1. Dr. Jamie Monogan University of Georgia January 15, 2019
The Nature of Politics
Dr. Jamie Monogan University of Georgia January 15, 2019

2. Objectives By the end of this meeting, participants should be able to:
Describe the role of politics and government in society.
Explain the premise behind the prisoner's dilemma and the collective-action problem.

3. Collective Dilemmas
A messy kitchen shared by housemates presents a collective dilemma. Everyone who uses the kitchen would like to have a tidy kitchen with clean dishes, but no one person has an incentive to clean the kitchen on his or her own while the others enjoy the benefits.

4. Politics
Process of making collective decisions about resource allocation
Includes creating and enforcing societal rules
Given competing interests, politics is often conflictual
For discussion: Can be helpful to start this discussion with something other than politics. Ask students about preferences over room temperature, music noise level, or when to have exams in class. Most will quickly see how making collective decisions over these things will cause conflicts among students.
Then link back to politics and highlight that political conflict is inevitable. Some people may be averse to studying politics because they are put off by conflict. You can draw them in if they see that conflict is natural, and not a flaw in the system.

5. Functions of Government
Maintaining order and safety
Providing public goods
Resolving the free rider problem
Promoting the general welfare
Infrastructure
Regulating the economy to ensure that it operates fairly
Providing support to people in vulnerable positions
Redistributing income to improve the lives of citizens with less wealth
Regulating behavior
The Constitution specifically describes these functions in its preamble.
To "ensure domestic Tranquility" refers to maintaining public order and allowing financial transactions.
To "provide for the common defense" refers to providing national defense, which is one type of public good.
To "promote the general Welfare" refers to the kinds of services outlined above.

6. Prisoner’s Dilemma https://youtu.be/AJ5aIvjNgao
Strategic interaction where each actor is better off with cooperation, but each is incentivized to not cooperate
A Political Campaign Prisoner’s Dilemma
Important for students to understand that no matter what Candidate A does, Candidate B is better off choosing “Run TV ads.” The same is true for Candidate A.
Lots of great political examples here. Could use entitlement reform (e.g., Social Security & Medicare) as example. Both parties (Democrats and Republicans) are better off cooperating and keeping a sustainable system, but neither is willing to go alone on this due to voter backlash. As a result, the country has not made reforms to insure the systems survive.
Can discuss repeated Prisoner’s Dilemmas as well. With repeated interactions players can develop reputations for cooperation that can help solve this problem.

7. The Collective-Action Problem
Large-scale Prisoner’s Dilemma
People want to see public good provided
Public vs. private goods
Individuals have no incentive to provide it: free-riding occurs (e.g., the free-rider problem is a synonym)
Effective enforcement is required to solve problem
Danny DeVito summed this up in Tin Men
Special case: the Tragedy of the Commons
There are numerous example of public goods and collective action problems. The book example of a clean kitchen is nice. Another good example is clean air in relation to smoking. Clean air is a public good, but if people smoke they pollute it. Many states and cities have now banned smoking indoors. Other examples include clean water, police protection, national defense, public universities, libraries, and public radio.
Can ask students to think of other examples of public goods and compare them to private goods.
For discussion: Can also discuss various mechanism for enforcing regulations of public goods. These can include noise policies in dorms, quiet rooms in a library, time limits on computer usage in a computer lab.

8. Assignments For Thursday: Read Maltese, Pika & Shively, pp. 15-31
First Top Hat participation for credit
For Friday: Read Bullock & Gaddie, Chapter 3