The idea that a just government draws its people from the consent of the people it governs.
What is popular consent?
100
The Constitutional division of powers among executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
What is separation of powers?
100
A system of govt. that concentrates power in the hands of a central govt.
What is a unitary system?
100
The widely shared beliefs, values, and norms about how citizens relate to govt and to one another.
What is political culture?
100
The process by which we develop our political attitudes, values, and beliefs.
What is political socialization?
200
The farmers' uprising in Massachusetts against foreclosures that exposed the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation.
What is Shays' Rebellion?
200
The situation in which different branches of government are dominated by different political parties.
What is divided government?
200
An arrangement of federalism in which the Constitution provides the federal government with a limited list of powers and leaves the rest to the states.
What is dual or layer cake federalism?
200
Widespread agreement on fundamental principles of democratic governance and the values that undergird them.
What is democratic consensus?
200
Divisions within society that reinforce one another, making groups more homogeneous or similar.
What are reinforcing cleavages?
300
The provision under which all judges were to treat the national government's laws and treaties as superior to the laws of the states.
What is the supremacy clause?
300
A procedure whereby a certain number of voters may, by petition, propose a law or constitutional amendment and have it submitted to the voters.
What is an initiative?
300
The section of the Constitution which gives Congress the power to regulate all business activities that cross state lines or affect more than one state or other nations.
What is the commerce clause?
300
A consistent pattern of beliefs about political values and the role of govt.
What is political ideology?
300
The fastest-growing geographic region of the country.
What is the "Sun Belt"?
400
The formal title of the proposal at the Constitutional Convention which favored a unicameral legislature.
What is the New Jersey Plan?
400
The only method ever utilized for proposing amendments.
What is a two-thirds approval vote from both houses of Congress?
400
The Supreme Court case which affirmed Congress' authority over interstate commerce through a steamboat-ferry dispute between New York and New Jersey.
What is Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)?
400
The beliefs that laws should apply to the present and to the future, not punish something someone did in the past.
What is prospectivity?
400
1900-1924 and 1991-2004.
What are the two large immigrant waves in U.S. history?
500
The system of voting under which a candidate or party with the most votes wins, even if the votes total less than half the overall percentage of voters.
What is plurality rule?
500
The power of a court to refuse to enforce a law or government regulation that in the opinion of the judges conflicts with the U.S. Constitution or, in a state court, the state constitution.
What is judicial review?
500
The section of the Constitution requiring each state to recognize and uphold the civil judgments determined by the courts of other states and to accept their public records and acts as valid.
What is the full faith and credit clause?
500
The belief that laws must be fairly and impartially enforced.
What is due process?
500
The most important factor in explaining views on issues, partisanship, and ideology.