WGU C963 American Politics & the U.S. Constitution.Government: Describes the means by which a society organizes itself and allocates authority in order to
... [Show More] accomplish
collective goals and provide benefits that the society as a whole need.
Politics: Refers to the process of gaining and exercising control within a government for the purpose of setting and
achieving particular goals, especially those related to the division of resources within a nation.
Democracy: A political system in which people govern themselves.
Private Goods: Goods provided by private businesses that can only be used by those who pay for them.
Public Goods: Goods provided by the government that anyone can use and that are available to all without charge,
such as national security and education.
Toll Good: Private schooling is a type of toll good. Toll goods are available to many people, and many people can
make use of them, but only if they can pay the price.
Common Goods: Goods that all people may us but are of limited supply.
Different Types of Government:
Representative Democracy: Where voters elect representatives to make decisions and pass laws on behalf
of all the people instead of allowing people to vote directly on laws.
Political Power: Influence over a government’s institutions, leadership, or policies.
Majority Rule: A fundamental principle of democracy; the majority should have the power to make
decisions binding upon the whole.
Minority Rights: Protections for those who are not part of the majority.
Direct democracy: Where people participate directly in making government decisions instead of choosing
representatives to do this for them.
Monarchy: Where one ruler, usually a hereditary one, holds political power.
Totalitarian: Where government is all-powerful, and citizens have no rights.
Unit 2: The Development of Constitutional Democracy
Module 1: The Influence of the Enlightenment
Of all the Enlightenment thinkers, John Locke (1689) is the most influential. The most significant
contributions of Locke, a seventeenth-century English philosopher, are his ideas regarding the relationship between
government and natural rights*, which are said to be the God-given rights to life, liberty, and property.
*Natural Rights: the right to life, liberty, and property; believed to be given by
God; no government may take away.
Locke identified two key aspects to our existence. The first is liberty which is a product of our independence. The
second is property, which we use to maintain that independence.
“Natural” refers to the fact that these are inherent to our existence and, therefore, a part of us. “Rights”
means that we are free to exercise them without needing the permission of others.
John Locke’s ideas of what characteristics the creation of civil society should entail:
1. It will have to respect our [Show Less]