American Government

• American and politics: why do Americans hate politics? Let us count

the ways
• 1: young people think that “nothing matters” and that my vote wont
make a difference
• 2. Young people are less identified with the two parties
• 3. generation is more distracted with social media and technology
• 4. US media are sensational and they overdramatize news
• 5. deep political divisions and recriminations are a turn off for young
people
• 6. young people are more likely to be active at the local level than the
national level
• 7. America has not been occupied by foreign armies and the people
have enjoyed an uninterrupted political system
• 8. news is seen as a preoccupation for old americans
• 9. our educational system
• 10. young people feel that they are not heard
• `11. if we have more political choices we could get more young
people interested
• American distrust of government: why?
• Scandals, perception that people in government are wealthy
• Americans favor their local politicians
• Incumbency rate: the rate at which members of congress who run for
reelection are reelected
• The government has become enormous
 Forms of Political Participation
1)Voting
2)Political graffiti
3) Violent protests: pacifists
4) demonstrations
5)5) writing letters
6)6) making calls
12) Boycotts
13) sit-ins
Continued

• 7)signing petitions
• 8) joining political parties
• 9) electoral activities: canvassing, closing envelopes, etc
• 10) lobbying
Liberalism and capitalism
• Little intervention in the economy:
• Market runs itself by itself: the invisible hand of the Market: Adam
Smith, in his book the Wealth of Nations: definition of pure capitalism
• Trickle down economics
continued
• Among college freshmen/women 20% say that influencing the
government is important to them: apathy
• Distrust of government
1)Historically, there is a legacy of independence from big government
2) Watergate and other government scandals exposed corrupt
politicians to the public
3) Recent revelations about US government intrusion into people’s
lives
• 4) Media focus on government scandals and corruption
continued
• Our attitude toward government is inconsistent
• 1929 Economic Crash
• Govt reach is extensive:
• We depend on govt for:
• Roads, environment, food safety, health, loans, traffic, road signs,
defense against terrorism
• 1960s: 3/4th of Americans trusted govt
• 1990s: 1/4th of Americans trusted govt
continued
• 81% of Americans are not pleased with govt performance
• Are the media turning people against government?
• The book 1984 by George Orwell: dystopia
• So what if people don’t trust government?: two forms of distrust:
apathy vs activism
• Politics from the world Polis:
• Ancient Greek Politics and democracy
• Direct versus indirect democracy
• Little Political Participation in government
Government and pol systems
• Government
• Max Weber: legitimate use of violence
• Different forms of government
• Constitutional government: constitutionalism
• Absolutism: dictatorship
• Authoritarian government: non democracy
• Totatalitarianism: 1) ultimate maximum leaders with personality cult:
• 2)terror. 3) ruling party which adheres to an ideology which has views of all
aspects of life to be imposed by the government. 4) heavy use of the secret
police and multiple intelligence services. 5) mass mobilization of people.
What is politics
• Politics: ultimate power: Hard Power and Soft Power
• Political Culture:
• Liberty
• Isiah Berlin, in his book Four Essays of Liberty:
• Negative liberty versus Positive liberty
• Abortion question
• Economic liberty
• Equality:
continued
• Equality: of outcome versus of opportunity

