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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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Summary of Chapter one American Government: Root, Context, and Culture chapter one, Consisted on the beginning of the United States government, How does the United States government compares to other forms of government around the world, states the meaning of democracy and the political process. Last but not least it consists of how attitudes about the functions of government have changed throughout the years. First of all, the first inhabitants of the United States were indigenous people who were around for about 30,000 years and were also not homogeneous. Although it's hard to tell how many indigenous people were around, there are estimates of about 100 million inhabitants however most indigenous people died because of diseases that European

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Question 1 The Framers chose to govern the newly founded country by a democracy or a republic. A democracy states, the majority is unlimited, in a democracy there is a lack in any legal safeguard of the rights of the individual and the minority. A republic states, the majority is limited, a republic is governed under a written constitution safeguarding the rights of the individual and the minority. The Framer's favored towards having a Republic because they knew that in a pure democracy the Majority’s power is unlimited.

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Today, the United States of America uses a variation on this system called known as a “representative democracy.” In a true democracy, the citizens have a say in every decision made by the government. Because the daily governance of the country is so complex, every citizen cannot have a say in each decision. Therefore representatives must be chosen to work for the common good. Unfortunately, many elected officials can obtain too much power or authority over time making their representation of the citizens less representative.

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James Madison, or better known as the “Father of the Constitution” helped put our nation to where we are today. Back in the late 1700’s Madison composed documents known as the Federalist Papers and in these documents, specifically Federalist paper 10 he describes to us and tries to define his thoughts on a “Republic” and a “Democracy”. Throughout this essay, a fair comparison will be given between both forms of government. Firstly, he states “a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.” (Madison, Fed.

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In America, we have a representative democracy, which means a form of government in which the will of majority is expressed through groups of individuals elected by the people to act as their representatives. In simpler terms, it means that the citizens vote or elect an individual to represent them in the government. Throughout the world, many countries “Claim,” to have a democratic government for example, “People’s Republic of China or Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea.” In reality, both of those countries have a government that is nowhere near democracy or republic, they have either an oligarchy or dictatorship which can best describe their nation’s government. Another form is a monarchy, how England was ruled for long time, but now is ran by a constitutional monarchy.

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