Poli Sci Final Exam

POLITICAL SYSTEM ANALYSIS 

(Explain all of the components of the political system analysis model and use climate change policy to illustrate how each of the components interact.

Who created the model of the political system? 

David Easton 

Components of Easton’s model of the political system 

politics is a system of inter-related parts with

• Inputs

• Outputs

• An inside system

• An environment  

Inputs   

• Supports and demands go into the inside system

• When people don't get what they demanded, they continue to give feedback that goes through the system again and gets reprocessed 

• Demands - policies or laws that the public wants  (could be at the micro level where citizens as individuals make demands or middle range level where interest groups and political parties make demands 

• Supports- any form of political participation, i.e., voting, joining interest group or political party, being involved in a campaign, writing a letter to a legislator, protesting, demonstrating, engaging in political art like signs and graffiti

Outputs

policy types

• Extractive - taxes

• Distributive - Giving out public resources

• Regulatory- regulations of areas like government, business, banks, food and drugs, nuclear power, environmental

• Evaluative - Announcing a commitment of a Nation-state to a goal or value such (e.g. Human Rights as President Jimmy Carter did). 

Environment of the political system 

• The needs and behaviors of citizens

.

• The international system  

  • •What happens in one political system affects what happens in the other political system 

  • Policies about trade like sanctions and tarrifs efffect other countries' economies

  • All countries are meant to follow international laws about human rights or they will be condemned by the international court of justice and face consequences like sanctions

  • The NATO alliance ensures that if one country within it is attacked, all other countries in the alliance will use their military to defend it

.

• Planetary environment 

  • Climate change on Earth leading to things like extreme weather or air toxicity  

system stress

disturbances from the environment that threaten to cause a political system to collapse such as:

• War  

• Pandemics 

• Economic downturns 

• Strikes/protests 

• Government shutdown

What happens if system stress is not addressed properly?

system breakdown (as the world witnessed with the collapse of the Soviet Union)

How does climate change policy illustrate how each of the components interact?  

climate change - enivonment

• The physical and social environment brings people's attention to climate change.

• Physical triggers include

  • rising sea levels causing flooding

  • extreme weather like 

    • heatwaves causing health risks

    • droughts impacting agriculture

    • heavy rainfall causing flooding

    • wildfires causing air pollution

    • hurricanes due to warmer oceans waters causing homes to be destroyed

• Social triggers include

  • global scientific consensus that if global warming continues, there will be more extreme weather and sea level rising leading to human health risks, lack of water, food insecurity, and loss of biodiversity due to species losing their habitats

  • which has been acknowledged by many world leaders, especially during United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences called Conference of the Parties, and thus is acknowledged by many citizens

climate change - inputs

• Climate change activist interests groups like the Sierra Club organize protests or meet with members of Congress to present legislative proposals

• They advocate for the government to

  • stop funding coal and gas plants and transition to clean energy

  • Block the building of new oil and gas pipelines

  • fund public transportation

  • increase regulation on air and water pollution

climate change - outputs

• The government branches and the rest of the bureaucracy process these demands through debate and negotiation that weigh the competing interests of manufacturers and fossil fuel companies vs. environmental activists

• President Obama used his executive power to have the U.S. join a major international treaty called the Paris Agreement, which set the critical target of capping the long-term global average temperature rise at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels

• The legislative branch wrote and passed the law called the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax credits to businesses and individuals adopting clean air technologies like solar, wind, and electric vehicles.

climate change - feedback loop

Many of the demands by interest groups and protests groups still have not been fulfilled, so they continue advocating and the feedback continues to cycle through the system

PLURALISM VS. ELITE ANALYSIS

Discuss both theoretical models of pluralism and elite analysis using the scholars whose work created these models and then analyze which model is more explanatory giving ample evidence of why using military industrial complex

Elite analysis scholars

• Niccolo Machiavelli

• Wilfredo Pareto

• Gaetano Mosca

• Charles Wright Mills

Niccolo Machiavelli

• is the first modern theorist of elite analysis

• views power as resting in the hands of a small group (an elite) who may provide the façade of input from influencers but ultimately wields the power

• they use this power to influence political outcomes according to their interests which differ from those of the general population

• institutions are built and maintained by those already in power, not by interest groups who compete and share power

• this includes institutions like government agencies, universities, think tanks, and media outlets

Wilfredo Pareto

2 TYPES OF ELITE

• argued there is always an ELITE and that elite it is divided into

  • GOVERNING ELITE (those in the formal governmental positions of authority)

  • NON-GOVERNING ELITE (Those in business, military, other wealthy people)

.

