Chapter 1

American Political CultureChapter 1

Chapter Goals1. Explore Americans attitudes toward government2. Describe the role of the citizen in politics3. Define government and forms of government4. Show how the social composition of the American population has changed over time5. Analyze whether the U.S. system of government upholds American political values

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What Americans Think about GovernmentAmericans expect a lot from their government.Keep us safe and yet protect individual liberty and privacy.Support the weakest and yet keep taxes low.Sustain a healthy environment and still promote business growth.Keep government small, yet handle each crisis quickly and effectively.

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Most Americans share core values of liberty, equality, and democracy and want their government and its policies to reflect these values. However, people often disagree on the meaning of these values and what government should do to protect them.

What Americans Think about GovernmentDo you trust government to do the right thing?*

What factors might help to account for changes in the publics trust in government?

Why has confidence in government dropped again since September 11, 2001? This figure shows the Trust in Government, 1958-2013. Since the 1960s, general levels of public trusts in government have declined sharply.

What Americans Think about GovernmentWhat is political efficacy?

Political efficacy is the belief that one has the ability to influence what government does.

1960: 25 percent of those polled said elected officials didnt care what citizens like themselves thought2014: 78 percent thought the same*

Having a sense of personal efficacy is closely correlated to levels of education, with college educated individuals having significantly higher levels of personal efficacy. Q. Why that might be?

The first prerequisite to increase political efficacy is increasing political knowledge.

Political Efficacy*In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, Americans rallied around government officials and offered unprecedented support. Is support for the government during times of crisis at odds with Americans' distrust of government at other times?

Citizenship: Knowledge and ParticipationPolitical KnowledgePeople will not believe they can affect government if they dont know much about it.Americans are not very knowledgeable about their government.

In a 2013 survey, only 28 percent of respondents could identify Justice Anthony Kennedy as the Supreme Courts swing vote.*

What Americans Know about Government*

According to this survey, only 52% of Americans could identify Florida Senator Marco Rubio and 77% could identify Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor accused of leaking classified information.

Is Government Needed?

Government is needed to provide public goods.

Public goods are goods that benefit everyone but that no individual or group on its own can afford to supply:

defense against foreign aggression, maintenance of public order, a stable currency, and so on.*Government: institutions and procedures through which a territory and its people are ruled

Who Governs?What are some forms of government?

Autocracy: government by a single, nonelected leader (e.g., a king, queen, or dictator).

Oligarchy: government by a small group that is not accountable to the citizens (e.g., military officers or landowners).

Democracy: a system of rule that permits citizens to play a significant part in the governmental process, usually through the election of key public officials.*

The principle difference between an autocracy and an oligarchy is the number of people in charge.

Limits on GovernmentPower: totalitarian, authoritarian, and constitutionalTotalitarian governments recognize no limits on their authority.Authoritarian governments recognize no limits on their authority, but they are constrained by other institutions, such as business or a church.Constitutional governments are limited both in what they can do (substantive limits) and the methods they can employ (procedural limits). *

Politics

Politics: conflict over the leadership, structure, and policies of governments. (narrow sense)Representative democracy (republic) Governments are run by elected officials who represent the interests of their constituents.Direct democracyCitizens themselves vote on all legislation.town meetings, referenda*

In its broadest sense, politics refers to conflicts over the character, membership, and policies of any organization to which people belong. As Harold Lasswell, once put it, politics is the struggle over who gets what, when, and how.

Pluralism

Groups and organized interests also participate in politics.

Groups and organized interests provide funds for candidates, lobby, and try to influence public opinion.

The pattern of struggles among interests is called group politics, or pluralism.

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The most important concept for the theory of pluralism is group.

Who Are Americans?The United States has grown in population from 3.9 million in 1790, the year of the first official census, to 318 million in 2014.

The government sets policy to determine whom it allows in and who is eligible for citizenship.

This decision is highly political and has changed many times over the course of American history.*

At the time of the Founding, approximately 81% population of the thirteen states were whites.

Who Are Americans?U.S. Citizenship:

The first census did not count Native Americans (in fact, it was not until 1924 that Native Americans could become citizens).

Most people of African descent were not officially citizens until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution conferred citizenship on the freed slaves.*

Who Are Americans?Immigration Policy:

Immigration policy has been historically biased against nonwhites.

Until 1870, only free whites could become naturalized citizens.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 outlawed the entry of Chinese laborers into the United States.*

Who Are Americans?Twenty-First-Century Americans

By 1965, Congress lifted strict immigration limits set in place in the 1920s.

This resulted in new waves of immigration from Asia and Latin America.2012 Population (U.S. Census)White: 63 percentAsian: 5 percentBlack: 13 percentLatino: 17 percent*

Who Are Americans?Immigration by Continent of Origin (19002008)*

Who Are Americans?The age distribution of the population can have a profound impact on politics.

Different age groups have very different needs for public services.

Different age groups vote differently. *

American Political CultureIf Americans do not share a common blood line or religious or ethnic heritage, what unites the nation?

