Chapter 1 Section 1

Government and the State

What is Government
• What is a government?
• Government- institution through
which society makes & enforces its
public policies (things gov. decides to
do)
• One of oldest human inventions
• Date to ancient Egypt (more than 2,300
years ago!)
• Governments must have POWER-
why?
• Make & carry out policies
3 Basic Kinds of Power

• Legislative- make laws &

frame public policies
• Executive- execute,
enforce, and administer
laws
• Judicial- interpret laws,
determine meaning, &
settle disputes
Political Animal
• “man is by nature a political animal.”- Aristotle
• What did Aristotle mean by this?
Government v. Politics

Government
• Institution that carries • Process Politics
• How society decides how power &
out public policies resources will be distributed w/in society
• The Job application
• The JOB
Government v. Politics

Government
• Institution that carries out • Process Politics
public policies • The Job application
• The JOB

• U.S. Department of
• Teachers
Education

• National Institutes of
Health • Doctors or Nurses
What are the 4 characteristics
of the State
• State- a body of people, living, in a
defined territory, organized w/ a
government, & w/ power to make &
enforce law w/out the consent of any
higher authority
• Can be used interchangeably w/ country,
but not necessarily a country
• Each have 4 characteristics
• Population
• Territory
• Sovereignty
• Government
Population
• How large must the population be in order for a place to be
called a state?
• No size necessary, just a group of people
Territory
• Must have territory with known and recognized boundaries
Sovereignty
• What does sovereignty mean?
• Absolute authority within its own territory
• If the U.S. is democratic, how are they a sovereign state?
• Federal government creates absolute laws…the Constitution
Government
• States must be political organized by system of government
& laws
• What would happen if a society had a population and
designated territory, but no government?
Vatican City
• Governed as absolute monarchy
• The Head of State the Pope holds full
legislative, executive and judicial
powers
• Pope elected by Cardinals
• Smallest independent state in the world
in population & size.
• 110 acres
• Population 1,000 (in 2015)
How Do the Major Political Ideas
Explain the Origin of the State
The Force Theory
• State was born of FORCE
• 1 person or small group took
control over an area & forced all
w/in it to submit to that person’s
or group’s will
• Examples: settlers came to U.S.
forced Native Americans to obey
laws, Hitler took over Europe
The Evolutionary Theory
• The Evolutionary Theory- state
developed naturally out of the
early family
• Heads of families became
government
• Claimed territories settled in, and
became sovereign state
The Divine Right Theory
• The Divine Right- God created the
state & God had given those of royal
birth a ‘divine right’ to rule
• Monarchy in European history
• Chinese, Egyptian, Aztec, & Mayan
• Japanese emperor, Mikado, governed by
divine right until 1945
Social Contract Theory
• State arose out of voluntary act of
free people
• Humans lived in chaos, & needed to
be governed
• People sacrifice freedoms to be
protected by the government
• Developed by Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, James Harrington, & Jean
Jacques Rousseau
Social Contract Theory
• “During the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that
conditions called war; and such a war, as if of
every man, against every man.”- Hobbes
• “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is
understood to last as long, and no longer, than
the power lasteth by which he is able to
protect them.”- Hobbes
Social Contract Theory
• “The social pact, far from destroying natural
equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral
and lawful equality for whatever physical
inequality that nature may have imposed on
mankind; so that however unequal in strength
and intelligence, men become equal by
covenant and by right.” - Jean- Jacques
Rousseau
What is the Purpose of Gov.?
• There are 6 purposes
of government listed
in the Preamble of
the U.S. Constitution.
• List all 6 in your
notes, and leave
space under each
purpose to take
further notes.
The Purpose of Government
Link people closely
together. Strength in
unity.
Reasonable, impartial,
and fair.

Keep peace at home.

Defend nation & people

against foreign enemy.

Protect citizens quality of

life.

Relative liberty: people

can’t do anything they
want, it may infringe on
other liberty.