Unit Vocabulary

1. Absolute monarchy - a form of government where the monarch rules without any laws,
constitution, or legally organized opposition.
2. Monarchy - a government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of a
monarch who reigns over a state or territory, usually for life and by hereditary right; the
monarch may be either a sole absolute ruler or a sovereign - such as a king, queen, or
prince - with constitutionally limited authority.
3. Parliamentary monarchy - a state headed by a monarch who is not actively involved in
policy formation or implementation (i.e., the exercise of sovereign powers by a monarch
in a ceremonial capacity); true governmental leadership is carried out by a cabinet and its
head - a prime minister, premier, or chancellor - who are drawn from a legislature
(parliament).
4. Constitutional monarchy - a system of government in which a monarch is guided by a
constitution whereby his/her rights, duties, and responsibilities are spelled out in written
law or by custom.
5. Sultanate - similar to a monarchy, but a government in which the supreme power is in the
hands of a sultan (the head of a Muslim state); the sultan may be an absolute ruler or a
sovereign with constitutionally limited authority.
6. Republic - a representative democracy in which the people's elected deputies
(representatives), not the people themselves, vote on legislation.
7. Democracy - a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the
people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and
delegated authority periodically renewed.
8. Democratic republic - a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens
entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
9. Federal (Federation) - a form of government in which sovereign power is formally
divided - usually by means of a constitution - between a central authority and a number of
constituent regions (states, colonies, or provinces) so that each region retains some
management of its internal affairs; differs from a confederacy in that the central
government exerts influence directly upon both individuals as well as upon the regional
units.
10. Presidential - a system of government where the executive branch exists separately from
a legislature (to which it is generally not accountable).
11. Constitutional - a government by or operating under an authoritative document
(constitution) that sets forth the system of fundamental laws and principles that
determines the nature, functions, and limits of that government.
12. Constitutional democracy - a form of government in which the sovereign power of the
people is spelled out in a governing constitution.
13. Parliamentary democracy - a political system in which the legislature (parliament) selects
the government - a prime minister, premier, or chancellor along with the cabinet

ministers - according to party strength as expressed in elections; by this system, the

government acquires a dual responsibility: to the people as well as to the parliament.
14. Parliamentary government (Cabinet-Parliamentary government) - a government in which
members of an executive branch (the cabinet and its leader - a prime minister, premier, or
chancellor) are nominated to their positions by a legislature or parliament, and are
directly responsible to it; this type of government can be dissolved at will by the
parliament (legislature) by means of a no confidence vote or the leader of the cabinet may
dissolve the parliament if it can no longer function.
15. Marxism - the political, economic, and social principles espoused by 19th century
economist Karl Marx; he viewed the struggle of workers as a progression of historical
forces that would proceed from a class struggle of the proletariat (workers) exploited by
capitalists (business owners), to a socialist "dictatorship of the proletariat," to, finally, a
classless society - Communism.
16. Communist - a system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy
and a single - often authoritarian - party holds power; state controls are imposed with the
elimination of private ownership of property or capital while claiming to make progress
toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
17. Maoism - the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism developed in China by Mao
Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), which states that a continuous revolution is necessary if the
leaders of a communist state are to keep in touch with the people.
18. Marxism-Leninism - an expanded form of communism developed by Lenin from
doctrines of Karl Marx; Lenin saw imperialism as the final stage of capitalism and shifted
the focus of workers' struggle from developed to underdeveloped countries.
19. Authoritarian - a form of government in which state authority is imposed onto many
aspects of citizens' lives.
20. Confederacy (Confederation) - a union by compact or treaty between states, provinces, or
territories, which creates a central government with limited powers; the states, provinces,
or territories retain supreme authority over all matters except those delegated to the
central government or union.
21. Dictatorship - a form of government in which a ruler or small clique wield absolute
power (not restricted by a constitution or laws).
22. Oligarchy - a government in which control is exercised by a small group of individuals
whose authority generally is based on wealth or power.
23. Socialism - a government in which the means of planning, producing, and distributing
goods is controlled by a central government that theoretically seeks a more just and
equitable distribution of property and labor; in actuality, most socialist governments have
ended up being no more than dictatorships over workers by a ruling elite.
24. Totalitarian - a government that seeks to subordinate the individual to the state by
controlling not only all political and economic matters, but also the attitudes, values, and
beliefs of its population
25. Anarchy - a condition of lawlessness or political disorder brought about by the absence of
governmental authority or leadership.

26. Emirate - similar to a monarchy or sultanate, but a government in which the supreme
power is in the hands of an emir (the ruler of a Muslim state); the emir may be an
absolute overlord or a sovereign with constitutionally limited authority.
27. Federal republic - a state in which the powers of the central government are restricted and
in which the component parts (states, colonies, or provinces) retain a degree of selfgovernment; ultimate sovereign power rests with the voters who chose their
governmental representatives.
28. Islamic republic - a particular form of government adopted by some Muslim states;
although such a state is, in theory, a theocracy, it remains a republic, but its laws are
required to be compatible with the laws of Islam.
29. Theocracy - a form of government in which a Deity is recognized as the supreme civil
ruler, but the Deity's laws are interpreted by ecclesiastical authorities (bishops, mullahs,
etc.); a government subject to religious authority.
30. Ecclesiastical - a government administrated by a church.

Name:
Period:

KWL Chart: What do you know about world governments?

Instructions: Fill out the first column with what you know about world government. Fill in the
second one with what you want to know about world governments. Then right down what you
did learn during the class when we discuss what we know.
K

What do you know about

governments from around
the world? What types of
government have you heard
of? What are they about?

