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Chapter 1. By: Toni Hartman and Mariel Chinn. What is Government?. The institution through which a society makes and enforces its public policies.
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Chapter 1 By: Toni Hartman and Mariel Chinn
What is Government? • The institution through which a society makes and enforces its public policies. • The public policies of a government are all of those things a government decides to do (taxation. Education, crime, healthcare, transportation, etc…).
What would life with no Government be like? • We should know as much as we can about government because it affects is for the rest of our lives. • What would like be like without government? • If government didn’t exist we’d have to create it • No protection • No education • Health system • Environment • Criminals • Fires/ natural disasters • Civil rights/ elderly • If government didn’t exist we’d have to create it
Powers of the Government • Legislative- the power to make and frame public policies • Executive- the power to execute, enforce, and administer the laws. • Judicial- the power to interpret laws, to determine their meanings, and to settle disputes. • The constitution is the body of fundamental laws setting out the principles, structures, and processes of a government.
The State • A body of people, living in a defined territory, organized politically, and with the power to make and enforce law without the consent of any higher authority. • Often called a “nation” or “country”. • There are more than 180 states in the world. • The people of a state may or may not share the same customs, language, and ethnic background. • Every state is sovereign- has supreme and absolute power within its own territory and can decide its own forge in and domestic policies. • Government is necessary to avoid what English Philosopher Thomas Hobbes called, “the war of every man against every man”. • “Without government there would be a continual fear and danger of violent death and life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Major Political Ideas • The Force Theory- The theory that a state was born of force. • The Evolutionary Theory- The theory that a state developed naturally out of the early family. • The Divine Right Theory- The Theory that God created the state and had given those born of royal birth the “divine right” to rule. • The Social Contract- The theory that the state arose out of a voluntary act of free people.