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Directions: This learning unit reviews basic concepts for the study of government and politics, as found in your textbook. Fill in the blank spaces in the sentences below with the correct words, then forward electronically. Note: where two or more words are required, there will be two or more blank spaces.

(1)  even in a modern industrial state, can be defined on a simple level as the individuals, institutions, and processes that make the rules for society and possess the power to enforce them.  

Benjamin Disraeli, the nineteenth-century British prime minister and novelist, wrote that (2)" are the possession and distribution of power."

(3)  is the possession of control over others.

Lord Acton, the nineteenth-century British peer and historian, made the famous statement that power tends to corrupt and (4)  power corrupts ."  

Democracy is a word that comes from two Greek roots, demos, meaning the (5)  and kratia, which means .  

The Greeks used the term democracy to describe the government of Athens and the other Greek (6) - that flourished in the fifth century B.C.  

In a democratic government, power, in theory, flows from the (7)  as a whole.

In the United States, leaders are elected to speak for the people. This means that America is a (8)  democracy rather than a direct one.  

Government by the people also carries with it the concept of  (9) , under which everyone is free to vote, but whoever gets the most votes wins the election and represents all the people (including those who voted for the losing candidate).

In a system that is truly democratic, (10)  rights and views are also recognized and protected.

American government is (11) , i.e., the power of the government is limited by a framework of fundamental written law.

Under a such a government, in theory, the (12)  power of the state should not be used illegally to punish individuals or to repress dissent.

According to David Easton, we can "view political life as a (13)  of interrelated activities."

The inputs of a political system are of two kinds: (14)  and . 

(15)  are what people and groups want from the system.

(16)  are the attitudes and actions of people that sustain and buttress the system.

The (17)  of a political system are chiefly the binding decisions it makes, whether in the form of laws, regulations, or judicial decisions.

(18)  in a political system describes the response of the rest of society to the decisions made by the authorities.