Policymaking System
The three institutions that make authoritatively binding decisions for society (policymaking institutions)
What are the State Legislature, Executive, Bureaucracy, and Judiciary?
Broadly shared values, beliefs, and attitudes about how government and society should function
What is political culture?
The supreme law of each state
What is the state constitution
Courts interpret powers granted in charters very narrowly
What is Dillon's rule?
a system of government that divides power between a central, national government and regional, state governments, allowing both to maintain their own authority while acting as part of a single political system
What is federalism?
The difference between a policy and a law
The three types of political culture in U.S. states
What is moralistic, individualistic, traditionalistic?
Three forms of direct democracy
Two types of municipal charters
What is home-rule and general law?
The clause makes the U.S. Constitution and federal laws supreme
What is the Supremacy Clause?
Four linkage institutions that connect people to policymaking.
Public opinion, media, political parties, interest groups
Texas’s political culture
What is low tax, low service?
The most common method of amending a state constitution
What is a legislative proposal?
Two common forms of city government in Texas.
What is the council-manager and mayor-council system?
Which Texas constitution followed the Civil War and Reconstruction?
What is the Constitution of 1869?
A branch that implements laws through rules and regulations
What is the executive branch?
Groups that dominate Texas political culture
What is business interests and special interests?
The 19th-century reform movement pushed for direct democracy measures
What is the populist and progressive reform movement?
Type of election has ballots without party affiliation
What is nonpartisan elections?
Types of grants are given with few restrictions, often to support broad programs.
What are block grants?
The feedback loop in policy implementation
What is dynamic process in which information gathered during the application and evaluation of a policy is fed back to policymakers?
Political culture type that views politics as for everyone and promotes the good of society
Moralistic
A type of democracy better protects minority rights and liberties
What is representative democracy?
A unit of local government that performs a single service in a limited geographical area
What is a special district?
What is Strong popular control of government (voters), Powers were to be limited, Restrain spending, Promote agriculture interests?