What do you want to know

about world governments?
What type of government do
you want to learn more
about?

What did you learn from

your peers during class?

Lecture Day 1 Activities

Democracy

Dictatorship

Which diagram best describes the distribution of power in the United

States?

Which method seems best for choosing a chef executive? Why?

Diagram that shows the United Kingdoms Government

Instructions: Determine what kind of government the United Kingdom has by answering these
questions on a separate piece of paper.
A.
B.
C.
D.

Is the government unitary, federal, or confederate?

Does the government have a constitution? Does it have a constitutional government?
Is the government presidential or parliamentary?
Other than the chief executive, how are leaders chosen?

Activity Key (do not give to students)

Democracy
People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be
afraid of their people.
Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation
with the average voter.
Winston S. Churchill
Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn
their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to
sit on their blisters.
Abraham Lincoln

Republic
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently
respect the rights of the minority.
James Madison
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal
ailment of all republics.

 Plutarch
The virtue of its Citizens is the only Support of a Republican
government
William Henry Harrison

Monarchy
I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two
hundred rats of my own species.
Voltaire
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of
kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails
of the last priest.
Denis Diderot

Excerpts from the Communist Manifesto

(Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)
Marx and Engels used a couple of terms here that need to be clarified. First of all, bourgeoisie
referred to the new business and industrial class that had emerged in the last few centuries
before his time (as opposed to the traditional landed aristocracy); proletariat referred to the
workers in these factories (owned by the bourgeoisie), who, in Marx view, were wage slaves,
bound to work for wages lest they starve.

Part I: Bourgeois and Proletarians

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society
into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians,
knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild- masters, journeymen,
apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society, has not done
away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression,
new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: It has
simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great
hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other- bourgeoisie and proletariat. . . .
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the
way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to
communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry;
and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion
the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class
handed down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of
development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange..
The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal,
idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his

natural superiors, and has left no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest,
than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of
chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It
has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible
chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedomFree Trade. In one word,
for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless,
direct, brutal exploitation.
Part II: Proletarians and Communists
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character
in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the
ideas of its ruling class.
When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within
the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old
ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by
Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the eighteenth century to rationalist ideas,
feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of
religious liberty and freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to the sway of free
competition within the domain of knowledge..
We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the
proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the
bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i. e., of the
proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as
possible.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital
and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into
cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a
common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the
distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the
country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of childrens factory labor in its
present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an
association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of
all.
Part IV: Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties
.. Workingmen of all countries, unite!

Assignment: Write a short responsive essay that answers these questions. This
should be in 12pt. font double spaced and at least two pages. Use the text to
support your answer and reference part of the United States government directly in
the last question.
What was Marxs argument? What was he talking about? What type of
government did he want? Do you agree with any of his points? Why? Did you
disagree with any of his points? Does the United States have any of his points in
their government?

Communism vs. Fascism

Directions: Fill out the boxes with similarities and differences of communism and fascism.

Communism

Similarities

Fascism

Group Names

Period
Iraq
Your group has the job of drawing up a new government for the nation of Iraq that has
been recently liberated by U.S. -led coalition forces. The following are the characteristics
of Iraq.
1. The population is approximately 32.5 million people.
2. About 99% of the population is Muslim, however this is split into 2 different groups
the Shia make-up between 60%-65% of the Muslim population while the Sunni
Muslims make-up between 32%-37%.
3. The ruling classes in Iraq have been Sunni, and so there has been a problem because
the less advantaged sect constituted the majority of the population.
4. There are 2 main ethnic groups in Iraq. The majority group is Arab comprising 75%80% of the population. The Kurdish minority group make-up 15%-20% of the
population. The Kurds have also endured harsh attacks under Saddams Regime
including gas attacks that killed thousands of their people following the gulf war in
1991.
5. Iraq has been particularly nervous about Kurdish desires of independence, mostly
because the land on which the Kurds have always lived includes Iraqs most
productive oil fields.
6. There has also been conflict between the Shia Marsh Arabs and the urban Sunni
Iraqis. The urban Iraqis consider the Madan to be backward and primitive, while the
Madan in turn consider the urban Iraqis untrustworthy and irreligious.
7. The economy of Iraq receives 84% of its earnings through foreign exchange of oil.
8. Around 78.5% of the country is literate.
9. Iraqs land area is 272,357.6 square miles
10. ISIS is currently a threat to the Iraq government. Currently they have a Democratic
Republic but it doesnt seem to be working for everyone.
11. Agricultural production, which employs about 22% of the workforce, is not sufficient
to meet the countrys food requirement.
12. Iraq also suffers from a labor shortage.
13. Very little rainfall occurs in Iraq except in the northeast, and agriculture mainly
depends upon river water. The sandy soil and steady heat of the southeast enable a
large date group and cotton to be produced.
14. Farther upstream, as the elevation increases, rainfall becomes sufficient to grow
diversified crops, including grains and vegetables.

Your group needs to explain/defend the following:

E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.

Will the government be an autocracy, oligarchy, or democracy?

Will the government be unitary, federal, or confederate?
Will the government have a constitution? Will it have constitutional government?
Will the government be presidential or parliamentary?
Other than the chief executive, how will leaders be chosen?
How will you protect your country from insurgents and those loyal to ISIS?
How will you protect the country from radical groups attacks?
How will you improve the standard of living for your people?
Should the United States be allowed to influence Iraq?