• US as a republic and not a democracy

• Founding fathers and slavery
• The struggle for equality: in 1869 US Supreme court justified
segregation under the rule “separate but equal”
• Until the famous Rule of Supreme Court Brown vs Board of
Education, which nullified the previous 1869 ruling
• Affirmative action
Affirmative Action
• Legacy Admission
Ch. 2
• America: the Political Community
• Diversity
• CIA and Denny’s
• Class action suit
• Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America
• White males generally gravitate toward the Republican Party
• African-Americans: tend to overwhelmingly support the Democratic
Party
• Latino-Americans: tend to be more Democrat since the 1990s
• Asian-Americans: diverse community:
• 1941 internment of Japanese-Americans
• Native-Americans
• Division of social-class: divisions of socio-economic nature
• German Sociologist Max Weber: prestige/status and wealth
• 93% of Americans say that they are middle class
• Stigma of poverty
• The American Dream
cont
• Gender:
• The vote and political representation
The founding of the Republic and The
Constitution Ch. 3
• The founding: different interests:
• 1) New England Merchants
• 2) Southern Plantation owners
• 3) Royalists
• 4) Shopkeepers, artisans, laborers
• 5) small farmers
• No taxation without representation
Founding of the political system
• Bicameral compromise: two chambers of Congress
• Two Chambers: A Senate and a House
• The Census Bureau
• House Members serve two years while Senators serve for six years
Intended the senate to be a Deliberative Body
Elite Elitism
Founding warned against “excessive democracy”
The three branches of government
conti
• Supreme court took it upon itself in 19th century to emerge as the
sole referee and judge about the constitionality of law
• A democracy (majority rules, no matter what) vs a Republic (there
are certain inalienable rights that can’t be reversed even by majority
rule)
• Made amending the constitution to be difficult
• Separation of powers
• Checks and balances
Conflict within the constitution
• 3/5th compromise: that every five slaves count as 3 free persons
• A system of filtration: very indirect representation
• Federalism: centralization of power
• Federalists versus Anti-Federalists
• Federalists were: the elite: feared excessive democracy believed in
filtration
• Anti-Federalists were the small farmers and shop keepers who
favored state powers and individual rights
Theories of Representation
• Hannah Pitkin
• 1) Independence theory of representation
• 2) Mandate Theory of Representation
• Demagogues
Ch. 4: Federalism
• When powers are divided between a central national government
and a local (state) government
• Federal system vs Unitary system
• Swiss cantons
• 10th amendment
• Revival of state rights:
• Devolution: transfer of powers from federal level to the state local
level
• Distrust of the federal government
Ch. 5, Civil Liberties

• “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances”.[1]
• PC language: politically correct
• Secular and secularism: neutrality of state on matters of religious preference
• Faith-based initiative
Pentagon Papers
• Daniel Ellsberg
• Rand Corporation: think Tank
• Edward Snowden:
• NSA
• Meta Data
Second Amendment
• “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.”
• “cruel and unusual punishment”
• Guillotine
• Torture
Ch. Civil Rights
• Race and racism: 14th amendment:
• Amendment XIV
• Section 1.
• All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
• Sex and Gender and Sexism
• Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896: prevailed until Brown vs Board of Education in 1954
• NAACP
• US SC Brown vs Board of Education 1954: that segregation should have no place in education in the US
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• MLK Pacifist
• women
• What did the civil rights act of 1964 do?
• City of Richmond
• Citadel and Virginia Military Academy: 1996 ruled in favor of female
applicants
Public Opinion
• Public Opinion is Private Laziness: F. Nietsche
• variables affecting public opinion
• Income, education, region, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, age, etc
• How do we develop the views we hold on politics?
• The Process of Political socialization: agents of socialization
• Family, TV, schools, pastors, books, Movies/TV shows, leader who
inspires you,
• Pressures of conformity
cont
• Cognitive dissonance
• Propaganda
• Goebbels: repetition, constant repetition
• Clinton and Polling
• Measuring Public Opinion
• Focus Groups
• Push Polling
Gender gap:
Group pressures of conformity
Phrasing the question
Exit polls
The Media
• Advocacy journalism
• Print media
• Broadcast media
• Interment media
• New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal
• The Economist Magazine
• Mainstream media (msm): vs alternative media
• FCC founded 1934
Political bias of the media
• Biases of the media: Bias (book) by Bernard Goldberg: elitism of the
media
• “fake news”
 Political Participation and
Voting
“Bowling Alone”, a book by Robert Putnam
Decline of group activities and civil engagements in the US
Lobbying:
Discouragement of people to vote
Voting: how to get more people to vote

