Before America
This intellectual movement emphasized reason and challenged traditional political authority.
What is the Enlightenment?
This thinker is most closely associated with natural rights and government by consent.
Who is John Locke?
Citizens choose people to make political decisions on their behalf in this form of democracy.
What is representative democracy?
Life, liberty, and similar freedoms that people possess simply because they are human are known as these.
What are natural rights?
An organization of people who try to influence government policy without necessarily trying to win political office.
What is an interest group?
This earlier movement encouraged people to use observation, experimentation, and reason to understand the natural world.
What is the Scientific Revolution?
This thinker believed preventing disorder required a powerful government.
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This model emphasizes large numbers of ordinary citizens being actively involved in political decisions.
What is participatory democracy?
This idea divides government authority among different branches so that power is not concentrated in one place.
What is separation of powers?
This process allows citizens to propose a law and place it before voters.
What is an initiative?
This philosophy emphasizes the rights, freedom, and importance of the individual person. Often seen as a western view of the world.
What is individualism?
This thinker is most closely associated with separation of powers.
Who is Baron de Montesquieu?
This model sees political power as being spread among many competing groups.
What is pluralist democracy?
This idea says people agree to give government some authority in exchange for protection and order.
What is the social contract?
This process allows voters to approve or reject a proposed law or policy directly.
What is a referendum?
This philosophy places greater emphasis on the needs or interests of the group as a whole. Often seen as an Eastern view of the world.
What is collectivism?
This thinker emphasized the idea of popular sovereignty and legitimate authority coming from the people.
Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
This model argues that a relatively small number of wealthy, educated, or influential people hold much of the political power.
What is elite democracy?
A political system and doctrine where a single ruler or central authority holds total, unlimited power, free from regular checks by legislatures, courts, or religious bodies
Absolutism
This principle favors a government in which citizens elect representatives rather than governing entirely by direct democracy.
What is republicanism?
This system of government places nearly unlimited political power in the hands of a monarch.
What is absolutism?
This philosopher wrote "The Republic" as a warning to direct democracy in Athenian society.
Who is Plato?
This political principle holds that ultimate political authority belongs to the people.
What is popular sovereignty?
Government is not permitted to exercise unlimited power under this principle. It was a response to Absolutism.
What is limited government?
According to the Declaration of Independence, when government becomes destructive of people's rights, the people possess this ultimate political remedy.
What is the right to alter or abolish the government?