Gov Unit 1: Week 1 Key Terms

An implicit agreement between individuals of a society and their government to lay down some of their freedoms in return for social benefits like security.

• Natural rights

• Social contract

• Popular sovereignty

• Tabula rasa

A document that describes the laws and organization of a nation.

• Social contract

• Declaration

• Constitution

• Government contract

Concept that holds that the government and its officers are always subject to the law.

• Rule of law

• Tabula rasa

• Social contract

• Popular sovereignty

A system of government in which policies and laws are decided by a majority of all those eligible rather than by a body of elected representatives.

• Monarchy

• Direct democracy

• Parliamentary system

• Representative Democracy

Rights that all human beings are born with.

• Tabula rasa

• Rule of law

• Natural rights

• Social contract

An idea that asserts that the people are the source of any all governmental power, and government can exist only with the consent of the governed.

• Social contract

• Separation of powers

• Direct democracy

• Popular sovereignty

A system of government in which power is explicitly vested in the people, who in turn exercise their power through elected representatives.

• Monarchy

• Direct democracy

• Parliamentary system

• Representative Democracy

Means blank slate; suggests that people are born with a blank slate and during life the blank slate gets filled up with things a person experiences.

• Tabula rasa

• Social contract

• Rule of law

• Popular sovereignty

Basic principle of the American system of government that the executive, legislative, and judicial powers are divided among three independent and coequal branches.

• Popular sovereignty

• Separation of powers

• Constitution

• Rule of law