Exam 1 Review Flashcard

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Americans' belief in freedom is defined as
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freedom from restraint by the government
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Ideas of political change and challenges to British ideology were largely a result of American acceptance of the political ideas of
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John Locke
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A major principle of American government in which each of the three branches is given the means to restrain the actions of the others ("ambition must be made to counteract ambition") is known as
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Checks and Balances
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Which of the following was not an important factor in getting the Constitution written and ratified?
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3/5 Clause and Fugitive Slave Clause, Federalist Papers, Bill of Rights, and the Great Compromise
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The Federalists believed that the human tendencies toward ambition and corruption should be dealt with by
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creating institutions that made use of those characteristics to produce good outcomes
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The British government imposed taxes that the colonists resented in order to
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pay for the debt created by the French and Indian War
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A modern example of a con-federal system is
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The European Union
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The colonists did not believe in virtual representation because they believed in the concept of
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popular sovereignty
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The difference between the Native American view of property and the European view of property was that
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Native Americans believed in communal property, whereas the Europeans believed in private property
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Shays's rebellion demonstrated
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the frustration of debtors in the wake of the Revolutionary War
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In Federalist No. 10, James Madison warned against the dangers of
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factions
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The major immigration issue of today involves how to
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treat the 12 million illegal immigrants living and working in the United States
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The key concept of the pluralist theory of democracy is
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groups
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In authoritarian systems _________, whereas in nonauthoritarian systems _________.
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government makes substantive decisions about how people ought to live their lives; government merely guarantees that there are fair rules and leaves the rest to individual control
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_________________ classic pamphlet, Common Sense, presented rousing arguments in favor of American independence
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Thomas Paine's
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The Tea Party movement is important to examine in light of the politics of the American founding because
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it highlights the tension between government authority and individual rights of citizens
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According to the text, why do some observers claim there is a crisis in American citizenship?
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Civic virtue is taking second place to self-interest as a guiding principle of citizenship
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Why do many Americans find it difficult to identify themselves as a conservative or a liberal?
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Because they consider themselves liberal on some issues and conservative on other issues
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According to the text, "liberals" are people who believe in the widespread use of government power for
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reducing economic inequality
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The broad pattern of ideas, beliefs, and values about citizens and government held by a population is known as its
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political culture
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What are the competing views of citizenship that exist today in the United States?
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One view holds that individual participation in government should be limited because human nature is overly self-interested, whereas the other view places faith in the citizen's ability to act virtuously
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Under the Articles of Confederation, the rights and obligations of citizens were
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determined by each state constitution
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Which of the following countries is an advanced industrial democracy?
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The United States
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Compared with most countries, in the United States the range of the ideological spectrum is
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narrower because of our shared political culture
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According to the Federalists, the advantage of federalism over a confederation was that it
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divides power between the federal and state governments
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Direct democracy is a political system in which
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All citizens are involved in all policy decisions
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Which of the following reflects the type of economic system found in the United States?
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Regulated capitalism, in which business has substantial freedom from government interference, but the government does step in and regulate the economy to guarantee individual rights
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The legal process of acquiring citizenship for a person who was not born a U.S. citizen is known as
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naturalization
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The _________________ clause makes the Constitution and federal laws superior to all conflicting state and local laws
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Supremacy
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In Federalist No. 51, what government structure did James Madison recommend to ensure "ambition...be made to counteract ambition"?
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A bicameral legislature
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In socialist economies, control over economic decisions is exercised by
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the government
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Which of the following best reflects the contradiction within the new citizenship of the early American republic?
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A belief in citizenship conferring equal rights but the unavailability of this citizenship to a major portion of the population
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The significance of The Federalist Papers is that
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without them New York might not have ratified the Constitution
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What are the most basic obligations of citizens in a democracy?
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To obey the law
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The central goal of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention was to
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increase the power of the national government
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________ can be described as a system or an organization for exercising authority over a body of people
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Government
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The Great Compromise
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established a legislature with equal state representation in the Senate, and representation by state population in the House
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Americans tend to equate democracy with
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fairness
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Individuals who come to the United States seeking asylum are known as
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refugees
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The importance of political culture is that it
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reduces conflict in society
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Under the Articles of Confederation, the central governing body was
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The Congress
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A political system in which the state holds all power over the social order is
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authoritarian government
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If a state has 34 representatives in the U.S. House, then it would have how many total electoral votes?
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36
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The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service was moved from the Justice Department to the Department of Homeland Security because
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security issues have come to play a more central role in determining who may enter the country
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To justify the Revolution to the colonists, Thomas Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence all of the following EXCEPT
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the argument that monarchy is illegitimate
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Politics is defined in your text as
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who gets what, when, and how
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The absence of government and laws is a characteristic of
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anarchy
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Compared with the situation in most other Western democracies, voter turnout in American elections is
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much lower
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To gain the necessary support for ratification of the new Constitution after it had been sent to the states, the Federalists finally promised to add
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A Bill of Rights
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According to the text, "conservatives" are people who believe in the widespread use of government power for
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increasing the protection of private property
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Jus soli is the legal principle that defines citizenship by the right by
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the soil
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When those in government exercise power recognized by citizens as right and proper, they are exercising
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authority
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The United States' representative democracy is based on
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majority rule and the consent of the governed
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Individuals born in the United States are American citizens, even if their parents are not, following the principle of
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jus soli
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The science of collecting, organizing, and interpreting numerical data is called
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statistics
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John Locke's political philosophy nicely fit the needs of the colonial leaders because it
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contained both a theory of revolution and a theory of constitutional government
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According to James Madison, the effects of factions are best managed by
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a large republic
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One of the reasons that the founders did not give too much political influence to ordinary citizens was
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the founders had relatively low expectations of the ordinary citizen
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In the relationship between politics and government
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politics is the process or activity through which power is gained and lost, whereas government is a system for exercising authority over a body of people.
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Early colonists came to America
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for a wide range of economic and political agendas as well as for religious and philosophical reasons
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The doctrine that society is based on an agreement between government and the governed in which people agree to give up some rights in exchange for the protection of others is called
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social contract theory
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The Enlightenment led to the theory that government is based on
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a social contract
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According to some elite theorists of democracy, low American voter turnout would be best illustrated by which of the following statements?
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Decisions are made by leaders, so voter participation in elections doesn't matter
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Political culture tends to unite society because
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most citizens believe the ideas that make up their culture are true
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The way the founders treated slavery in the Constitution indicated that
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slavery was such a divisive issue they did not dare to mention it directly in the Constitution
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There are currently around __________ illegal immigrants in the United States
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12 million
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The founding fathers fear or distrust of equality (belief that the common man really was not capable of governing) is seen many places in the Constitution. Which of the following showed belief in the common man's ability to govern himself
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Selection of the House of Representatives
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The market controls economic decisions in a __________ economy
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capitalist
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