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140 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Immigrants-rights supporters in the U.S. argue that?
Mass removal of "undocumented workers" would result in the crippling of the American economy.
Which of the following concepts became a major objective of government during the nineteenh and twentieth centuries, after industrialization and urbanization?
Equality
What religious movement promoted the idea of individualism and presented a challange to the religious basis for monarchical power?
The protestant idea that individuals could pray directly to God without intermediary.
In which of the following forms of government does the supreme power reside in the hands of the mass of ordinary citizens?
Democracy
An example of a totalitarian government is the government of?
North Korea
Modern liberals
Expect the government to play a more active role in the economy.
The term that the textbook prefers to refer to the generation of Americans born between 1980 and 1995 is?
Millenials
Classical Liberalism, which emerged from the Enlightenment, advocated which of the following?
1. Individual freedom of thought and free exchange of ideas.
2. An unrestricted market economy.
3. limited government and the rule of law.
The dominant ideologies in American politics for the entire twentieth century were?
Liberalism and conservatism.
The ideological viewpoint which emphasizes tradition, continuity, and presercation of the status quo is?
Conservatism
During the ratification debates over the proposed Constitution, the Anti-Federalists?
Opposed the new Constitution because they were afraid that it gave the new central government too much power over the states and individuals.
The first three articles of the Constitution?
Create the three branches of government and define the powers of each.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the new government created what kind of legislature?
Unicameral, with only one chamber or house.
How many formal proposals for constitutional amendments have been offered in Congress since 1789?
Over ten thousand.
During the debates over ratification of the new Constitution, the Federalists?
Argued for ratification of the Constitution as it was presented by the constitutional convention.
The dispute over the issue of slavery at the Constitutional Convention, and how slaves would be counted in calculating the size of congressional delegations was resolved by?
The Three-Fifths Compromise.
The Great Compromise?
Settled he large-state/small-state dispute by creating a bicameral legislature, with a House based on population and Senate based on equal representation.
Because of the Supreme Court's power of judicial review?
1. The interpretation of the meaning of the Constitution changes over time.
2. Courts can rule whether acts of government officials are consistent wiht constitutional principles.
3. The courts have been able to allow the Constitution to adopt to changing social norms and technological changes.
The basis for the right to self-governance arises from the idea of natural rights, also referred to as inalienable rights. This means that?
Rights are a gift from nature, or God, and not bestowed by the government that is set up to secure them.
The primary concern of the Anti-Federalists with the newly proposed Constitution, and what emerged as the central issue between the two sides of the ratification debate was?
Absence of a Bill of Rights in the proposed Constitution that was presented bu the delegates at the convention.
The role of the executive branch is to?
faithfully execute, or administer the laws of the land.
The Anti-federalists, Thomas Jefferson among them, argued that the essential way to limit the powers of the central government was to?
Restrict the powers of the federal government to infringe on individual bill of rights.
As required by the Article VII of the Constitution, ratification was required by how many of the thirteen original states?
Nine
Another common term for republic is?
Representative democracy
The government created by the Constitution is a republic. This means that?
Sovereign power derives from the people, who elect representatives to make laws on their behalf.
Ratification of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires?
Approval of three quarters of state legislatures or special conventions.
Governance of the British colonies in North America was carried out by?
A two-tiered system of governance with local officials governing day-to-day affairs and the Bristish King and Parliament imposing broader laws as they saw fit.
The new state constitutions which replaced the royal charters of the former Bristish colonies, each contained its own?
Bill of Rights.
A constitution defines?
1. The purposes of the organization.
2. The structure of the organization.
3. The essential processes of the organization.
The preamble to the Constitution?
Identifies some fundamental purposes of the constitution, such as justice, tranquility, defense, and liberty.
The document grounded in social contract theory and stating that citizens have the right to replace their government if it is not serving them and protecting their inalienable rights is?
The Declaration of Independence.
Among the waves of European immigrants who came by sea to America in the 1600's were?
1. African slaves.
2. indentured servants.
3. seekers of religious freedom.
The vast majority of delegates to Constitutional Convention consisted of?
Wealthy elites such as lawyers, landowners and businessmen.
