1. The American Political System PSCI 1101
Dr. Vanessa A. Baird

2. Purpose of the Class To prepare you to be good citizens
To understand the current American political system
To understand its history and goals, and to convince you to participate fully as a citizen

3. Purpose of the Class To prepare you to be good citizens
To understand the current American political system
To understand its history and goals, and to convince you to participate fully as a citizen
To prevent you from being manipulated by elites (politicians, media pundits, idiot celebrities, business leaders, friends, that obnoxious kid in your dorm, etc.)
i.e. to teach you to “think critically”

4. Purpose of the Class To prepare you to be good citizens
To understand the current American political system
To understand its history and goals, and to convince you to participate fully as a citizen
To prevent you from being completely controlled by elites (politicians, media pundits, idiot celebrities, business leaders, friends, that obnoxious kid in your dorm, etc.)
i.e. to teach you to “think critically”
To introduce you to the scientific study of American Politics

5. Class Website https://spot.colorado.edu/~bairdv Class Email:

6. Your Grade 15% your participation grade
Yes, you are required to do the reading each day!
Each lecture is a unique and different from the book

7. Your Grade
42.5% Exam 1
42.5 % Exam 2
These are multiple choice and non-cumulative
(there is a paper option: please ask me about it)

8. What kind of language are YOU using?
“Normative” language
Interested in what “Should be”
“It’s not fair!”
“We want justice!”
“Positive” Language
Explains causes, based on scientific observation
Not concerned with justice or fairness, simply “Why do things happen the way they do?”

9. What is justice?
You ought to speak of other States in the plural number;
not one of them is a city, but many cities.
For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich;
these are at war with one another;
and in either there are many smaller divisions,
and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State.

10. What is Government? Mancur Olson
Mancur Olson “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development.”
The American Political Science Review
(available on
Mancur Olson
Stationary Bandits vs. Roving Banditry
Life in the natural state of things is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes)

11. What is Government? Mancur Olson
Government is the entity with the highest capacity for violence
We might add that government is the only entity that can “legitimately” use violence to force people to do things (or not do things)

12. What is Democracy?
Mancur Olson: The ruler and the ruled are one in the same.
Still an elite-based theory
Rulers are forced to share power
This keeps them honest
Because they don’t want to have to live under their own bad rules
The appeal is to the masses
But only to select different bandits
Democracy is shared power among thieves

13. Collective Action
The efforts of a group of people to reach a decision and implement it

14. Collective Action Why is this sometimes easy and sometimes hard?
Easy: you and your roommates deciding where to eat
Hard: getting people to carpool to work

15. Prisoner’s Dilemma Group 1 GIVES Cooperate Group 1 TAKES Defect

16. Collective Action Problems
Factors that make collective action more difficult
Very large groups
Less trust, harder to monitor, easier to cheat
More heterogeneous preferences
Lack of a common enemy
Stronger preferences
People are not indifferent
Type of goods
Public versus private

17. Examples of Public Goods
National defense
Clean air
Public parks
Member supported public radio
Etc.
(there are also negative public goods like pollution)

18. Excludability and joint supply
Non-excludable, not of joint supply
Tragedy of the commons:
A weak wireless connection in a busy coffee shop
Fish, water, grazing, etc
Non-excludable, of joint supply
Public goods: common defense, clean air
Joint supply
Excludable, not of joint supply:
Private property
Excludable, of joint supply:
Madonna concert

19. Time to Start Packing!
Clint Eastwood