Summary Of Chapter 1 Outline The Study Of American Government

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Cece Cannata p6

Chapter 1 Outline: The Study of American Government
1. What is Political Power?
a) Power: someone who has power is able to influence the actions of another person and get them to act how they want
i) Power is even the simplest of things, like a school declining an applicant
b) Authority: is the right to use power
i) A president or senator have “formal authority” which means that their office, like a presidency, gives them the authority to make the decisions that they do
c) Legitimacy: what makes it okay to use power. A person has authority if their right to act is conferred by law or by a state/national constitution. Legitimacy makes those a “source of right”
i) The Constitution is a source of legitimate authority ii) Conflicts today …show more content…

What is democracy?
a) 2 definitions
i) Like Aristotle’s thinking: “the rule of many.” Aka direct/participatory democracy. All/most people directly participate by holding office or creating policy ii) Representative democracy: most countries that are “democratic” are governed under a representative democracy
(1) There are people in charge who fight for votes
(2) also called the elitist theory of democracy
(3) although it takes time, interest, experts for people to agree on policy, you can get reasonable decision making
(4) participatory government can lead to bad decisions because people just follow what is popular at the time and what the popular opinion is
3. Is representative democracy best?
a) In the Constitution, representative democracy=republican form of government
b) In order to succeed, there has to be competition for leadership
i) Aka people have to run for office
c) The united states have many offices and get money from labor unions, industry, and private individuals
d) There is still some direct democracy so that people have a say, whether that be through people voting on specific policy issues or letting certain large communities govern themselves
e) The writers of Constitution favored

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