Chapter 1 Flashcards
What are the institutions that make public policy decisions for our own national government?
Congress, the president, the courts and federal administrative agencies (“the bureaucracy”)
How many elected officials in the U.S.?
About 500,000
How much money does US spend a year on national defense?
$650 billion
What are collective goods?
Goods and services, such as clean air and clean water, that by their nature cannot be denied to anyone
Every government has some means of maintaining order:
When People protest in large numbers, governments may resort to extreme measures to resort order
What do we mean by, governments politically socialize the young?
That they Instill in children knowledge of and pride in the nation and its political system and values
Approx _________ dollars earned by American citizens goes to national, state and local taxes- money that pays for the public goods and services the government provides
One out of every three
What is politics?
The process determining the leaders we select and the policies they pursue.
Politics produces authoritative decision about ________
public issues
What was Harold D. Lasswell’s famous definition of politics?
“Who gets what, when and how”
Media focuses on ______ in politics
Who
People get what they want through ________________ and so forth
voting supporting, compromising, lobbying
What is political participation?
All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue
What is the most common means of political participation in a democracy is _________, other means include:
voting
protests and civil disobedience
What are single issue groups?
Groups that have a narrow interest on which their members tend to take an uncompromising stance
What is a policy making system?
The process by which policy comes into being and evolves
What creates political issues for government policy makers?
People’s interests, problems and concerns create political issues for government policy makers
The policy making system begins with ________
People
What do people do to express their opinions in democracy?
They may vote for candidates who represent their opinions, they can join political parties, post messages on Internet chat groups and forming interest groups
What are interest groups?
Organized groups of people with a common interest
What are linkage institutions?
The political channels through which people’s concerns become political issues on the policy agenda. In the United States, linkage institutions include elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
What transmits Americas preferences to the policy makers of the government?
Parties, elections, interest groups and the media
What provides citizens with the chance to make their opinions heard by choosing their public officials?
Elections
What is a policy agenda?
The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actively involved in politics at the time.
If the economy is doing well and trouble spots around the world occupy the headlines, what is bound to dominate the agenda?
Foreign policy questions
Bad news, particularly about what? Is more likely than good news to draw sufficient media attention to put subject on the policy agenda?
Particularly about a crisis situation
What is a political issue?
An issue that arises when people disagree about a problem and how to fix it.
Government will not act on any issue until when?
Until it is high policy on the agenda
What are policymaking institutions?
The branches of government charged with taking action on political issues. The U.S. Constitution established three policymaking institutions—Congress, the presidency, and the courts. Today, the power of the bureaucracy is so great that most political scientists consider it a fourth policymaking institution.
What do most political scientists consider the fourth policymaking institution?
Bureaucracy
The institutions that make public policy decisions for a society are collectively known as ____________
Government
What do the bureaucracies do?
Create extensive volumes of rules and regulations that define how policies are to be implemented
________ makes decisions on what a policy means and whether or not they conflict with the constitution
Courts
What is a public policy?
A choice that government makes in response to a political issue. A policy is a course of action taken with regard to some problem.
What are some of the most important types of public policy?
Statute Presidential action Court decision Budgetary choice Regulation
What is a policy impact?
The effects a policy has on people and problems. Impacts are analyzed to see how well a policy has met its goal and at what cost.
What is a Congressional statute?
Law passed by congress
What is a Presidential action?
Decision by the president
What is a Court Decision?
Opinion by Supreme Court or other court
What are Budgetary Choices?
Legislative enactment of taxes and expenditures
What is a Regulation?
Agency adoption of regulation
What is a democracy?
A system of selecting policymakers and of organizing government so that policy represents and responds to the public’s preferences.
The writers of the constitution had no fondness for democracy. As many of them doubted what?
The ability of ordinary Americans to make informed judgments of what the government should do.
What was Roger Sherman’s opinion of democracy?
“The people should have as little to do as may be about the government”
Most Americans would probably say democracy is:
“Government by the people”
How did Abe Lincoln define democracy in his Gettysburg address?
“Government of the people, by the people and for the people”
Nobility means-
A status of privilege within the government, usually passed down generation to generation
(Constitution forbids this)
What did the theorist Robert Dahl, suggest?
That the ideal democratic process should satisfy the following five criteria:
- Equality in voting
- Effective participation
- Enlightened understanding
- Citizen control of the agenda
- inclusion
Equality in voting: “one person, one ______”
Vote
What does Effective participation mean?
Citizens must have adequate and equal opportunities to express their preferences throughout the decision making process
Enlightened understanding:
A democratic society must be a market place of ideas.
Citizen control of the agenda:
Citizens should have a collective right to control the government’s policy agenda
Inclusion:
The government must include and extend rights to, all those subject to its laws
What is the meaning of majority rule?
A fundamental principle of traditional democratic theory. In a democracy, choosing among alternatives requires that the majority’s desire be respected.
Democracies must practice _________
Majority rule
What are minority rights?
A principle of traditional democratic theory that guarantees rights to those who do not belong to majorities.
The majority cannot infringe on __________
The minority rights
What is a representation?
