Unit one slides

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Longman

Introduction

Getting a job; minimum wage

Voting

The Drinking Age 6/29/2012 2 American National Politics

Government

• Definition: Government is the institutions and processes through which public policies are made for society

• This definition leads to two basic questions: – How should we govern?

– What should government do?

• Typical functions: Maintain a national defense, provide public services, socialize the young, collect taxes, and preserve order

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Government

• US: Congress, president, courts, federal administrative

agencies (“the bureaucracy”) along with thousands of

state and local governments – 500,000 elected officials

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policy agenda – the issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actually involved in politics at any given point in time

• Definition: Linkage institutions are the political

channels through which people’s concerns become

political issues on the policy agenda

– Political Parties

– Elections

– News & Entertainment Media

– Interest Groups

• Institutions help shape the agenda

• Policy agenda responds more to

societal failures than successes:

People shape policy

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“How can we as a people do better?”

Traditional

Democratic Theory • Democracy is a system where policy represents and

responds to the public’s preferences

• Components of Traditional Democratic Theory:

– Effective participation (adequate and equal opportunity to express preferences)

– Equality in voting (one person, one vote)

– Enlightened understanding (marketplace of ideas – free press/speech)

– Citizen control of the agenda (majority concerns vs special interests)

– Inclusion (government must include/extend rights to all subject to its laws, i.e. citizenship)

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“Who really governs our nation?”

Theories of

U.S. Democracy • Pluralism

– A theory of government and policies emphasizing that

politics is mainly a competition among groups, each one

pressing for its own preferred policies

NRA, UAW, NOW, etc; organized groups compete with one

another for control over policy, and yet no one group or set of

groups dominates

– Groups use all branches of government to meet needs

– Public interest prevails through bargaining and compromise

– Rather than “majority rule” we should speak of groups of

minorities working together

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Theories of

U.S. Democracy

• Elitism

– Societies are divided along class lines

and that an upper-class elite will rule,

regardless of the formal niceties of

governmental organization

Wealth – holding assets such as property,

stocks, and bonds is the basis of power

Over 1/3 of the nation’s wealth is currently

held by 1% of the population – this class

controls most policy because they can

afford to finance election campaigns and

control key institutions such as large

corporations

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“Robber Barons”

Theories of

U.S. Democracy

• Hyperpluralism

– Groups are so strong that

government is weakened –

an extreme, exaggerated, or

perverted form of pluralism

– Many groups are so strong,

the government is unable to

act because of division

– Difficulty in coordinating policy implementation

– Confusing and contradictory policies result from

politicians trying to placate every group

– The public interest is rarely translated into public policy

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How Active is

American Government?

• National, State and local government spend about 29 percent of our Gross Domestic Product

• The National government…

…spends about $3.8 trillion annually

…employs over 2.8 million people

…owns one-third of the land

…occupies 2.6 billion square feet of office space

…owns and operates 400,000 nonmilitary vehicles

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The total value of all goods and services produced annually by the United States

Show me the money!

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2010 U.S. Budget

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/budget-2010/

Summary

Young people are

apathetic about

government and politics,

even though they affect

everyone

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Democratic government, which is how the United

States is governed, consists of those institutions that

make policy for the benefit of the people

What government should do to benefit the people is a

topic central to questions of American government

How Should We Govern? What Should Government Do?