Government Vocab Chapters 1 + 2
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Created by:
87CrosbyGirl87 on September 7, 2011
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30 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 power | the ability of one person to get another person to act in accordance with the first person's intentions |
| authority | the right to use power |
| legitimacy | political authority conferred by law, public opinion, or constitution |
| Democracy | the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives |
| Direct of Participatory Democracy | a government in which all or most of its citizens participate directly |
| Representative Democracy | A system of government in which citizens elect representatives, or leaders, to make decisions about the laws for all the people. |
| Marxists | People who believe that those who control the economic system also control the political one. |
| Bureaucrats | the appointed officials who operate government agencies from day to day |
| Pluralist | a theory that competition among all affected interests shapes public policy |
| unalienable | based on nature and Providence rather than on the preferences of people |
| Articles of Confederation | a constitution drafted in 1777 and ratified in 1781; weak central govt. that could make laws or regular commerce |
| Constitutional Convention | meeting of delegates in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation, which produced the new U.S. Constitution |
| Shay's Rebellion | A 1787 rebellion in which ex-Revolutionary War soldiers attempted to prevent foreclosures of farms as a result of high interest rates and taxes. |
| Great Compromise | compromise at the Constitutional convention calling for a two-house legislature, with one house elected on the basis of population and the other representing each state equally |
| Republic | A form of democracy in which power is vested in representatives selected by means of popular, competitive elections. |
| Judicial Review | The power of the courts to declare acts of the legislature and of the executive to be unconstitutional and hence null and void. |
| Checks and Balances | The power of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government to block some acts by the other two branches. |
| Federalism | A political system in which ultimate authority is shared between a central government and state or regional government. |
| Separation of Powers | A principle of American government whereby constitutional authority is shared by three separate branches of government. |
| Faction | According to James Madison, a group of people who seek to influence public policy in way contrary to the public good. |
| Federalists | supporters of the stronger central govt. who advocated the ratification of the constitution |
| Anti-Federalists | opponents of a strong central government who campaigned against the ratification of the Constitution in favor of a confederation of independant states |
| Federalist Papers | a series of 85 essays written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (using the name "publius") published in NY newspapers and used to convice readers to adopt the new constitution |
| Coalition | An alliance among different interest groups or parties to achieve some political goal. |
| Writ of Habeas Corpus | A court order directing a police officer, sheriff, or warden who has a person in custody to bring the prisoner before a judge and show sufficient cause for his or her detention. |
| Bill of Attainder | a law that declares a person, without a trial, to be guilty of a crime |
| ex post facto law | a law that would allow a person to be punished for an action that was not against the law when it was committed |
| Bill of Rights | A list of individual rights. (10 Amendments) |
| Amendments | Changes in, or additions to, the U.S Constitution. Amendments are proposed by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress or by a convention called by Congress at the request of 2/3 of the state legislatures and ratified by approval of 3/4 of the states. |
| Line Item Veto | The power of an executive to veto some provisions in an appropriations bill while approving others. The president does not have the right to exercise a line-item veto and must approve or reject an entire appropriations bill. |
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