Monday/Tuesday August 24-25

Today’s Agenda

2 STEP DAY

1) Unit #1: Introduction to Government Discussion and

review of first 10 Vocabulary words on Word Wall

#1

2) Word Wall #1 Work Day Two

What is a Government?

• Government is the institution through which the state maintains social order, provides public service, national security, and enforces public policy

• Public policy is all of the goals a government sets and the various courses of action it pursues as it attempts to realize these goals.

Theories: Evolutionary-based on an extended family

idea that eventually evolves into a “state”. Force-people were forced under the control

of those more powerful and a “state” was formed.

Divine Right- “gods” have chose those who rule.

Origins of the States

How do we begin to discuss what is government and why do we have government?

Our modern day thought on government originated with the ideas of Aristotle a scholar in ancient Greece. He studied and debated the ideas of POLIS (Greek City-State), POLITICS (Process), DEMOCRACY (People Rule) and REPUBLIC (Representative Government).

Introduction

Comes from the Latin word “to stand” . Today “state” represents a “political

community” that is organized. There are over 200 “states” in the world

today. In the United States our nation is a “state”

and we are organized into 50 “states”. “Nation” is a group of people tied

together by race, language, culture, custom, tradition and even religion.

State

Population-you need people and are those people stable, mobile or ?

Territory-land, borders, issues Sovereignty-who is in political control-who

is in charge? No outside control, State makes all decisions

Government-institution through which decisions are made and implemented.

Features of a Modern State

Unitary: Gives all key powers to a national or central government

Federal: Power is divided between the national government and provincial (state) governments

Confederacy: Loose union of independent states

Government Systems

Elements of Government Power

Unitary

Confederate

FederalLocationof

Power

CITIZENS

GOVERNMENT

Constitution: Formal written document that is known as the owners manual for a government’s powers

HOUSE.CONGRESS RESOLUTION 331

Constitution