Skip to main content
We’re so back. See what’s new for the 2026-2027 school year →

🎟️Intro to American Government
Key Terms

285 essential vocabulary terms and definitions to know for your Intro to American Government exam

Study Intro to American Government →

Browse All A-Z

A

Abstention Doctrine
Acquisitive Model
Adjudication
Administrative Law
Administrative state
Affordable Care Act
Albany Plan of Union
Appropriations Bills
Associate Justices
Atkins v. Virginia
Authoritarianism

B

Ballot Initiatives
Ballot Measure
Batson v. Kentucky
Bipartisanship
Blue Dog Democrats
Budget Surpluses
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureaucratic Discretion

C

Cabinet Departments
Cabinet members
Cabinet Secretaries
Capital Punishment
Census Bureau
Chief Justice
Circuit Courts of Appeals
Circuit Splits
Civil Service Reform Act
Civil Service Reform Movement
Club Goods
Collective Goods
Collective Right
Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise
Commission system
Comparative Federalism
Comparative State Politics
Congressional Budget Office
Congressional Budget Resolution
Congressional Caucuses
Congressional Leadership
Connecticut Compromise
Conservatism
Constituent Service
Constitutional Analysis
Constitutional Democracy
Constitutional law
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
County Clerk
County Jails
County Sheriff
Creative Federalism

D

DACA
Defense Department
Defense of Marriage Act
Deliberative Democracy
Democratic Accountability
Detainee Treatment Act
Direct Legislation
Direct lobbying
Disparate Treatment
District of Columbia v. Heller
Duverger's Law

E

Economic Interest Groups
Economic statecraft
Education Policy
Elazar's theory
Election Cycles
Election Integrity
Electioneering Communications
Electoral Behavior
Eligibility Requirements
Endangered Species Act
Environmental Justice
Environmental Policy
Equal Pay Act