Government Vocabulary - Unit 1 Chapter 6

Cooley Doctrine

"'The Court developed the Cooley Doctrine to decide whether a matter was for local or national regulation. According to the Cooley Doctrine, subjects that are "in their nature national, or admit only of one uniform system, or plan of regulation, may justly be said to...require exclusive legislation by Congress.'"

Reserved powers

"All powers not delegated to the national government, or prohibited to the states-were to be reserved (or left with) the states or the people."

Cooperative federalism

"Cooperative federalism describes the national and state governments as sharing power over areas of public policy. Dual federalism is an outdated concept in the sense that there are so few areas of public policy that are exclusively either state or national, and so many areas of public policy where the federal government now acts."

The power problem

"Debates about federalism are actually debates about one aspect of the power problem: how much power to centralize in the national government and how much power to leave decentralized with the states."

Dual federalism

"Dual federalism is a theory of federalism that describes both the federal government and the state governments as co- equal sovereigns. Each is sovereign in its respective areas of policymaking."

Federalism

"Federalism is a two-tiered system of government in which power is divided between a national (or central) government and subnational units (states, provinces, or regional governments). Therefore federalism is a geographic division of power."

Interposition

"Interposition is a political doctrine that a state can interpose itself between the people of the state and the federal government when the federal government exceeds its authority."

States' rights

"States' rights can be defined as a belief that a policy is the responsibility of a state government not the national or federal government."

Confederation

A confederal system (or a confederation) is a political system where the constituent units (the states, provinces, or regional governments) are more powerful than the central (or national) government.

Unitary system

A political system with one level of government. Power concentrated in one central government. The central government has sovereignty or the highest governing authority.

Delegated powers

The Constitution created a federal government and assigned specific powers to it.