Magruder’s American
Government
CHAPTER 1
Principles of Government
Copyright, 2000 © Prentice Hall
CHAPTER 1
Principles of Government
SECTION 1
Government and the State
SECTION 2
Forms of Government
SECTION 3
Basic Concepts of Democracy
Section 1
Government and the State
 Government
is the institution
through which society creates and
enforces public policy.
 Public
Policy are all of those
things a government decides to
do.
Public Policies in America…










Taxation
National Defense
Education
Crime
Health Care
Transportation
Environment
Civil Rights
Business Practices
Working Conditions
The State is a body of people living in a
defined area with a government and the
power to govern themselves.


1)
2)
There are 4 characteristics of a State:
Population: a State must have people.
Territory: a State must have land with
clear, recognized boundaries.
3)
Sovereignty: every State is sovereign,
meaning it has supreme and absolute power
within its own territory.
4)
Government: every State must be
politically organized.

1)
There are four major theories about the
origin of the State:
Force Theory: forceful takeover of authority by
a person or group.
2)
Evolutionary Theory: natural outgrowth of
family systems through increasingly large and
complex societies.
3)
Divine Right Theory: a god or gods created
the state.
4)
Social Contract Theory: humans organized
to form States to insure their own survival.
What are the purposes of government?






To Form a More Perfect Union…
To Establish Justice…
To Insure Domestic Tranquility…
To Provide for the Common
Defense…
To Promote the General Welfare…
To Secure the Blessings of Liberty…
The purpose of the American
government is to serve the citizens of
the United States.
SECTION 2
Forms of
Government

Governments can be classified by
one or more of their basic features:
1) Geographic distribution of
power.
2) Relationship between the
Legislative and Executive
branches.
3) Number of persons
participating in the
governmental process.

Geographic distribution of power
consists of three basic forms:
1) Unitary Government – all powers held
by a single central agency.
2) Federal Government - all powers
divided by central and local
governments.
3) Confederation – an alliance of
independent States.
Unitary Government
Ex: Great Britain – a single organ
(Parliament) holds all of the power of the
British government. Local governments do
exist, but only to relieve Parliament of
burdens it could perform only with
difficulty and inconvenience. At any time,
Parliament could dissolve all agencies of
local government.
Unitary Government
Most governments in the world are unitary
in form.
Federal Government
An authority superior to both the central
and local governments makes the division
of power on a geographic basis, and that
division cannot be changed by either the
national or local levels acting alone.
Ex: United States
Confederation
A Confederate structure makes it possible
for the several States to cooperate in
matters of common concern and also
retain their separate identities
There is only one Confederation existing in
the world today: the Commonwealth of
Independent States in the former Soviet
Union.
Confederation
In our own history, the United States under
the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789)
and the Confederate States of America
(1861-1865) are also examples of a
Confederation.
Government may take a
Presidential or Parliamentary
form.
1) Presidential: each branch is
independent and coequal.
2) Parliamentary: the Executive
branch consists of members from
the Legislative branch.


Features a separation of powers between
the Legislative (law-making) and
Executive (law-enforcing) branches.
Usually, as in the United States, a written
constitution provides for the separation of
powers between branches of government.



Prime Minister and his cabinet are “the
government”. The Prime Minister selects his
cabinet, but Parliament selects the Prime
Minister.
The Prime Minister and his cabinet stay in office
only as long as their policies and administration
have the confidence of a majority of
Parliament.
If a “Vote of No Confidence” occurs, the
government must resign its office.
Government can be classified by
the percentage of citizens who
can participate.
1) Dictatorship: not accountable to
the people.
2) Democracy: people hold authority,
directly or through representatives.
All dictatorships are authoritarian
(governmental systems in which those in
power hold absolute and unchallengeable
authority over the people).
 Modern-day dictatorships tend to be
totalitarian as well (they exercise
dictatorial, or authoritarian, power over
nearly every aspect of human affairs, and
their power embraces all (the totality of)
matters of human concern.


Typically, dictatorial regimes are militaristic in
character, usually gaining power by force and
holding many of the major posts in the
government.

Direct Democracy – exists where the
will of the people is translated into public
policy (law) directly by the people
themselves, in mass meetings.

Direct Democracy does not exist
anywhere on the national level in the
world today.

Representative Democracy – a small
group of persons chosen by the people to
act as their representatives expresses the
popular will.

Representative Democracy is
government by popular consent—
government with the consent of the
governed.