form of capitalism wherein there are no restrictions on the market at all.

Capitalist Democracy

A political-economic system that grants the most individual control over both political and economic life.

Totalitarianism

A system that combines authoritarian government with a socialist economic system wherein the government makes all the decisions about power, influence, and money.

Authoritarian Capitalism

A system in which the authoritarian government has strong control over how individuals may live their lives, but individuals do have some market freedom.

Political Culture

A set of shared ideas, values, and beliefs that define the role and limitations of government and people's relationships to that government and that, therefore, bind people into a single political unit.

Limited government

The Enlightenment idea that the power of government should be restricted to allow for maximum individual freedom.

Individualism

A political culture emphasis on individual rights rather than on the collective whole.

Freedom

In American culture, individual independence from government.

Equality

In American political culture, forms of political fairness that require minimal government intervention.

Ideologies

Competing narratives that explain various political disagreements.

Conservatives

Americans on the political right who believe in less regulation of the economy.

Liberals

Americans on the political left who believe in greater government regulation of the economy.

Economic Conservatives

Americans who favor a strictly procedural government role in the economy and the social order.

Libertarians

Americans who favor a minimal government role in any sphere.

Economic liberals

Americans who favor and expanded government role in the economy but a limited role in the social order.

Progressives

Economic liberals who believe in a stronger role for the state in creating equality.

Social Conservatives

Americans who endorse limited government control of the economy but considerable government intervention to realize a traditional social order; based on religious values and hierarchy rather than equality.

Generations

Groups of people born within the same general time period who share life experiences that help shape theri political views.

Media

Channels of communication.

Classical Liberalism

An Enlightenment philosophy emphasizing individual freedom.

Social Contract

The idea that power is not derived from God but instead comes from and is limited by the consent of the governed, who can revolt against the government they contract with if their rights are not protected if the contract is not kept.

Digital Natives

People who have been born in an era in which not only are most people hooked up to electronic media, but they also live their lives partly in cyberspace as well as in "real space.

Naturalized Citizens

People who become U.S. citizens through a series of procedures that the law lays out.

Public-Interested citizenship

Citizens who put country ahead of self by putting aside their self-interest to advance the public interest.

Self-Interested Citizenship

Citizens who are focused on their personal lives and use the political system to maximize their interests.

Hashtag Activism

The forming of social movements through viral calls to act politically.

Information Bubble

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

Norm

Unspoken, unwritten ideas that support the U.S. Constitution and give structure to democratic government.

Mercantilism

An economic system that sees trade as the basis of the accumulation of wealth.

Divine Right of Kings

The political culture that understood power to be vested in the king because he was God's representative on earth.

Social Contract

The idea that power is not derived from God but instead comes from and is limited by the consent of the governed, who can revolt against the government they contract with if their rights are not protected if the contract is not kept.

John Locke

The British philosopher who introduced the idea that the social contract was conditional on the government's protection of rights and could be revoked if the government failed to protect those rights.

Declaration of Independence

The political document that dissolved the colonial ties between the United States and Britain.

Inalienable Rights

Rights that we are born with, that cannot be taken away from us, and that we cannot sell.

Republican Virtue

The idea that citizens would act in the public interest without coercion by a strong government.

Compromise

The act of giving up something you want in order to get something else you want more; an exercise in determining and trading off priorities.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the United States, adopted in 1777, creating an association of states with a weak central government.

Confederation

A form of government in which all the power lies with the local units; in the American case, that is the states.

Constitutional Convention

The assembly of fifty-five delegates in the summer of 1787 to recast the Articles of Confederation; the result was the U.S. Constitution.

Federalists

Supporters of the Constitution who favored a strong central government.

Anti-Federalists

Advocates of state's rights who opposed the Constitution.

Virginia Plan

A proposal at the Constitutional Convention that congressional representation be based on population, thus favoring the large states.

Bicameral Legislature

A lawmaking body with two chambers.

New Jersey Plan

A proposal at the Constitutional Convention that congressional representation be equal, thus favoring the small states.

Great Compromise

The constitutional solution to congressional representation: equal votes in the Senate, voted by population in the House.

Three-Fifths Compromise

The formula for counting five slaves as three people for purposes of representation; reconciled northern and southern factions at the Constitutional Convention.

Ratification

The process through which a proposal (Such as the Constitution) is formally approved and adopted by vote.

Federalist Papers

A collection of eighty-five newspaper editorials written in support of the Constitution under the pseudonym of Publius, whose real identity was three Federalists: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.

Factions

Groups of citizens united by some common passion or interest and opposed to the rights of other citizens or to the interests of the whole community.

James Madison

One of the founders whose key insight was to design a system that takes human nature as it is (self-interested, greedy, and ambitious), not as you want it to be.

Separation of Powers

The division of the government vertically into branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.

Checks and Balances

The idea that each branch of government has just enough power over the others that their jealousy will guard against the overreach of the others.

Federalism

The horizontal division of government into layers: national (also called federal) and state.

Legislative Branch

The lawmaking component of the federal government.

Executive Branch

The law-enforcing component of the federal government.

Judicial Branch

The law-interpreting branch of the federal government.

Parliamentary System

Government in which the executive is chosen by the legislature from among its members and the two branches are merged.

Presidential System

Government in which the executive is chosen independently of the legislature and the two branches are separate.

Concurrent Powers

Powers that are shared by the federal and state governments.

Enumerated Powers

Congressional powers specifically named in the Constitution.

Necessary and Proper Clause

The constitutional authorization for Congress to make any law required to carry out its powers.

Tenth Amendment

The amendment that stipulates that any powers not explicitly given to the national government are reserved to the states.

Supremacy Clause

A constitutional clause that says the Constitution itself and national laws made under it are the law of the land.

John Marshall

The third chief justice of the Supreme Court; believed in the Federalist vision of a strong national government.

Marbury v. Madison

The 1803 Supreme Court ruling holding that the Court had the power of judicial review.

McCulloch v. Maryland

The 1819 Supreme Court ruling holding that the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution could be interpreted broadly to include many powers that are not among the enumerated powers of Congress.

Gibbons v. Ogden

The 1824 Supreme Court decision that opened the door to federal regulation of commerce, broadly understood to mean most forms of business.

Judicial Review

The Supreme Court's power to determine if congressional laws, state laws, or executive actions are constitutional.

Nullification

Declaration by a state that a federal law is void within its borders.

Block Grants

Funds that come with flexibility for the states to spend the money as they wish within broad parameters.

Categorical Grants

Grants of money with specific instructions on how it is to be spent.

Unfunded Mandates

Policies requiring states to do something but without any funds provided to offset the costs of administering the policy.

Amendement Process

The process by which the Constitution may be changed.

Civil Liberties

The individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution that limit government.

Civil Rights

The freedom of groups to participate fully in the public life of a nation; protected by the government primarily in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments.

Natural Rights

The idea that one is born with a set of rights that no government can take away.

Bill of Rights

Ten amendments to the Constitution that explicitly limit government by protecting individual rights against it.

Fourteenth Amendmentthe 1868 constitutional amendment ensuring that southern states did not deny those free from enslavement theri rights as citizens.

The 1868 constitutional amendment ensuring that southern states did not deny those free from enslavement theri rights as citizens.

Incorporation

Supreme Court action making the protection of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.

Establishment Clause

The First Amendment guarantees that the government will not create and support an official state church.

Free Exercise Clause

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

Accomodationists

People who want to support "all" religions equally.

Separationists

People who want a separation between church and state.