Government 101

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Government 101

• Overview
• Winter 2004
• Gail Johnson

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Foundations of the U.S. Government
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Declaration of Independence

• Vision statement
• Reflects thinking of that time
• Exclusionary
• Still a work in progress

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What is Government?

• Government is the political direction or control
  exercised over the actions of citizens form or
  system of rule.
• Democracy government by the people power is
  vested in the people.

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Role of Government

• Make Policy
• Laws
• Programs
• Regulations
• Taxes
• Implement Policy
• Directly federal agencies
• Through states and local governments
• Through 3rd parties

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Functions of Government

• Allocative function
• how budget resources are allocated to provide a
  mix of goods and services
• Distributive function
• redistribution of income and wealth in a way that
  is deemed fair
• Stabilization function
• economic/budget policy to keep the economy stable

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Enduring Issues

• Role of government?
• Size of government?
• More business-like?
• Competing values
• Role of public administrators
• Role of citizens

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Enduring Issues Competing Values

• Economy
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Equity
• Accountability
• Fairness

• Representativeness
• Justice
• Openness
• Due Process
• Public Interest
• Individual Rights

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In the Beginning. The Articles of Confederation

• A firm league of friendship
• Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and
  independence
• Each state could create its own money, rules of
  commerce (tariffs, etc.).
• Unicameral representative Congress
• No executive, no independent judiciary, no upper
  chamber of the legislature
• No power to tax at national level

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Ten Year Later..need for change

• Treasury is empty Debts cannot be paid
• Unmet expectations equality and political
  participation
• Threat of a social revolution
• Competition between the statesduties to pay at
  every state border
• Lack of quorum in congress
• Conflict and chaos

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What Went Wrong?

• Fear Fear of a strong central government led
  them to create a confederacy with no executive,
  no money, no power to raise money.
• Power to the states Narrow state
  self-interestloyalty to the state, not nation.

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Bloodless coup detat

• Constitutional Convention, 1787 in Philadelphia
• Met behind locked doors.
• Consensus a more effective central government
  was needed. But what powers, form or how
  representation should be determined were up for
  grabs.

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Constitution Refined Vision

• Preamble
• Specifies the roles and powers of each branch
• Short, guiding principles
• Separation of Powers
• Federalism
• Bill of Rights
• A work in progress

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Jefferson

• The example of changing a constitution, by
  assembling the wise men of the State, instead of
  assembling armies, will be worth as much to the
  works as the former examples we have given them.
  The Constitutionis unquestionably the wisest
  ever yet presented to men.

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Bill of Rights

• Exercise

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James Madison

• "If men were angels, no government would be
  necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither
  external or internal controls on government would
  be necessary. In framing a government which is
  to be administered by men over men, the great
  difficulty lies in this You must first enable
  the government to control the governed and in
  the next place oblige it to control itself." (51)

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Madisons Dream

• Diffused Power
• Love/Fear View of Power
• Mistrust of concentrated power
• Competing Power Rather than Hierarchical Power
• Competing rather than Collaborative Power

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Madison Mischief of Factions

• There are two methods of curing the mischief of
  faction the one, by destroying the
  liberty....the other, by giving every citizen the
  same opinions.... (p.78)
• Control the Effects of Faction
• Extend the spheres so permanent majorities cannot
  be formed

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Madison

• It was intended that the legislature would be the
  source of policy making, as the more deliberative
  body. He believed that "promptitude of decisions
  is oftener an evil than a benefit.

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Presidential Leadership

• Hamilton federal govt. revolving around the
  president. Eg. FDR
• Madison a prudent, less active govt, balanced
  between legislative and executive powers.
  Limited govt, anti-majority.
• Jefferson majority rule, strong presidential
  leadership, more egalitarian, a unified political
  system

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Separation of powers The Presidency

• National Constituency
• Bully-pulpit
• Proposes budget
• Proposes Legislation
• Commander in chief
• Veto power
• Clears agency budgets, legislative proposals,
  testimony
• Office of Management and Budget

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The Presidency

• The doctrine of the separation of powers was
  adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote
  efficiency but to preclude the exercise of
  arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid
  friction, but, by means of the inevitable
  friction incident to distribution of the
  governmental powers among three departments, to
  save the people from autocracy.
• L. Brandies

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The Presidency

• Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the
  manner in which the president personally
  exercises his assigned executive powers is not
  subject to questioning by another branch of
  government.
• R. Nixon

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President

• How to we judge success?
• Legislation passed?
• Effective administration?