Political culture

American political culture emphasizes the values of:LibertyEqualityDemocracy *Political Culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, and attitudes that serve to hold a nation and its people together. American political culture emphasizes the values of liberty, equality, and democracy.

American Political Culture

Liberty: freedom from government control. This includes:

Personal freedomEconomic freedom

Linked to the concept of limited government.*

The Constitutions first ten amendments, known as collectively as the Bill of Rights, was designed to protect liberty.= means laissez-faire.(hands off or leave alone)

American Political Culture

EqualityEquality of opportunityEquality of outcomePolitical equality

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American Political Culture

DemocracyPeople choose their rulers and have some say over what those rulers do.When ultimate power rests with the citizenry, this is called popular sovereignty.In America, the people are sovereign and majority rules, but the individual rights of the minority are still protected.

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Equality and Public Opinion*

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****** Snowden ** **Politics is not just conflict, it is also cooperation, negotiation, compromise, and choices related to leadership, structure, policies, and institutions.***Since the Founding, the American people have become increasingly diverse. This diversity and the changes in the population have frequently raised challenging questions in American politics. *In 1790, the population of the United States was nearly 4 million people. According to the official data, the demographics were 81% White and 19% Black. However, the 1790 census does not accurately reflect the population because it only counted Blacks and Whites. It did not include Native American or other groups. According to the 1900 census data, the population was close to 76 million people. The demographic breakdown was 88% White, 12% Black and 0.5% other. However, the 1900 census did not count Hispanic Americans.Now, lets fast forward to the most recent census. In 2010, the population is approaching 310 million people. The demographics are 64% White, 13% Black, 16% Hispanic, 5% Asian, 1% Native Americans, 1% Other and 1% claiming 2 or more races.*Next, we will examine how the population is spread across the geography of the United States.In 1790, the population was evenly divided between the North and the South.In 1900, the population has begun to move west and the south has expanded beyond Georgia.In 2010, the population in the Northeast is the smallest percentage and the West has seen significant growth.

*According to the 1900 census, 44% of the US population was under 19. 38% was between the ages of 20 and 44. 14% was between 45 and 64. And only 4% were over the age of 65.According to the 2010 census, 27% of the US population was under 19. 34% was between the ages of 20 and 44. 25% was between 45 and 64. And 13% are over the age of 65.For more information regarding the census, please visit www.census.gov

* *The notion that ethnic and racial groups are national threats is not a new phenomenon. America has grappled with, and embraced at times, these ideas since its inception.**Many students will not know how to read a table like this, so the first step is to walk them through it. One way to do this is to have them explain out loud what the first column means, and then explore when groups from other parts of the world began to emigrate to the United States.

FIGURE 1.2 Immigration by Continent of OriginWhere did most immigrants come from at the start of the twentieth century? How does that compare with immigration in the twenty-first century?

SOURCE: Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 2008: Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status by State of Residence: Fiscal Years 1999 to 2008, www.dhs.gov (accessed 9/28/09).

*The textbook notes that the percentage of people under age 18 has decreased while those over 65 have increased.You may want to ask students why this matters. What policies are impacted?

In 2011, the median age of Latinos was 27 while the median age of white non-Latinos was 41. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/06census.html

**This may be a nice opportunity to introduce students to the Bill of Rights. It may also be the time to explain that the liberties American citizens enjoy today did not exist for the vast majority of the nations history, but instead developed over time as the nations governing elite became more tolerant of those different from themselves. You might also ask students what kinds of considerations should be used to limit liberty. In other words, what kinds of goods might liberty conflict with, and while the goal is not necessarily to get them to resolve the question, it is useful to help them see that the conflict exists.

Liberty has been part of the public discourse related to privacy; see if students make the link between personal liberty and privacy.

Patrick Henrys famous Give me liberty, or give me death speech demanded freedom at any cost and has resonated with Americans throughout the nations history.

*These are different notions about equality; and there is great debate around the topics. But the broader point is that Americans place a high value on equality. One personone vote remains a very good example for skeptics in the class who may not follow the point about shared ethos.

Depending on how historical you want to make this portion, it may be at least worth mentioning that when the Declaration of Independence was written, declaring that all men are created equal, women, nonwhites, and those who did not meet rather high wealth requirements could not vote. **TABLE 1.3 Equality and Public OpinionAmericans believe in some forms of equality more than others. How do these survey results reflect disagreement about what equality means in practice?

SOURCES: Pew Global Attitudes Project Poll, April 2010. Retrieved June 9, 2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and for the Public, Trends in American Values, 19872012, Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years, June 4, 2012, p. 104. Princeton Survey Research Associates International/Newsweek Poll, December 2008. Retrieved June 9, 2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html. Polling Report.com, Gallup, May 3June 12, 2012, pollingreport.com/civil.htm. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and for the Public, Its Not about Class Warfare, but Fairness Poll Analysis, March 2, 2012, www.peoplepress.org/2012/03/02/for-the-public-its-not-about-class-warfare-but-fairness/. (All accessed 6/9/12.)***