CIRCULATION OF ELITE

• History is not stagnant, two are two types of Elite circulation-

  • piecemeal (incremental change of a few)

  • Wholesale (complete change---Revolution) however, even after that there is always a new Elite

Gaetano Mosca

• 4 avenues to becoming part of the elite

  • Birth

  • Wealth

  • Military Prowess

  • Having knowledge

• there are 2 FORMULAS elite use to justify their rule

  • Religious Formula = divine right of Kings

  • Rational Formula = using an ideology

Charles Wright Mills

Three Groups in the United States that make up the elite

• Corporate rich

• Government officials

• Top military leaders

.

• The elite share 3 things in common

  • CONSCIOUSNESS- of themselves as an elite

  • COHERENCE- they stay together by going to the same schools and clubs

  • CONSPIRE- they conspire behind the scenes with one another to maintain power and exclude everyone else  

Pluralism scholars

Robert Dahl

David Truman

Robert Dahl’s definition of pluralism

• Power stems from resources like wealth, status, access to information, and access to decision makers

• Power from said resources is not held by a single "power elite" but is dispersed among many interest groups competing to influence public policy and that have influence over different areas of public policy

Robert Dahl’s levels of analysis

3 levels of analysis

• Micro level: individuals (like any voter)

• Middle range level: groups of individuals

• Marco level: Nation states or groups of nation states

Robert Dhal’s explination for how people share power

• People share power because

  • On a micro level

    • everyone can vote to elect officials that represent their beliefs and advocate for their desires

    • Each person's vote carries equal weight

    • Voting serves as a system to check government officials who aren't serving the people

  .

  • On a macro level

    • everyone can formulate preferences and signify them to the government by participating in interest groups

    • interest groups are always competing, ensuring that various parts of society have their interests weighed equally in decision-making

David Truman

• Politics is a competitive arena where multiple groups ensure different viewpoints are considered in policy-making, thus supporting a healthy democracy

• Interest groups matter because an individual can freely create & join them to effect change and there are hundreds of them

Why is elite analysis more accurate? Use the industrial complex to support your answer. (list the main points)

5 points:

• Power concentrates among a small elite

• Elite coordinate to maintain power

• Institutional capture

• Difference of interests

• How the elite benefit

Power concentrates among a small elite

• A handful of defense contractors receive the majority of federal contracts.

• Their executives rotate into Pentagon leadership roles and congressional advisory positions.

Elite coordinate to maintain power

• Defense contractors, which are private companies that design and build weapons, lobby Congress to increase military spending

• Congress approves budgets that benefit contractors in their districts.

• The Pentagon requests systems produced by those same contractors.

• Think tanks funded by contractors publish reports justifying these expenses

Institutional capture

• Rather than interest groups shaping institutions, elites shape institutions to serve their interests

• Defense contractors fund:

  • congressional campaigns

  • think tanks

  • university research

  • veterans’ organizations

  • media advertising

Difference of interests

• The public generally prefers reduced military spending and fewer foreign interventions.

• However, the U.S. government continues to invest in military and has the highest military budget out of any country in the world and is the largest arms exporter

• This is can only be explained by elite analysis - the government does this because the MIC benefits from:

  • perpetual conflict

  • expanding budgets

  • technological arms races

  • foreign arms sales

How the elite benefit

• Defense contractors gain profit from selling arms to the government

• Members of the Department of Defense & the Pentagon Bureaucracy decide what weapons to buy, what threats to prioritize, and how budgets are allocated. They receive money from defense contractors for making decisions that increase their arms sales.

• Members of Congress approve budgets and authorize military programs. They also receive money from defense contractors for making decisions that increase their arms sales.

• Media outlets and think tanks receive money from defense contractors to produce reports that increase the perception of threats and justify wars which both justify government military spending.

• Universities have contracts with private defense contractors and government agencies to do weapons research