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Cabinet

• Power is delegated from President
• Serves at the pleasure of President
• Appointed by President with Senate confirmation
• Answerable to Congress

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Congress Separation of Powers

• House proposes budget
• Senate has to agree but cant propose House
  more rowdy, shorter terms, more responsive to
  voters
• Senate more deliberative, longer terms, bigger
  picture
• Political payoff casework, bills passed in
  constituents interest

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Congress

• Does work in committees.
• Authorizing Legislation and Appropriating Money
  different committees
• Multiple Committees for same agencies
• FEMA 23 committees
• EPA 18 committees
• What are the benefits and costs of Congressional
  fragmentation?

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Judiciary Separation of Powers

• Judiciary
• Power is judicial review
• Interprets the law but has to wait for a case to
  come to them
• Cant take initiative
• Supreme Court
• To be removed from politics, justices serve for
  life
• The can also tell administrators what to do

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The Federal Agencies

• Institutional memory
• Permanent staff
• Rule-making and order-making authority
• Clientele support
• Medium for registering the views of the public
• Note they do not make laws and they do not make
  the budgets!

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The Bureaucracy

• For public administrators
• Whom do we serve and to what end?
• Richard Box

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Enduring Issue Role of the Citizen

• Roles
• vote
• government employee
• civic involvement
• political action
• interest groups

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Enduring Issue Role of the Citizen

• Various, competing roles
• Citizens
• Owners
• Customers
• Clients
• Taxpayers
• WIIFM vs. Good of the Society

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Citizens

• For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of
  his interest in politics holds office every
  one of us is in a position of responsibility
  and, in the final analysis, the kind of
  government we get depends upon how we fulfill
  those responsibilities. We, the people, are the
  boss, and will get the kind of political
  leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and
  deserve.
• J.F. Kennedy, Profiles in courage, pp 257-8 see
  also p. 256.

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Citizens

• What does it mean to be a citizen?
• What is our responsibility?
• Why have many citizens disengaged?
• What can be done to re-engage citizens?
• Who will take the lead in re-engaging citizen?
• What are willing to do?

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Interest Groups

• Information
• Resources
• Votes
• Access

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The Iron Triangle
Agency
Congressional Committee
Interest Group
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Political Parties

• Funds
• Support
• Information

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Politicians POTS?

• Roberts Politicians are feeding this
  anti-government sentiment.Too many politicians
  believe that their role is to stand for
  re-election rather than to stand for something.
• We need to replace sound bites with sound
  policy.

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Views of the role of politicians

• JFK p. xv, pp 16-17
• Kunin, 226-267

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Media the 4th estate

• Raise issues
• Watchdog
• Embarrass public officials
• Is the media doing its job?
• Can you have accountability without an
  independent media?

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Federalism

• A system in which the powers of government are
  divided among one authority that governs the
  whole nation and several that govern its
  political subdivision. The U.S. Constitution
  delegates powers to the national government, with
  the implication that those not mentioned are
  reserved to the states. --William Johnson

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Federalism Different Levels of Government

• Federal Defense, Money, Postal, Space,
  Veteran's Services, Natural Resources,
  Retirement, Safety Net
• State higher education, welfare, roads,
  corrections, inspections, liquor control
• Local (83,000 local governments) schools,
  roads, police and fire, utilities, public
  transportation, parks, sanitation, libraries.

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Fragmentation Enduring Feature of American
Government

• One Nation divided power
• 50 States
• 82,000 Local governments
• 30,000 counties
• 19,000 municipalities
• 18,000 townships
• 15,000 school districts
• 33,000 special distrcits

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Raising Revenue

• Federal Government
• Income Tax
• progressive
• ability to pay
• State Government
• Sales Tax
• regressive
• Income Tax

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Raising Revenue

• Local Government
• Property Tax
• regressive

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Role of Each Level?