Recent examples of constitutional change and upheaval in Venezuela, Kyrgyztan, and Pakistan serve to emphasize what features of the U.S. Constitution?
Its long life and continuing vitality.
How many amendments are there to the U.S. Constitution?
Twenty-seven
When colonists responded to a new Tea Act with the Boston Tea Party, the British government responded by?
Enacting sweeping new Coercive Acts (also known as the Intolerable Acts).
The greatest source of disagreementand difference among the delegates at the Constitutitonal Convention was?
The dispute between large population states and small population states over legislative representation.
An overwhelming majority of Americans see the government created by the U.S. Constitution as ligitimate. As a result?
The overwhelming majority of American citizens comply with the law without force or coercion, and believe it is basically just.
The president may stop a bill presented to him by congress from becoming a law by?
Exercising his veto power.
The clash which came to be known as "the Boston Massacre" was a directed response provoked by?
The housing and quarting of Bristish troops in private homes.
Marbury v. Madison (1803) is a landmark case because it?
Clarified the court's judicial review authority.
Anthere term for republic is?
Representative Democracy.
The Second Continental Congress?
1. Established a wartime government during the Rev. War, under the Articles of the Confederation.
2. Based the new government's confederational structure on observations of the government created by the Iroquois League.
3. Were very suspicious of creating a new central gov. with a strong authority over the several states.
The primary author of the Declaration of Independence was?
Thomas Jefferson
The two ideas that Jefferson drew from Locke and Rousseau were that?
All men are created with equal rights and that government must be created with consent of the governed.
The Federalist Papers were?
A series of newspaper articles written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, which supported ratifacation of the Constitution as proposed and explained what its various provisions accomplished.
The Iroquois League?
1. Allowed each tribe the power to manage its own affairs.
2. Had the power to suppress fighting between the tribes.
3. Was a primary model and inspiration for the Articles of the Confederation.
Checks and balances were included in the Constitution in order to?
Assure that each branch can oversee and limit the actions of the others so that no branch of government can gain tyrannical power.
The significance of the federal system created by the Constitution is that?
It created a two-tiered system of sovereignty, with the federal level and the state level each having different powers and responsibilites.
Define: Politics
The process of deciding who gets benefits on society and who is excluded from benefiting.
Define: Efficacy
Citizens' belief that they have the ability to achive something desirable and that the government listens to people like them.
Define: Government
The institution that creates and implements policies and laws that guide the conduct of the nation and its citizens.
Define: Citizens
Members of the polity who, through birth or naturalization, enjoy the rights, privileges, and responsibilites attached to membership in a given nation.
Define: Naturalization
Becoming a citizen by means other than birth, as in the case of immigrants.
Define: Legitimacy
A quality conferred on government by citizens who belive that its exercise of power is right and proper.
Define: Public goods
Services governments provide that are available to everyone, such as clean air, clean water, airport security, and highways.
Define: Monarchy
Government in which a member of a royal family, usually a king or queen, has absolute authority over a territory and its government.
Define: Oligarchy
Government in which an elite few hold power.
Define: Democracy
Government in which supreme power of governance lies in the hands of its citizens.
Define: Totalitarianism
System of government in which the government essentially controls every aspect of people's lives.
Define: Authoritarianism
System of government in which the government holds strong powers but is checked by some forces.
Define: Constitutionalism
Government that is structured by law, and in which the power of government is limited.
Define: Limited government
Government that is restricted in what it can do so that the rights of the people are protected.
Define: Divine right of kings
The assertion that monarchies, as a manifestation of god's will, could rule absolutely without regard to the will or well-being of their subjects.
Define: Social contract
An agreement between people and their leaders in which the people agree to give up some liberties so that their other liberties are protected.
Define: Natural law
The assertion that standards that govern human behavior are derived from the naure of humans themselves and can be universally applied.
Define: Popular sovereignty
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
The theory that government is created by the people and depends on the people for the authority to rule.
Define: Social contract theory
The idea that individuals possess free will, and every individual is equally endowed with he God-given right of self-determination and the ability to consent to be governed.
