Faction

A group of people united by a singular interest. Political parties are probably the largest-scale political factions we have today…but it also seems like you can't release an MMO nowadays without factions cropping up.

Union

A collection of states into one political whole. While each state has their own internal government, they are all under one central government that is the main political body. Each state gets representation in the central government, but only the federal government gets to pass laws that affect everybody and make treaties with foreign countries.

Republic

A form of government in which officials are elected by the citizens of the country. Not to be confused with the Star Wars government of the same name—although that one definitely qualifies as a Republic.

"True" Democracy

A democracy in which issues are directly decided by a popular vote. It's probably how you decide whether to get pizza or tacos for dinner…but less useful when deciding complex issues of geopolitics.

Constitutional Convention

Not-so-shockingly, it was convention where the constitution was drafted. It was held in Philadelphia from May 25th to September 17th, 1787. If it had happened today, we'd probably refer to it as Con-Con.

Bicameral Legislature

A bicameral legislature is a legislative branch (that is, the law-making one) that's split into two separate parts, such as the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was Madison's brainchild, and he got it enacted during the Virginia Compromise. Bonus: it's one of those SAT words that makes you sound really knowledgeable when you throw it around.

Check

Not what you signal the waiter for by pretending one hand is a piece of paper and the other is holding an invisible pen.

In the context of Federalist Paper 51, a check is a branch of government's ability to control the power of another branch. It lets them "check" their power, so they don't get out of hand.

Anarchy

Anarchy is a form of government in which there is…no government at all, and people more or less mind their own business.

When have people ever just minded their own business? Yeah: that's why anarchy doesn't really work.

It's frightening mainly because nobody is protected from anybody else, since there's not really any laws or police officers to protect citizens.

Usurpations

A fancy way to say, "stealing," especially used in regards to stealing power.

Magistrate

An administrator of the law, and leader of a court. Master of the house, keeper of the zoo, etc.

Confederacy

A loose alignment of sovereign political bodies. A good parallel would be the European Union, where each country is kind of their own thing but they've entered into a loose partnership that emphasizes their individual status inside of it.

The United States was a Confederacy before the government created by the Constitution was put into effect. It's like the Justice League of Governments; they all work together, but Superman doesn't go fight crime in Gotham.