Introduction to Government

What is Government?  The formal institutions that make policy, or laws, on behalf of the people  At the national, or federal, level, there are three branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial

Governments Should…  Maintain national defense and provide public order  Provide public goods (i.e., public parks, highways, clean air, etc.)  Collect taxes to pay for the services they provide

Linkage Institutions  How people are able to link up with public policies  Political parties  Elections  The media  Interest groups

Public Policy  Any action taken by the government, in order to help, defend, prosecute, etc. citizens at home or enemies abroad are public policies  Players involved in policymaking  Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches, bureaucracies, government corporations, regulatory agencies, Cabinet members, etc…

Types of Policies Type of PolicyDefinitionExample Congressional Statute Law passed by Congress Social Security Act Presidential ActionExecutive actionSending troops abroad Court DecisionOpinion by Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education Bureaucratic Action Law enforced by bureaucracy Sending immigrants back home

Politics  The term itself comes from the Greek work “polis” which referred to the city-state in Ancient Greece, however, Americans generally equate politics with corruption and lying  Just 6 percent of voters give Congress a positive job rating, according to polling released June 5,  One percent think Congress is doing an excellent job and 5 percent think it's doing a good job, a Rasmussen Reports survey found. Twenty-six percent rated Congress' performance as fair, and 64 percent said it's doing poorly. Rasmussen Reports survey found

Democracy  Direct Democracy (used by the Greeks)– the people themselves have a say over their lives in terms of deciding public policy  Representative Democracy (used by the Romans, and what we have today) – a democracy where the people freely elect someone to speak, or make decisions, on their behalf  Decisions of the majority should be abided by, yet the rights of the minority should be protected at all times

Theories of Representative Democracy  Pluralist – Most political scientists subscribe to this view which holds that people are naturally social and form associations  Politics is about a struggle among many groups to get and hold power; everyone wants a piece of the pie  Politics is the art of compromise  Generally have a positive sense of government  Multiple points of access in our federal system

Theories of Representative Democracy  Elitism – Elite theorists say that pluralists miss the larger questions of how the pie is distributed  They believe that wealth is the basis of all power (i.e., over 1/3 of our nation’s wealth is held by 1% of the population), and that the elite run the country  American people are effectively left out of the political decision making

Theories of Representative Democracy  Hyper-Pluralism – Argues that once interest groups get too powerful, democracy and government are threatened  Too many interest groups become so powerful that they dominate the political decision making process (James Madison warned us about factions in Federalist 10)  Democracy can become paralyzed by the struggle between lobbyists or interest groups

Theories of Representative Democracy  Bureaucratic Theory – Institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, have fallen under the control of a large and ever- growing bureaucracy  Because bureaucracies and their rules are so large, only the bureaucrats can become powerful and take over the roles previously assigned to politicans

Small-group Discussion  Which of the four theories of representative democracy is correct? Why?  Pluralist  Elite  Hyper-Pluralist  Bureaucratic