1 The Contested Terrain of American Politics

Question 1

4 main themes of American politics

Answer 1

• freedom
• equality
• identity
• popular gov’t

Question 2

negative freedom

Answer 2

• freedom from (usually gov’t intervention in personal lives)
• AKA liberties
• American politics leans towards the negative
• tied to support for small gov’ts

Question 3

positive freedom

Answer 3

• freedom to have
• gov’t has a duty to act or provide a certain thing
• results in legal obligations to ensure rights protection and fulfillment

Question 4

classical liberalism

Answer 4

• emphasizes individual rights and freedoms and the identical treatment of individuals regardless of ascriptive characteristics (race, age, gender, etc.)
• conceptualizes justice as the outcomes of social and legal rules that conform to these principles

Question 5

classical liberal “equality”

Answer 5

considered an ‘equality of opportunity’ or ‘political/legal equality’

Question 6

atomistic view of society

Answer 6

liberals believe that ppl should be as free to do whatever they wish as possible and that laws apply to each person equally and in the same way

Question 7

progressive/welfare liberalism

Answer 7

prioritizes equality of condition and equality of outcome

Question 8

The New Deal

Answer 8

a progressive liberal approach created by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression to provide more services and supports

Question 9

Gilded Age’s impact on progressive liberalism

Answer 9

led to a viewpoint that poor ppl weren’t free and calls for a societal order and market regulation that generated freedom

Question 10

popular government

Answer 10

representatives draw power from the ppl and form gov’t; popular will must be checked and balanced to prevent its dominance over the gov’t

Question 11

populism

Answer 11

arises when ppl feel like they don’t control their gov’t and that their will is being blocked

Question 12

major changes leading up to today

Answer 12

• greater concentration and size of wealth/corporations
• real wages have stagnated
• partisanship have undermined the anti-competition laws

Question 13

non-competition laws

Answer 13

• designed to break down big corporations and prevent them from being bigger and monopolizing
• lack of enforcement has created huge companies that are able to undermine popular will

Question 14

melting pot

Answer 14

you can have your own culture in the background, but you’re expected to adopt American culture and values

Question 15

history’s impact on American identity

Answer 15

• US was primarily British
• differences in religion, economic models, and ethnicities meant that no official group was dominant
• historically not multicultural since the US retained British governance models
• a lack of centralizing features and unifying blocs