| A | B |
|---|
| Coercive force | the ability of a government to compel its citizens to obey its decisions |
| Contract With America | the ten-point platform that Republican candidates for the House of Representatives campaigned on in 1994 |
| Legitimacy | a self-imposed willingness of citizens to respect and obey the decisions of their government |
| Material scarcity | the inability of a society to provide its citizens with all the goods and services they may want or need |
| Policy rule | a decision a governmet instution reaches on a specific political question within its jurisdiction |
| Structural rules | rules that establish the organization, procedures, and powers of government |
| Term limits | laws that limit the number of terms a person may serve in an elected, and in some cases, an appointed office |
| Antifederalists | the label describing those who opposed adoption of the Constitution. While opponents have a variety of reasons for rejecting the Constitution, their main concern was that a strong national government would jeopardize individual rights |
| Articles of Confederation | The document written by the states following their declaration of independence from England and adopted in 1781. It established a system of strong states and a weak national government with a legislative branch, but no separate executive or judicial branches and few powers beyond the sphere of foreign relations. |
| Bicameral legislature | a legislature with two houses-such as the House and the Senate |
| Bill of Rights | the name given to the first ten amendments of the Constitution. They outline a large number of important individual rights |
| Checks and balances | the powers each branch of government can use to block the actions of other branches |
| Classical liberalism | a political philosophy, particularly strong in the eighteenth century, that claims that the rights of the individual predate the existence of government and take priority over government policy. This philosophy advocates the protection of individual freedoms from the government |
| Connecticut Compromise | a plan the Conecticut delegation proposed at the Constitutional Convention. This plan sought to manage the dispute between the large- and small-population states by creating a two-house legislature with representation in one house based on population and representation in the second house set at two votes per state |
| Democracy | a form of government in which the people (defined broadly to include all adults or narrowly to exclude women or slaves, for example) are the ultimate political authority |
| Dual federalism | an interpretation of federalism that held that the national government was supreme within the areas the Constitution specifically enumerated and that the states were supreme in other areas of public policy |
| Establishment clause | the provision in the First Amendment of the Constitution that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" |
| Federalism | a two-tiered form of government within which governments on both levels are sovereign and share authority over the same geographic jurisdiction |
| Federalists | the label describing those who supported adoption of the Constitution. They believed in a national government stronger than the one provided under the Articles of Confederation |
| Fiscal federalism | the principle that the federal government should play a major role in financing some of the activities of state and local government |
| Great Depression | the worst economic crisis in U.S. History, with unemployment rates reaching 25%. It began in 1929 and lasted until the start of WWII |
| Great Society | the economic and social programs Congress enacted druing L.B.Johnson's presidency, from 1963 to 1969 |
| Interstate commerce clause | the provision in Article I of the Constitution granting Congress the power to "regulate commerce...among the several states" |
| Majority tyranny | a situation in which the majority use its advantage in numbers to suppress the rights of the minority |
| National supremecy | an interpretation of federalism that holds that the national government's laws take should precedence over state law. This idea is based on the provision in Article VI of the Constitution that the national government's laws are the "supreme law of the land" |
| Necessary and proper clause | the provision in Article I of the Constitution that states that Congress possesses whatever additional and unspecified powers that it needs to fulfill its responsibilities |
| New Deal | the economic and social programs Congress enacted during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency before WWII |
| New Jersey Plan | a plan for a new national government that the New Jersey delegation proposed at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Its key feature consisted of giving each state equal representation in the national legislature, regardless of its population |
| Republicanism | a system of government in which the people's selected representatives run the government |
| Separation of powers | the principle that each of the three powers of government should be held by a separate branch of government |
| Shays's Rebellion | A protest, staged by small farmers from western Massachusetts and led by Daniel Shays, an officer in the Revolutionary War, against the state's taxes and policy of foreclosing on debtor farmers |
| States' rights | an interpretation of federalism that claimed that states possessed the right to accept or reject federal laws |