A basic principle of traditional democratic theory that describes the relationship between the few leaders and the many followers.
What is the literal meaning of representation?
“To make present once again”
What are the three contemporary theories of American democracy?
Pluralism
Elitism
Hyperpluralism
What is pluralism?
A theory of American democracy emphasizing that the policymaking process is very open to the participation of all groups with shared interests, with no single group usually dominating. Pluralists tend to believe that as a result, public interest generally prevails.
According to pluralist theory, organized groups can compete with one another for control over policy and ___________ dominates
No one group or set of groups
What does Robert Putnam theorize?
He theorizes that advanced technology, particularly television, has served to increasingly isolate Americans from one another
Robert Putnam doesn’t argue that Americans are becoming “couch potatoes”. He argues that:
Americans’ activities are becoming less tied to institutions and more self denied. The most famous example he gives of this is that membership in bowling leagues has dropped sharply at the same time that more people are bowling, indicating the most people must be bowling alone.. He believes that participation in interest groups today is often like bowling alone
What is elitism?
A theory of American democracy contending that an upper-class elite holds the power and makes policy, regardless of the formal governmental organization.
What is wealth?
The holding of assists such as property, stocks and bonds
Wealth is the basis of power
Over a third of the nation’s wealth is only held by:
Just 1 percent of the population
What do elite and class theorists believe?
That the 1 percent of wealthy Americans control most policy decisions because they can afford to finance election campaigns and control key institutions, such as large corporations
According the elite and class theory: the 1 percent-
Are the policymakers
What did Jason Hacker and Paul Pierson write in 2005?
That “America’s political market no longer looks like the effectively functioning market that economics textbook laud. Rather it increasingly resembles the sort of market that gave us the Enron scandal, in which corporate big wigs with privileged information got rich at the expense of ordinary share holders, workers and consumers”
What are the most extreme proponents of elite theory?
Who holds office in Washington is of marginal consequence.
The corporate giants always have the power
What is hyperpluralism?
A theory of American democracy contending that groups are so strong that government, which gives in to the many different groups, is thereby weakened.
In hyperpluralism, the many competing groups are so strong that:
Government is weakened, as the influence of so many groups cripples governments ability to make policies
hyperpluralist theory asserts that:
There are TOO many ways for groups to control policy
hyperpluralist theory holds that government:
Gives in to every conceivable interest and single issue group
Congressional candidates have become increasingly dependent on ______________ to fund their campaigns because of the escalation of campaign costs
Political action committees (PACs)
When democracy confronts the might of money, the gap between what widens further?
Democratic theory and reality
The diversity of the American people is reflected on what?
In the diversity of interests represented in the political system
When interests conflict, which they often do, no coalition my be strong enough to ____________
Form a majority and establish policy
What is policy gridlock?
A condition that occurs when interests conflict and no coalition is strong enough to form a majority and establish policy, so nothing gets done.
What is a major challenge to democracy in America?
To overcome the diversity of interests and fragmentation of power in order to deliver policies that are responsive to citizens needs
What holds American democracy together in the view of many scholars?
Political culture
What is political culture?
An overall set of values widely shared within a society.
What do Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel argue in their book on cultural change and democracy?
“Democracy is not simply the result of clever elite bargaining and constitutional engineering. It depends on deep-rooted orientations among the people themselves. These orientations motivate them to demand freedom and responsive government… Genuine democracy is not simply a machine that, once set up, functions by itself. It depends on the people”
What unites Americans more than anything else?
A set of shared beliefs and values
What did GK Chesterton write?
“America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed, that creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence”
What did Seymour Martin Lipset write?
“The United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of good society’s”
What does Lipset argue?
That the American creed can be summarized in five elements: Liberty Egalitarianism Individualism Laissez-faire Populism
Who said “give me Libert or give me death” in the civil war
Patrick Henry
New Hampshire’s motto:
“Live free or die”
Thomas Jefferson:
Life
Liberty
____________
Pursuit of happiness
Most famous phrase in history of democracy?
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”
Alexis de Tocqueville noted:
Egalitarianism involves equality of opportunity and respect in the absence of a monarchy and aristocracy
Individualism:
The belief that people can and should get ahead on their own
What book did Louis Hartz write based on individualism?
“The Liberal Tradition in America”
What does Frederick Jackson Turner argue?
“The frontier is productive of individualism”
Laissez-faire promotes:
Free market and limited government
What book did John Kingdon write?
America the Unusual
Populism: as Lipset writes:
American populist thought holds that the people at large “are possessed on some kind of sacred mystique and proximity to them endows the politician with esteem- and with legitimacy”
What’s the populist pledge?
To put the people first
Wayne Baker outlines three ways in which America might be experiencing a crisis of cultural value:
1) a loss over the time of traditional values, such as importance of religion and family life
2) an unfavorable comparison with the citizens of other countries in terms of key values such as patriotism
3) the division of society into opposed groups with irreconcilable moral differences
What is a gross domestic product
The sum total of the value of all the goods and services produced in a year in a nation.