Define: Direct democracy
A structure of government in which citizens discuss and decide policy through majority rule.
Define: Indirect democracy
Sometimes called a representative democracy, a system in which citizens elect representatices who decide policies on behalf of their constituents.
Define: Political culture
The people's collective beliefs and attitudes about government and political processes.
Define: Liberty
The most essential quality of American democracy; it is both the freedom from governmental interference in citizens' lives and the freedom to pursue happiness.
Define: Capitalism
An economic system in which the means of producing wealth are privately owned and operated to produce profits.
Define: Property
Anything that can be owned.
Define: Consent of the governed
The idea that, in a democracy, the government's power derives from the consent of the people.
Define: Majority rule
The idea that in a democracy, only policies with 50 percent plus one vote are enacted, and only candidates that win 50 percent plus one vote are elected.
Define: Political ideology
Intergrated system of ideas or beliefs about political values in general and the role of government in particular.
Define: Liberalism
An ideology that advocates change in the social, political, and economic realms to better protect the well-being of individuals and to produce equality within society.
Define: Conservatism
An ideology that emphasizes preserving tradition and relying on community and family as mechanisms of continuity on society.
Define: Socialism
An ideology that advocates economic equality, theoretically achieved by having the government or workers own the means of production (business and industry).
Define: Libertarianism
An ideology whose advocates believe that government should take a "hands-off" approach in most matters.
Define: Neoconservatism
An ideology that advocates military over diplomatic solutions in foreign policy and is less concerned with restraining government activity in domestic politics than traditional conservatives.
Define: Civic engagement
Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern.
Define: Political engagement
Citizen actions that are intended to solve public problems through political means.
Define: Consitution
A document that describes three basic components of an organization: its mission, foundational structures, and essential processes.
Define: Natural rights
(Also called unalienable rights), the rights of the possessed bu all humans as a gift from nature, God, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Define: Republic
A government that derives its authority from the people and in which citizens elect government officials to represent them in the processes by which laws are made; a representative democracy.
Define: Seperation of powers
The Constitution's delegation of authority for the primary governing functions among three branches of government so that no one group of government officials controls all the governing functions.
Define: Checks and balances
Mechanisms by which each branch of government can monitor and limit the functions of the other branches.
Define: Bicameral
Composed of two chambers
Define: Veto
The president's rejection of a bill, which is sent back to Congress with tthe president's objections noted.
Define: Advice and consent
The Senate's authority to approve or reject the president's appointments.
Define: Marbury v. Madison
Established judicial review
Define: Judicial review
Court authority to determine that an action taken by any government official or governing body violates the Consitution.
Define: Electoral college
A group of people elected by voters in each state to elect the president and vice president.
Define: Confederation
A national government composed of a league of independent states and in which the central government has less power than the member states.
Define: Unicameral
A legislative body with a single chamber.
Define: Virginia Plan
James Madison's proposal at the Constitutional Convention for a new governmental structure, which favored states with larger populations.
Define: New Jersey Plan
The proposal presented by states with smaller populations at the Constitutional Convention in response to James Madison's Virginia Plan.
Define: Connecticut Compromise
(Also know as the Great Compromise), the compromise between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan that created a bicameral legislature with one chamber's representation based on population and the other having two members for each state.
Define: Three-Fifths Compromise
The negotiated agreement by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to count each slave as three-fifths of a free man for the purpose of representation and taxes.
Define: Federalists
Individuals who supported the new Constition as presented by the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Define: Anti-Federalists
Individuals who opposed ratification of the Constitution because they were deeply suspicious of the powers it gave to the national government and of the impact these powers would have on states' authority and individual freedoms.
Define: The Federalist Papers
A series of essays, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, that argued for the ratification of the Constitution.
Define: Bill of Rights
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, which were ratified in 1791, constituting an enumeration of the individual liberties with which the government is forbidden to interfere.
Define: Federal system
A governmental structure with two levels of government and in which each level has sovereignty over differnet policy matters and geographic areas.
Define: Sovereignty
Having ultimate authority to govern with no legal superior
Define: Dual sovereignty
The existence of two governments, each with authority over differnet matters at the same time; neither level is sovereign over the other.
