Unit 1: International Governments
Unit Overview:
Unit 1 of this course provides students with the basic foundations of modern government and describes several different modern political systems. The first few lessons go over why society creates government and the basic modern government types. After this, presidential systems, parliamentary systems, and one party states are described in detail. the Unit concludes with lessons covering political thought beginning with Aristotle and then moving to more modern thinkers like Machiavelli, Milton, and Karl Marx. Students working through this unit will have a basic idea of why we have governments and how they work.
Unit Essay: Comparative Governmental Types
You learned about different types of government in this unit as well as some of the basic philosophical ideas of modern political thinkers. Consider the standards of measuring government like liberty, security, and basic rights that many of the political theorists used to define the duties of government, and write a five-paragraph essay of 600 words or more that describes parliamentary government, presidential government, and one-party government. In your essay make sure to explain how well each type of government you describe delivers the basic duties of government outlined above to its citizens. How well does each type of government do and why?Helpful links:Parliamentary SystemPresidential SystemOne-party system/ Authoritarian System
Key Terms:
For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance.
Unit 1 Key Terms:
3 types of taxation
pluralism
democracy
autocracy
aristocracy
conservatism
liberalism
federalism
unitary government
republic
parliamentary democracy
presidential democracy
bicameral system
separation of powers
one-party government
coalition government
Machiavelli's, The Prince
Communist Manifesto
the Enlightenment
Thomas Aquinas
Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:
William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)
Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)