Types of Government Jeopardy

A ready-made board on forms of government for civics or world history review. Copy it free, put it on the projector, and let students buzz in from their phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Government Vocabulary

$200
This document sets out a government's basic laws, structure and powers.
What is a constitution?
$400
This word means the right to vote.
What is suffrage?
$600
This term means a state's supreme authority to govern itself without outside interference.
What is sovereignty?
$800
This word describes a condition with no government at all.
What is anarchy?
$1,000
This term describes rule by a small group of powerful people.
What is an oligarchy?

Democracy or Republic

$200
This ancient Greek city-state is called the birthplace of democracy.
What is Athens?
$400
In this form of democracy, citizens vote on laws themselves instead of electing lawmakers.
What is direct democracy?
$600
The Roman Republic was led by two of these elected officials, each serving a one-year term.
What are consuls?
$800
In this kind of vote, citizens directly approve or reject a proposed law.
What is a referendum?
$1,000
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison argued that a large one of these would best control factions.
What is a republic?

Monarchies Then and Now

$200
In this kind of monarchy, the ruler's power is limited by a constitution.
What is a constitutional monarchy?
$400
Known as the Sun King, this French ruler built Versailles and became a symbol of absolute rule.
Who is Louis XIV?
$600
This belief held that a king's authority came directly from God, not from the people.
What is the divine right of kings?
$800
This 1215 charter forced England's King John to accept limits on his power.
What is the Magna Carta?
$1,000
This Middle Eastern kingdom, named for its ruling family, is one of the world's few absolute monarchies.
What is Saudi Arabia?

Authoritarian Systems

$200
This form of government is run by one ruler with total power, often seized by force.
What is a dictatorship?
$400
This system, seen in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, tries to control nearly every part of public and private life.
What is totalitarianism?
$600
This Italian leader founded the Fascist movement and ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943.
Who is Benito Mussolini?
$800
From a Spanish word for council, this term names a group of military officers ruling after seizing power.
What is a junta?
$1,000
This term, French for a stroke of state, means a sudden and often violent seizure of government.
What is a coup d'état?

Governments Around the World

$200
With the most voters on Earth, this South Asian country is called the world's largest democracy.
What is India?
$400
This country's Communist Party has governed it without interruption since 1949.
What is China?
$600
The pope is the absolute ruler of this tiny country inside Rome.
What is Vatican City?
$800
This country's top authority, the Supreme Leader, is a post created after its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
What is Iran?
$1,000
This small Pyrenees country has two co-princes, one of them the president of France.
What is Andorra?

Checks on Power

$200
This principle divides government into legislative, executive and judicial branches.
What is separation of powers?
$400
This is a president's or governor's power to reject a bill passed by the legislature.
What is a veto?
$600
This process lets a legislature bring charges against an official and possibly remove them from office.
What is impeachment?
$800
This power lets courts strike down laws that violate the constitution.
What is judicial review?
$1,000
This French thinker's The Spirit of the Laws (1748) argued that dividing power protects liberty.
Who is Montesquieu?

Final Jeopardy — Mixed Systems

The United Kingdom keeps a monarch as head of state while this elected body actually holds legislative power.

What is Parliament?

How to run this board

One category sorts the vocabulary - democracy, republic, monarchy, oligarchy - and the rest put it to work: real countries and their systems, how power actually gets held and passed on, and the vocabulary that shows up on a civics test every year.

The hardest column for most classes is Democracy or Republic, since the two overlap in ways textbooks explain differently. Expect that one to need the most follow-up discussion.

Pairing this with a current-events warm-up works well - ask which category a country in the news that week would fall under before the game starts.

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