1. American Political Culture
Why are Americans different from other countries and each other?

2. What is American political culture?

3. Important Questions about American Political Culture.
What do we mean by political culture?
What is American political culture and where did it come from?
Is there an anti-democratic part of American democracy?

4. Political Culture Definition: Widely shared set of norms, beliefs and values concerning the relationship of citizens to their government. (McClosky and Zaller 1984)

5. Distrust of Government Equality (Inequality) Popular Sovereignty
Some Aspects of American Political Culture These aren’t as clear as they might seem and not everyone would make the same list.
Liberty
Individualism
Distrust of Government
Equality (Inequality)
Popular Sovereignty
Majority Rule w/ Minority Rights (Minority Rule)
Positive Role for Government

6. Liberty
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Liberty as fewer limitations?
laissez faire capitalism
Taxation

7. American Culture, Taxes and Equality of Opportunity
The Whiskey Rebellion (1791) in western Pennsylvania against a tax on whiskey to pay for debt.

8. Distrust of Government Equality (Inequality) Popular Sovereignty
Some Aspects of American Political Culture These aren’t as clear as they might seem and not everyone would make the same list.
Liberty
Individualism
Distrust of Government
Equality (Inequality)
Popular Sovereignty
Majority Rule w/ Minority Rights (Minority Rule)
Positive Role for Government

9. Individualism Individualism as a personal basis for rights
Separation between the public and private spheres

10. Equality
Equality of Outcome Principle: A society’s commitment to equality is best measured by whether its citizens generally achieve equal levels of income.
Equality of Opportunity Principle: A society’s commitment to equality is best measured by whether its citizens generally have the same opportunities to achieve income.

11. Inequality Destruction of indigenous peoples Slavery Segregation
Persistent income and opportunity disparities
Sexism
Anti-immigration discrimination

12. Popular Sovereignty “We the People of the United States…”
Popular sovereignty is the theory that government’s legitimacy and right to rule is based upon the consent of the governed, and government should serve the people.

13. Majority Rule w/ Minority Rights
Elections where the majority selects the representatives who have legal authority
With limitations upon their authority
The majority is frequently unhappy with the limits?

14. Minority Rule Propertied white males Judicial Review Senate
Three-Fifths Compromise
Electoral College
Persistent bias in the electorate

15. Positive Role for Government?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

16. Sources of American Political Culture
1. England: “Glorious Revolution" (1689)
2. Classical Liberal Philosophers
3. Iroquois Confederacy
4. History on the continent

17. Classical Liberals Thomas Hobbes John Locke Montesquieu
The Leviathan (1651)
John Locke
Second Treatise on Civil Government (1689)
Montesquieu
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
Jean-Jacque Rousseau
The Social Contract (1762)

18. Classical Liberals State of Nature (Hobbes)
Nasty, brutish and short (Hobbes)
Social Contract (Hobbes)
Government as arbitrator of economic exchange (Locke)
Some limits on government (Locke)
Separation of powers (Montesquieu)
Born free but everywhere in chains (Rousseau)

19. Some Thoughts Our culture includes support for some positive ideals.
Liberty, individualism, equality, popular sovereignty, majority rule with minority rights
Sources
Philosophers
History and contact with Indigenous cultures
Is there an anti-democratic part of American democracy?
Distrust of democracy
Slavery