American Government and Politics Today

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American Government and Politics Today

• Chapter 1
• The Democratic Republic

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Politics and Government

• Key terms
• Politics who gets what when and how
• Institution an ongoing organization that
  performs certain functions for society
• Government institution in which decisions are
  made that resolve conflicts or allocate benefits
  and privileges

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Why Is Government Necessary?

• Order
• Maintaining peace and security by protecting
  members of society from violence and criminal
  activity is the oldest purpose of government.

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Why is Government Necessary?

• Liberty
• The greatest freedom of individuals that is
  consistent with the freedom of other individuals
  in the society can be promoted by or invoked
  against government.

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Why is Government Necessary?

• Authority and Legitimacy
• authority the right and power of a government
  or other entity to enforce its decisions and
  compel obedience.
• legitimacy is popular acceptance of the right
  and power of a government or other entity to
  exercise authority.

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Forms of Government

• Totalitarian Regimegovernment controls all
  aspects of the political and social life of a
  nation.
• AuthoritarianismA type of regime in which only
  the government itself is fully controlled by the
  ruler. Social and economic institutions exist
  that are not under the governments control.
• AristocracyRule by the best in reality, rule
  by an upper class.
• DemocracyA system of government in which
  political authority is vested in the people.
  Derived from the Greek words demos (the people)
  and kratos (authority).

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Direct Democracy

• Political decisions are made by the people
  directly, rather than by their elected
  representatives
• Attained most easily in small political
  communities.

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Direct Democracy Today

• Initiativea procedure by which voters can
  propose a law or a constitutional amendment
• Referenduman electoral device whereby
  legislative or constitutional measures are
  referred by the legislature to the voters for
  approval or disapproval
• Recalla procedure allowing the people to vote to
  dismiss an elected official from state office
  before his or her term has expired

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2006 Election

• A total of 204 ballot propositions went before
  the voters in 37 states on November 7, up from
  162 propositions in November 2004. Voters
  approved 137 measures, rejected 65, and 2 remain
  to be decided. The approval rate of 68 is
  slightly higher than the 67 approval rate in
  November 2004.
• 75 were initiatives (new laws qualified by
  petition),
• 4 were referendums (proposals to repeal existing
  laws),
• one was placed on the ballot by a commission, and
  the rest were legislative measures.
• The 78 initiatives for the year (including the
  three that were voted on in the summer) is the
  third largest total since the initiative process
  was first used in 1902,.
• For the year, voters approved 32 of 78
  initiatives. The 41 approval rate is equal to
  the historical average.
• http//www.iandrinstitute.org/ballotwatch.htm

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Gay Marriage

• Seven states approved constitutional amendments
  that restrict marriage to a man and a woman
  (Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota,
  Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin), bringing the
  total number of states that have approved such an
  amendment to 23.

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Abortion

• Referred Law 6 in South Dakota.
• In an effort to create a test case for the U. S.
  Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade, the South
  Dakota legislature passed a law banning abortion
  in early 2006. Voters rejected Referred Law 6, in
  effect repealing the law banning abortion. One
  reason the law was repealed in traditionally
  pro-life South Dakota was the concern that it was
  too severe, lacking adequate exceptions for the
  health of the mother. Abortion rights activists
  were also able to defeat laws in California and
  Oregon that would have required notification of
  parents before a minor received an abortion. 

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Tobacco

• Health organizations qualified Initiatives in
  several states to increase taxes on tobacco
  products and ban smoking in public places.
• Tobacco companies dedicated a reported 100
  million to fight these measures, and were
  successful in defeating tobacco tax increases in
  California and Missouri.
• Tobacco tax increases in Arizona and South Dakota
  that were not heavily contested were approved.
• Smoking bans were approved in all three states
  where they were on the ballot, Arizona, Nevada,
  and Ohio. Less restrictive smoking bans placed on
  the ballot by pro-tobacco groups failed in each
  of these states.

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Is Direct Democracy Dangerous?

• While the founders believed in government based
  on the consent of the people, they were highly
  distrustful of anything that might look like mob
  rule. Therefore, they devised institutions to
  filter the popular will through elected elites.

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A Democratic Republic

• Democratic republic and representative democracy
  really mean the same thinggovernment based on
  elected representativesexcept for the historical
  quirk that a republic cannot have a vestigial
  king.

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A Democratic Republic (cont)

• Principles of Democratic Government
• universal suffrage, or the right of all adults to
  vote for their representatives
• majority rule, the greatest number of citizens in
  any political unit should select the officials
  and determine policies.
• Constitutional Democracy.
• limited government, states the powers of
  government should be limited, usually by
  institutional checks. Without such limits,
  democracy could destroy itself.

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IdeologiesLiberalism vs. Conservatism

• Conservatives tend to favor limited governmental
  involvement in the economic sector. Economic
  freedom is seen as a necessity for the good of
  the society. On social issues, conservatives
  advocate governmental involvement to preserve
  traditional values and lifestyles.
• Liberals tend to favor governmental regulation of
  the economy to benefit individuals within the
  society. On social issues, liberals advocate a
  limited governmental role. Social freedom is
  seen as a necessity for the good of the society.

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IdeologiesThe Traditional Political Spectrum

• socialism, a political ideology based on strong
  support for economic and social equality.
  Socialists traditionally envisioned a society in
  which major businesses were taken over by the
  government or by employee cooperatives.
• libertarianism, a political ideology based on
  skepticism or opposition toward almost all
  government activities.

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Classical Liberalism

• Liberal once meant limited government and no
  religion in politics. The term evolved into its
  modern American meaning along with the political
  evolution of the Democratic Party, which was once
  the party of limited government but has become
  the party of (relative) economic equality.

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Table 1.1 The Traditional Political Spectrum
A "hard-core conservative" would answer personal
questions to include government intervention, but
would answer economic questions to minimize
government involvement. A "hard-core populist/
socialist" would answer both personal and
economic questions with proposals that include
government intervention.

• A "hard-core liberal" would answer personal
  questions to minimize government involvement, but
  would answer economic questions to include
  government intervention.
• A "hard-core libertarian" would answer both
  personal and economic questions to minimize
  government involvement

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Figure 1-1 A Four-Cornered Ideological Grid
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The Ideological Grid

• We can break down the electorate into cultural
  and economic liberals, cultural and economic
  conservatives, cultural liberals/economic
  conservatives (libertarians), and cultural
  conservatives/economic liberals.
• Classifying the Voters. All four viewpoints have
  substantial support based on polling data.
• Conservative Popularity. However, the term
  conservative, as a self-applied label, is more
  popular than any other label except moderate.

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Totalitarian Ideologies

• The ideologies of our enemies, that is, our
  opponents in 20th and 21st century wars, cold or
  hot.
• Communism, revolutionary variant of socialism
  that favors a partisan (and often totalitarian)
  dictatorship, government control of all
  enterprises, and the replacement of free markets
  by central planning and
• Fascism, a twentieth-century ideologyoften
  totalitarianthat exalts the national collective
  united behind an absolute ruler, and rejects
  liberal individualism, values action over
  rational deliberation, and glorifies war.

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Totalitarianism in the Islamic World

• While communism and fascism are the historical
  ideologies that totalitarianism was coined to
  describe, our current international problem is
  with radical Islamism as exemplified by Al Qaeda.

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The Changing Face of America

• Aging
• Population Growth
• Ethnic Change
• Changes in Hispanic Community
• Women in the Workforce

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Figure 1.2 The Aging of America