PO MIDTERM 1 Flashcards
What are the 5 principles of politics?
- Rationality principle
- Institution principle
- Collective Action prinicple
- Policy Principle
- History Principle
How do analyze grpahs/stats
- Obervation (what do you see: patterns)
- Analytical (use prior knowledge: trend, what is the cause?)
- Normative (Value judgement? Is this okay?)
What is the Rationalilty Principle?
All Political behavior has a puropse
-Political actions are purposeful, not random; often done with forethought and is calculated
-Political actors pursue policy preferences, reelection, and power and aim to mazimize their agency budgets
What is the Institution Principle?
*Institutions structure politics *
-Institutions: Rules and procedures that provide incentives for political behavior
-Have the power to discourage conflict, encourage coordination & enable barganing, thus facilitating decision making
-Institutions are not necessarily permanant–>Rules chaneg; they just don’t change easily
-Institutions act as script & core card
5 ways institutions provide politicians with authority?
- Jurisdiction
- Agenda
- Veto power
- Decisiveness
- Delegation
What is Jurisdiction
(Institutions)
Jurisdiction is the domain over which an institution or a member of it has authority
-Ex: proposed legislation regarding the military must pass through the Armed Services Committee before the entire House or Senate can consider it
What is Agenda Power?
(Institutions)
Agenda power describes who determines what will be taken up for consideration in an institution
-Act as “Gatekeepers” –> Having the power to make proposals and the power to block proposals from being made
What is Veto Power?
(Institutions)
Veto power is the ability to defeat something even if it does become apart of the agenda
-President has no gatekeeping or agenda power, but does have limited veto
-Ex: President cannot interupt Congress from passing a measure bc Congress has its own agenga, but once passed President can veto
What is Decisiveness Rules?
(Institutions)
Desiciveness rules specify when votes may be taken, the sequence in which votes occur, and how many individuals supporting a mortion are sufficient for it to pass
-Basically allows legislation to “move” –> need to debate to get measure to close and get of the floor
**Essentially the rules for decision manking
or
How a policy making body choses to conduct itself
**
Ex: Supermajority (60 votes) is required to close a debate
What is Delegation?
(Institutions)
Delegation is representing democracy. Citizens, through voting, delegate authority to make desicions on their behalf to representitives, rather than exercising political authority directly
-Essentially, think of political representatives as our agents who act on our behalf
-Transmission of authority to some other official or body
-Principles (ppl with pwr) can load off “delegate” to specialists taks that they themselves arent capable of doing (transfering authority/pwr to another)
Keep in mind: principle-agent relationship
Principal-Agent relationship
Principle: The political actors w/ power and authority
Agent: The political actor who recieves delegated pwr from the principal
Problems: Incompatability, Transaction costs and monitoring
EX: Micahel Scott delegate pwr to Creed to take care of things
Problems: Creed has different goals a Michael, creed doesn’t do his job
What is the Collective Action Principle?
*All Politics is Collective Action *
-Political action requires biilding, combining, mixing, & uniting peoples individual goals
-Collective Action= the pooling of resources and teh coordination of effort and activity by a group of ppll to achieve a common goal (making arrangements)
-Collective action is difficult, it becomes more difficult as teh number of ppl and interest involved grow
Formal vs Informal Barganing
(Collective Action Principle)
Informal Bargening= Highly formal or entirely informal, not a legally binding agreement
Formal Bargening= Associated w/ events in offical institutions
What is Free Riding?
(Collective Action Principle)
Benefiting from the efforts of few without contributing themselves
What is Public Good?
(Collective Action Principle)
A benefit that other cannot be denied from enjoying once it has been provided
-Nobody can achieve a piblic good by themselves
What is Tragedy of the Commons?
(Collective Action Principle)
Depletion of a common resource due to individuals’ overuse of it
What is the Policy Principle?
Political outcomes are the products of individual preferences, institutional procedures, and collective action
-Policy principle is the results of the political process - A collection of decisions
Personal interests +
Electoral ambitions+
Institutional ambtitions
=Polocies–> the procduct of insititional procedures & individual aspirations (series fo shutes and ladders)
What is the History Principle?
How we got her matters
-Path dependency- Suggest that some possiblities are more or less likely b/c of earlier events & choices
3 factors help explain why history matters in poltical life:
1. Rule and procedures
2. Loyalties & Alliances
3. Hostorically conditioned points of view
What is Politics?
-Conflicts over the character, membership, and policies of a group of people
-Resolving conflict: voting, dictator, bargening
What is Government?
-An institution in society that was a monoply on the ligitimate use of force
-Governments can be simple or complex (councils or state) (can be informal too like “family politics”
-Rules by which a land of ppl are governed
First Founding:
What were the Conflicting Interests?
-13 colonies w/ their own economic interests
-Loyalists vs Revolutionaries
-Large vs Small states
-North vs South (disagreed over land use/tarrifs, economic conflict)
-Federalists vs Anti-federalists
(Federalists=large gov)
(Anti-federalists=small gov)
First Founding:
Coloniel Elite vs Radical Groups
Conloniel Elite: Conlonial taxation divides these groups
-New England Merchants
-Southern Plantation Owners
-Royalists
Radical Groups:
-Shopkeepers, artisans, laborers
-Small farmers
Both groups agreed over idea that they don’t want to be taxed
First Founding:
Continental Congress & The Revolution
Continental Congress:
-First continental Congress (1774) : boycott British goods, begin considering independence
-Second Continenal Congress (1776): Declaration of Independence (breakup letter LOL) –> justification for resisting Monarchy, define unalienable rights, result of collective action, not legal document
Declaration does NOT create a new government
Revolutionary war: (1775-1783)
-Asymmetric conflict: colonies did not need to defeat the British; just needed to make them leave
First Founding:
Articles of Confederation
-First Constitution (1777-1789)
-States had most of the pwr (decentrilization)
-Congress only national institution (states enforeced national laws)
-Each state had one vote in Congressm members chosen and paid by state legislatures (citizens had no direct role in national government)
First Founding
Fall of Articles of Confederation
-Congress can’t levy taxes or regulate commerce
-Each stae has independent foreign policy
-No executive or judiciary
-Gov could not act decisively (thus Shays rebellion was so sucessful)—> farmer w/ limited artillary, rebellion was wake up call to changes in confederation
Summary–> National gov could not solve collective action problems
Second Founding
Constitutional Convention (1787)
-initially convened to advise AofC
-AofC failures convinced delegates they needed a different approach
Delegates’ interests and Ideas:
-Philosophical: individual liberty, popular sovereignty: citizens delegate power to government
-Economic: Founders benefited economically from new constitution, protected trade, prperty rights and commerce
Second Founding
Slavery
-Divided Southern (slave) and Northern (non-slave) states
-Southern states demanded that slaves be counted as part of population for House seats
-Three-Fifths Compromise: 5 slave states counted as 3 citizens for House appointment
-Slavery eventually devided by Civil War, compromise could not hold