• What are the appropriate roles and
  responsibilities of each level?
• Who shall raise what amount of money by what
  methods and from which citizens?
• Who shall spend how much for whose benefit and
  for what results?

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Paradigms

• Traditional federalists
• Wilson Federal government is more efficient
  but state and local governments are the bulwarks
  of democracy.
• National Federalists
• Their view is that we have become one nation.
• Pragmatic Federalists
• They are concerned with whether the present
  system works or not concerned with the overloads.

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Federalism and Government by Proxy

• Partnerships
• Other federal agencies
• Eg. FBI, CIA, NSA communications breakdown?
• With state and local agencies
• Roads, welfare, medicaid, medicare
• With other governments
• treaties
• With nonprofits
• Faith-based grantees?

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Who Should Do What and Why?

• Government?
• What level?
• Policy?
• Pay?
• Administer?
• Why?

• Protection of Wetlands
• Food safety
• Higher Education
• Libraries
• Aids Prevention

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Who Should Do What and Why?

• Government?
• What level?
• Policy?
• Pay?
• Administer?
• Why?

• Trash collection
• Product Safety
• Prisons
• Headstart
• Parks
• Commuter railways

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Public Policy

• A decision to take action to remedy a public
  problem
• Often just an answer rather than the answer.
• An evolving process.

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Public Good Vs. Private Good

• Public value to larger society
• Cant be divided
• Non-exclusive
• Private accrues to the individual
• Can be divided
• Exclusive

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Who Makes Policy

• Pluralism group interaction, bargaining
• assumes all groups are represented
• Power Elite
• The pluralist choir sings with a distinctly
  upper class bias.
• Public Choice
• market will make choices
• Bureaucratic
• Expertise, Culture

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Rational Choice

• Most efficient decisions are made where
  individuals who pay and benefit from public
  programs are allowed market-type choice
• Market forces can be used to attain greater
  efficiency and effectiveness.

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Limits of the Market

• Can those that benefit really pay?
• Can we determine individual use?
• Can we determine and assign costs to all that
  benefit?
• Supply and demand imperfect theory

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Defining Power

• "Power is the medium through which conflicts of
  interest are ultimately resolved. Power
  influences who gets what, when, and how."
  Morgan
• Power involves an ability to get another person
  to do something that he or she would not
  otherwise have done." Dahl
• "Power might be defined as simply the ability to
  make things happen, to be a causal agent, to
  initiate change. " Follett

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Power Over The dominator model

• Power is scarce and limited
• Giving orders or persuade through manipulation or
  coercion
• Punish non-compliance
• Negative beliefs about people
• Rooted in fear

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Power WithThe Collaborative Model

• Power increases when shared
• Decision are determined by the situation
• Participatory problem-solving
• Positive beliefs about people
• Rooted in trust

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Conflict Represents Diversity

• What people often mean by getting rid of
  conflict is getting rid of diversity, and it is
  of utmost importance that these should ntot be
  considered the same.We must face life as it is
  and understand that diversity is its most
  essential feature.Fear of difference is dread of
  life itself. Follett

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Handling Conflict

• Domination a victory of one side over the other
• Compromise each side gives up a little in order
  to have peace but compromise is unstable,
  conflict remerges.
• Integration. A solution in which both sides get
  what they want without sacrificing anything they
  value.

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Ways to handle conflict

• Avoidance--denial moose on the table
• Compromise deals, temporary
• Competition win/lose
• Accommodation giving way, submission
• Collaboration win/win, integrative

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Achieving Integration

• Put cards on the table
• Uncover the conflict
• Clarify the issue, consider the symbols
• Break into parts, smaller questions and issues.

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Obstacles to Integration

• Lack of intelligence or inventiveness
• Unwilling to take responsibility
• Enjoy domination or fight addiction
• Language of war
• Manipulations
• Lack of training/skill in the art of cooperative
  thinking and action. Follett.

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Sources of Power

• Authority
• Expertise
• Control of Resources
• Control of Process
• Control of decision processes

• Information
• Personal
• Associational
• Coercive

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Exercise

• What are your sources of power?

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How bills become law

• Exercise