Become a Government Guru!
ROOTWORD CLUES: Use these to help answer the questions in sections A-D.
auto=one mono=one theo=God demo=people olig=few; select group
A. Draw a line to match the following descriptions to the correct from of government.
1. type of gov’t controlled by religion Theocracy
2. type of gov’t in which one person has all the power;
usually born into the position of ruler Parliamentary Democracy
3. type of gov’t in which citizens directly
elect the leader (usually a president)
4. type of gov’t in which citizen elect the legislature and Monarchy
the legislature chooses the leader (usually a prime
minister, but sometimes they have a prime minister and Presidential Democracy
a president!)
B. Use the vocabulary from section A to identify the type of government in each of the countries below.
5. Saudi Arabia’s leader is born into his position. (Yes, the leader is ALWAYS a male in Saudi Arabia). The leader has all
the power. What type of gov’t does Saudi Arabia have? _____________________
6. Israel’s citizens elect a legislature called the Knesset. Then the members of the Knesset vote to chose the leader of the
country. What form of gov’t does Israel have? _________________________
7. Iran’s religious leaders determine who can run for president of the nation and have final approval over all decisions of
government. What form of govt does Iran have? __________________________
C. Forms of citizen participation – Who has the power to make decisions?
8. Autocracy means that only ______________ person in the country has the power to make decisions of government.
9. Oligarchy means that only ______________ people in the country have the power to make decisions of government.
10. Democracy means that ______________ people in the country have the power to make decisions of government.
D. How do citizens participate in their gov’t? Study the definitions from section C. Use what you learned to answer the
following questions.
11. Saudi Arabia has a King with ABLSOLUTE power. He makes all the decisions of government. Saudi Arabia has this
form of citizen participation. __________________________
12. The United States is ruled by a President for which all citizens were able to vote. The U.S has this form of citizen
participation. _________________________
13. Iran is ruled by the Council of Guardians and the Grand Ayatollah. Only these people get to make decisions to lead
the country. Iran has this form of citizen participation.________________________
14. In Israel all the citizens were able to vote for their legislature; The citizens indirectly elect this leader, but it is the
legislature that actually chooses the leader. Israel has this form of citizen
participation._____________________________ (Think carefully; this is the trickiest one)
NOTES:
Where is the power? All countries have two levels of gov’t – national and
local. There are three ways power can be divided between these levels of gov’t.
Unitary. Unitary means the national gov’t has ALL the power. The
local gov’t exists only to carry out duties given to it by the national government.
The local gov’t cannot make any laws.
Confederation. Confederation means that the local government has the power. The
national government only has the power to act when all the local governments a
agree to allow it.
Federation. A federation means that the power to make laws is divided between
the national and local governments. Some powers are given only to the national
government, some powers are given only to the local level of government and
some powers are shared so both levels of government have the power.
E. WHERE IS THE POWER? Unitary, Confederation or Federal?
15. The distribution of power in a country can be unitary, confederation or federal. Think carefully,
what does distribution of power mean? _____________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
16. Like most of the countries in the world, Saudi Arabia’s national government has all the power to
run the country. The local governments make no laws. What is Saudi Arabia’s distribution of power?
__________________________________
17. In the United States, the national government has the power to make voting laws, driving laws
and criminal laws. The state governments in the U.S. have the power to make marriage laws, driving
laws and health laws. What is the distribution of power in the U.S? __________________________
18. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are a group of basically independent cities that mostly make
their own laws. These independent cities often agree to act together in treaties with other countries.
What is the power distribution in the UAE? _________________________________________
19. While Iran elects local government leaders, these leaders have no real authority. Only leaders at
the national level have the power to make laws and to rule. What is Iran’s distribution of power?
______________________________________________
F. THE BIG QUESTIONS. Use everything you learned to fill in the blanks for the following.
20. Saudi Arabia citizens cannot vote for their national leaders, so basically people in Saudi Arabia
have no ____________________________________________.
21. Israel has both a President and a Prime Minister. Citizens vote directly only for the
___________________________________________________. [Careful, this one might be tricky.]
22. In a democratic system of government, there is usually universal suffrage. Universal means that
_____________________ citizens have the right to vote.
23. Israel has a President and Prime Minster, however only the ________________________ has
real power within the country.
24. Israel has a parliament known as the ________________________. Citizens of Israel do not
directly elect the national leader who is called the ____________________________. Instead he or
she is chosen from the ___________________________________________.
25. When citizens of Saudi Arabia do not agree with the governmental decisions of the King, when can they vote for the
next King? ___________________________________
26. In Iran’s form of government the governmental leader of the country is also the
____________________________leader. He is called the Grand Ayatollah.
NOTES:
There are two forms of democracy, presidential and parliamentary. In
both forms all citizens have the right to vote and chose their government leaders.
There are two main differences. In a presidential system citizens vote directly for
the president who is leader of the nation while in a parliamentary system the
citizens elect representatives to the legislature and those representatives select
the leader of the country. The other difference is in what branch of government
the leader is part of … in a presidential system the president is part of the
executive branch while in a parliamentary system the leader (called the prime
minister) is part of the legislative branch.
[p.s. The legislative branch is the part of the government that makes the laws.]
G. Presidential Democracy vs. Parliamentary Democracy: Answer with the correct branch of government – answer using
either executive or legislative.
27. In a Parliamentary Democracy, citizens vote for the ______________________ branch. Then the leader, called the
prime minister, is chosen from the ____________________________.
28. In a Presidential Democracy the leader, called the president, is part of the
__________________________ branch.
29. In a Parliamentary Democracy the leader, called the prime minister, is part of the
___________________________ branch.
30. In a Parliamentary Democracy the Parliament is the law making part of the government. In other
words the parliament is the name of the __________________________ branch.
31. In a Presidential Democracy, citizens vote for the _____________________ branch and the
_________________________ branch separately.
32. In a Parliamentary or Presidential Democracy the law makers are the _____________________ branch.⨪