My daughter has been compiling a list of vocabulary and terms from her reading assignments so that she can go over them again before her final. She has close to 1,000 of them now and I thought I would share them with the group. They are not only about government, but important US law cases, legal terms, economics and politics as well. Odd terms like:

61. Attitudinal view - To vote according to your views. (Do as you see fit)

447. Iron triangles—composed of bureaucratic agencies, interest groups, and congressional committees or subcommittees—have dominated some areas of domestic policymaking. Iron triangles are characterized by mutual dependency, in which each element provides key services, information, or policy for the others. Also see Issue Network

494. Logrolling - Trading votes on pork barrel bills

502. Malapportionment - Districts of unequal size with regard to population.

508. Manifest destiny – A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

558. Narrowcasting - As opposed to the traditional “broadcasting,” the appeal to a narrow, particular audience by channels such as ESPN, MTV, and C-SPAN, which focus on a narrow particular interest.

574. National supremacy - Constitutional doctrine that whenever conflict occurs between the constitutionally authorized actions of the national government and those of a state or local government, the actions of the federal government will prevail.

599. Olson’s law of large groups - Advanced by Mancur Olson, a principle stating, “the larger the group, the further it will fall short of providing an optimal amount of a collective good.” See also interest group.

You can download the list that she has as of now here: Master List of American Government / NSL Vocabulary WITH Definitions.

Please feel free post any questions or comments.