Define: Unitary system
A governmental structure in which one central government has sovereignty, although it may create regional governments to which it delegates responsibilites.
Define: Confederal system
A structure of government on which several independent sovereign governments agree to cooperate on specified governmental matters while retaining sovereignty over all other governmental matters within their jurisdictions.
Define: Intergovernmental relations (IGR)
Collaborative efforts of two or more levels of government working to serve the public.
Define: Concurrent powers
Basic governing functions of all sovereign governments, in the US they are held by the national, state, and local governments and include the authority to tax, to make policy, to implement policy, and to exercise the power of eminent domain.
Define: Eminent domain
The authority of government to compel a property owner to sell private property to a government to further the public good.
Define: Enumerated powers
The powers of the national government that are listed in the Constitution.
Define: Implied powers
Powers of the national government that are not enumerated in the Constitution but that Congress claims are necessary and proper for the national government to fulfill its enumerated powers in accordance with the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution.
Define: Necessary and proper clause (elastic clause)
A clause in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do whatever it deems necessary and constitutional to meet its enumerated obligations; the basis for the implied powers.
Define: Supreme law of land
The Constitution's description of its own authority, meaning that all laws made by governments within the US must be in compliance with the Constitution.
Define: Supremacy clause
The paragraph in Article VI that makes the Constitution, and the treaties and laws created in compliance with it, the supreme law of the land.
Define: Reserved powers
The matters referred to in the Tenth Amendment over whch states retain sovereignty.
Define: Police powers
The states' reserved powers to protect the health, safety, lives, and properties of residents in a state.
Define: McCulloch v. Maryland
Established that the necessary and proper clause justifies broad understadings of enumerated powers.
Define: Horizontal federalism
The state-to-state relationships created by the U.S. Constitution.
Define: Interstate compacts
Agreements between states that Congress has the authority to review and reject.
Define: Extradition
The return of individuals accused of a crime to the state in which the crime was commited upon the request of that state's governor.
Define: Privileges and immunities clause
The Constitution's requirement that a state extend to other states' citizens the privileges and immunities it provides for its own citizens.
Define: Full faith and credit clause
The constitutional clause that requires states to comply with and uphold the public acts, records, and judicial decisions of other states.
Define: New judicial federalism
The practice whereby state judges base decisions regarding civil rights and liberties on their state's constitution, rather than the U.S. Constitution, when their state's constitution guarantees more than minimum rights.
Define: Dual federalism
The relationship between the national and stae governments, dominant between 1789 and 1932, whereby the two levels of government functioned independently of each other to address their distinct constitutional responsibilities.
Define: Grant-in-aid (intergovernmental transfer)
Transfer of money from one government to another government that does not need to be paid back.
Define: Cooperative federalism
The relationship between the national and state governments whereby the two levels of government work together to address domestic matters reserved to the states, driven by the policy priorities of the states.
Define: Centralized federalism
The relationship between the national and state governments whereby the national government imposes is policy preferences on state governments.
Define: Devolution
The process whereby the national government returns policy responsibilites to state and/or local governments.
Define: Conflicited federalism
The current status of national-state relations that has elements of dual and cooperative federalism, with an overall centralizing tendency at the same time that elements of policy are devolved.
Define: Categorical formula grant
Money granted by the national government to state and local governments for a specified program area and in an amount based on a legislated formula.
Define: Categorical project grant
Money granted by the national government to state and local governments for a specified program area for which recipients compete by proposing specific projects they want to implement.
Define: Block grant
Money granted by the national government to states or localities for broadly defined policy areas, with fewer strings than categorical grants, and in amounts based on complicated formulas.
Define: Intergovernmental lobbying
Efforts by groups representing state and local governments to influence national public policy.
Define: Mandates
Clauses in legislation that direct state and local governments to comply with national legislation and national standards.
Define: Preemption
Constitutionally based principle that allows a national law to supersede state or local laws.
Define: Partial preemption
The authority of the national government to establish minimum regulatory standards that provide state and local governments the flexibility either to enforce the national standards or to establish their own more stringent standards, which they must enforce.