category 1
What is a border?
What is a political or geographic boundary that separates one country from another?
What is foreign policy?
What is a nation's plan for how to act toward other countries?
Foreign policy is important because the actions one nation takes affect other nations.
What is diplomacy?
What is the work nations do to keep friendly relations with one another?
Diplomacy is used to prevent war, solve problems, and open communication between countries.
What is a sovereign nation?
What is a government with complete authority over a geographic region?
Sovereign nations rule independently from governments outside their borders. They can make their own laws and enforce them. They can collect taxes, build a military, and make treaties, or written agreements, with other nations. They can also defend themselves against foreign invasion.
What is national interest?
What is a country's economic, cultural, or military goals?
Part of the United States’ national interest, for example, is to grow its economy and defend its national security. For New Zealand, protecting its natural resources against climate change is one of its national interests.
What are two types of borders?
What is Human and Physical borders?
Physical border - Borders sometimes follow natural boundaries. Mountains, deserts, and oceans make good natural boundaries because they are often difficult to cross and are permanent markers.
There are two main types of boundaries used to set human borders: cultural and geometric. Cultural boundaries are based on cultural traits, such as language or religion. Geometric boundaries are borders that are not based on natural or cultural patterns. Often, they are straight lines based on lines of latitude or longitude.
What is a limited government?
What is a type of government that has legal limits on its power, usually in the form of a constitution?
What is a constitution?
What is a written plan of government?
it outlines the structure and limits of government
What is an unlimited government?
What is a type of government in which there are no legal limits set on its power?
What is a totalitarian government?
What is a type of government that exercises control over all aspects of society?
They control the government, the economy, and even people’s personal beliefs and actions. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, China under Mao Zedong, and North Korea under Kim Jong-un are examples of totalitarian regimes.
What are two types of democracy?
What is direct democracy and representative democracy?
Direct democracy - a form of government in which citizens meet regularly in a popular assembly to discuss issues, pass laws, and vote for leaders. A government by the people; citizens ultimate source of government power and citizens pass laws and select leaders.
representative democracy - an indirect democracy in which people vote for representatives to make and enforce laws. For example, Presidential and parliamentary democracies. In a presidential democracy, the people elect the head of state, called the president. The president heads the executive branch. The president shares power with the legislative branch, which is also elected by the people, and the judicial branch.
republic - A republic is a form of government where the people hold power, but they delegate that power to elected representatives.
In a parliamentary democracy, the voters elect the legislature, or parliament. The parliament chooses the government leader, called the prime minister or chancellor. The head of state in some parliamentary democracies is a constitutional monarch.
Constitutional monarchs are often figureheads, or leaders without real power. Instead, the elected parliament holds most of the power. Most of the world’s democratic governments are parliamentary democracies.
What is one type of limited government?
What is a democracy?
a form of government in which the people elect leaders and rule by majority
What is a representative government?
What is the people are the ultimate source of authority?
What is a nonrepresentative government?
What is a system of government where power is unlimited and citizens have few, if any, rights?
For example, citizens of Iran do not have the right of freedom of speech. Without this freedom, Iranians cannot voice their concerns to their leaders.
Citizens of nonrepresentative governments also have different responsibilities than citizens of representative governments. In autocratic governments, which are ruled by one person who makes all the decisions, citizens do not get to vote. This is the same for citizens of an oligarchy, or a government by a small group of individuals.
What is the United Nations (UN)?
What is an organization of countries that promotes peace and security around the world?
Help guarantee human rights - rights that all people deserve, such as rights to equality and justice. Human rights include political rights, such as the right to vote. Freedom of expression and equality before the law are other examples of human rights.
What is humanitarian aid?
What is assistance to people in distress?
For example, during the Syrian civil war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) brought food, clean water, and essential aid to civilians. Another organization, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), offers assistance to conflict and poverty-stricken countries all over the world. In Pakistan, USAID has built or rehabilitated 1,040 schools since 2009. Some groups lend aid to refugees, or people who have been forced to flee their homes. Doctors Without Borders, for example, provides medical aid to those fleeing areas of armed conflict, such as South Sudan, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.
What is the common good?
What is the welfare of a community?
What is an example of an unlimited government?
What is a dictatorship, totalitarian, and theocracy?
Dictatorship - single dictator or a small group holds absolute authority and makes all decisions and dictator generally enacts laws.
Totalitarian - dictator holds ultimate authority and government dictates laws and tightly controls all aspects of life.
Theocracy - government by officials regarded to have religious authority and laws rooted in a particular religion or religious doctrine.
Absolute monarchy - An absolute monarchy is a form of government where a single monarch, like a king or queen, holds supreme power with no limitations from laws, customs, or other governing bodies. The monarch's authority is absolute and unchecked.
What are some duties of U.S. Citizens?
What is
What are some responsibilities of US citizens?
Responsibilities, or civic virtues, are the things we should do as citizens. These tasks are not required by law; yet, in the United States, most people accept them as their responsibility.
What is voting, being informed, taking part in government (for example, people can work as public servants, serve in a political office, join a political party, or support other politically active organizations and contact state representatives), helping your community (volunteering), and respecting and protecting other's rights.
political party - a group of people who organize to gain political power
Interest group - organizations that try to influence government policies
Public servants deliver mail, inspect food and medicines for safety, operate national parks, fight fires, and perform a number of other services.
What is indigenous sovereignty?
indigenous - people who have lived in a place before settlers arrived
What is the right of American Indians to govern themselves?
Native American tribes are recognized in the constitution as their own nation because they were there before Europeans came to America. Each Native American tribe has the same power (with few exceptions) as the federal and state governments. They can establish their own form of government, determine membership requirements, and enact and enforce laws with in their own court system.
They are a nation inside a nation. They enjoy dual citizenship.
What is public opinion?
What is the way large groups of citizens think about issues and people?
What are the three branches in the US government?
What are executive branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch?
legislative branch - the part of government that makes laws
executive branch - the part of government that carries out and enforces laws
judicial branch - the part of government that interprets laws
What type of government does Brunei have?
What is totalitarianism/authoritarian?
What is federal, state, and local?
Federal
State
Local
Modern governments also distribute their powers in different ways. For example, the United Kingdom and Japan are unitary states, in which a central government has all the power and does not share it with its regions or states. The opposite of a unitary state is a confederation. In a confederation, a country’s states or regions hold most of the power. Federal governments, on the other hand, divide their power between a central national government and its states. The United States is an example of a federal government.