• Rational Choice Theory: they are making decisions to benefit

themselves-economically
Political Parties
• What are they?
• Independent voters
• Two-party monopoly
• Maurice Duverger: his classification of political parties
• Missionary parties: vs. Broker Parties
• Missionary parties: they want to win members and not elections
• Broker Parties: they want to win elections and don’t care about
winning members
Drawbacks or advantages of the two party
system
Campaigns and Elections
• We have elections on Tuesdays in November
• Benefits of PR system:
• 1) more diverse representation of political parties: breaking the two=party
monopoly
• 2) Much higher voter turnout
• 3) more women and minorities
• 4) less personal election
• 5) higher turnover of members of congress
• 6) younger and more diverse Congress
• 7) more interesting and entertaining political system
• 8) more fresh and new ideas
Disadvantages of Proportional
representation
• 1) More discord and gridlock
• 2) some really radical and even fanatical representation
• 3) keep up with too many ideas, programs, and ideologies of political
parties
• 4) makes for unstable government
Presidential Versus Parliamentary
democracies
• Presidential system: separation of powers
• Parliamentary system: fusion of power
• A prime minister: is the person who won the election as head of the
majority party in parliament
• Advantages of a parliamentary system: compatibility between the
executive branch and the legislative branch
• Prime ministers are always very well informed on the issues; laws can
be quickly passed. Things can get done. The will of the people
respected
Disadvantages of parliamentary system
• Drastic shifts of government and policies; less judicial review; it can
follow the passions and prejudices of the “people”. Less of a choice of
a leader. Precariousness of Coalition government
• Gerrymandering
• Cost of campaigns
• Campaign finance laws
Groups and Interests
• Pluralism
• The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills: the corporate, military, and
political elites. They stay in power by a combination of
trickery/deception, entertainment, and flattery.
• Robert Dahl, Who Rules America? A response to Mills. He studies
political power in New Haven, Connecticut: we are run according to
pluralist model
• Lobbies:
• Lobbying industry
Lobbying
• PACs: committees founded to fund campaigns Political Action
Committees
The US Congress
• More complex in what it does
• It was intended to be representative of the “people”
• Constituency refers to: a district in which one is elected
• The US Congress is bicameral
• Senate is the elite Club: they used to be appointed
• 435 House members
• 100 senators
• House members: be 25 years of age at least and be a US citizen for at
least 7 years
Congress cont
• To be a US senator: at least 30 years of age and a US citizen for at
least 9 years
• Senators are supposed to be the elite who think long and hard about
issues. The Senate was intended to be a deliberative body
• Social composition
• The dominant profession: the legal profession is the most dominant
Term limits: for and against
Congress
• Composite portrait of a member of Congress: he is a middle aged
male lawyer, whose father was of the managerial class, and a native
born white”
• Every member has a staff: much of the staff work is “case work”
• Foreign policy: nobody wants to touch it
• Incumbency rates: 98% in the House
• 90% in the Senate
• Top leaders of Congress:
Congress
• Top leaders: the Speaker of the House
• House Majority leader, house majority whip
• House Minority leader, House minority whip
• Congressional committees
• Appropriations and Ways and Means, commerce, transportation,
agriculture, foreign relations, armed services, health, housing etc
• Appropriations committee the most powerful
• hearings
Informal organizations
• Caucuses
How the bill becomes a law
• It starts as a proposal
• Filibuster
• Senate has a special role: advise and consent
• Impeachment of a president
• War powers act of 1973
The Presidency
• The founders wanted energy in the presidency
• The imperial presidency
• Has the presidency become too powerful?
The War Powers Act of 1973: a president may not deploy troops
overseas for more than 60 days, after which he/she requires the
consent of Congress
Domestic policy president is weaker
Harry Truman coined the slogan: “buck stops here”
cont
• State of the Union speech: since FDR: a president offers his legislative
wish list
• Executive orders: these are part of the legislative orders of the
president
• Cabinet
• Inner cabinet
• National Security Council
• National Economic Council
Cont
• Delegation of powers
• Vice President: factors to consider
• Informal powers of the presidency: power to persuade
• Press conferences
Bureaucracy
• Civil service
• Foreign service
• 1.4 million work in the military
• Two kinds of bureaucrats: the civil servant vs the political appointee
• Tenure
• Some govt agencies are independent of the department structure:
meaning they don’t fall under any dept: NASA, CIA, EPA,
• AMTRAK AND USPS
cont
• Regulatory agencies: FDA FCC
• FBI was founded in 1908
• J.Edgar Hoover
• Foreign SERvice
• Govt secrets
• Corruption
• US Congress has oversight over government departments and
agencies
Federal Courts
• Criminal laws
• Supreme court of the US: article III “judicial power of the US”
• Clarance Thomas 1991
• Supreme court jurisdiction was:
• 1) ruling of cases between the US government and the 50 states
• 2) cases between states
• 3)
cont
• Solicitor general of the US