| Virginia Plan | a plan for a new national government that the Virginia delegation proposed at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It called for a strong, essentially unitary national government, with separate executive and judicial branches, and a two-house legislative branch with representation based on each state's population |
| Aristotle | a philosopher who defined democracy as the 'rule of the many' |
| Authority | the right to exercise political power |
| Bureaucracy | structures of authority organized around expertise and specialization |
| Bureaucratic theory | a theory that appointed civil servants make the key governing decisions |
| City-state | a small political unit within which classical democracy was practiced |
| Community control | a political system where local citizens are empowered to govern themselves directly |
| Democratic centralism | discovering, then acting on the genuine needs of the people, within a party group |
| Elitist theory | a theory that a few top leaders make the key decisions in government without reference to popular desires |
| Majoritarian politics | a political system where the choices of the political leaders are closely constrained by the preferences of the people |
| Marxist theory | a theory that government is merely a reflection of underlying economic forces |
| Mills | a sociologist who presented the idea of a mostly nongovernmental power elite |
| Pluralist theory | a theory that no one interest group consistently holds political power |
| Political power | power used to determine who will hold government office and how government will behave |
| Power | the ability of one person to cause another person to act in accordance with his/her intentions |
| Schumpeter | an economist who defined democracy as the competitive struggle by political leaders for the people's vote |
| Weber | a sociologist who emphasized the bureaucracy in explaining political developments |
| Representative Democracy | conferring political power on those selected by voters in competitive elections |
| Charles A. Beard | a historian who argued that the Founders were largely motivated by the economic advantage of their class in writing the Constitution (theory has been challenged) |
| Declaration of Independence | a document written in 1776 declaring the colonists' intentions to revolt against British rule |
| Federalist papers | a series of political tracts that explained may of the ideas of the Founders supporting a stronger national government |
| John Locke | a British philosopher whose ideas on civil government and 'natural law' greatly influenced the Founders |
| James Madison | an influential author of the Constitution fo believed a government powerful enough to encourage virtue in its citizens was too powerful |
| Natural Rights | rights of all humans are ordained by God, discoverable in nature and history, are essential to human progress |
| AFDC | program to distribute welfare benefits that formerly was federally funded but devolved to the states in 1996 |
| Block grants | a federal grant that could be used for a variety of purposes, usually with few accompanying restrictions |
| Categorical grants | a federal grant for a specific purpose, often with accompanying conditions and/or requiring matching local funds |
| Conditions of aid | federal rules that states must follow if they choose to receive the federal grants with which the rules are associated |
| Devolution | an effort to shift responsibility for a wide range of domestic programs from Washington to the states |
| Federal System | a system in which sovereignty is shared between the national and state governments |
| Federal Republic | the Founders' term for a federation |
| Grants-in-aid | federal funds provided to state and local governments |
| Initiative | a process allowing voters to place legislative measures directly on the ballot by getting specified number of voter signatures on a petition (can also be constitutional amendments) |
| Intergovernmental lobby | an interest group made up of mayors, governors, and other state and local officials who depend on federal funds |
| New Federalism | Nixon's attempt in the 1970s to reduce federal restrictions on grants-in-aid |
| McCulloch v. Maryland | a Supreme Court decision utilizing the principle of implied powers of the national govt, supporting the supremacy of the national govt |
| Mandates | federal rules that states must follow, whether they receive federal grants or not |
| Medicaid | federally funded medical care for the poor |
| Model Cities | a program proposed in the 1960s giving federal funds to a small number of large cities with acute problems |
| National interests | govt. concerns considered to be primarily the responsibility of the central govt |
| Nullification | a doctrine supported by John C. Calhoun that states could hold certain national policies invalid within their boundaries |
| Recall | a process whereby voters can remove an elected official from office |
| Referendum | a process enabling voters to reject a measure adopted by the legislature |
| Revenue sharing | a federal grant that requires no matching funds and provides freedom in how to spend it |
| Tenth Amendment | the clause stating that powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the states or to the people |
| Unitary system | a system where sovereignty is distinctly in the hands of the national government |
