U.S. Government - Chapter 1

What is the purpose of government?

• establish justice: create and enforce fair laws

• ensure peace and safety: keep society in order

• provide defense: protect the nation from foreign threats

• promote general welfare: improve the condition of citizens (health, education, infrastructure, etc)

Why is government important?

• protects individual rights (freedom of speech, religion, press, due process, etc)

• maintains order (judicial branch through court system)

• provides public services (roads, highways, schools, police and fire departments, etc)

• promotes economic stability (regulation of businesses and monopolies, taxation, and budgeting)

• represents the population (democracy)

comparative political systems

founder, philosophy, history, successes and failures, current status

government

an institution through which society makes and enforces public policies

state characteristics

population (number does not matter), territory (known and recognized borders), sovereignty (supreme and absolute power to rule within own territory), government (somehow politically organized)

origins of the state theories

• The Force Theory: 1 small group or person forced submission of an area

• The Evolutionary Theory: state evolved naturally out of the early family (oldest male or patriarch)

• The Divine Right Theory: God created the state and gave those of royal birth a “divine right” to rule

• The Social Contract Theory: state arose out of a voluntary act of free people

purpose of government (described in Preamble of U.S. Constitution)

• more perfect union (in 1787, the Articles of Confederation formed a “firm league of friendship” that was weak)

• establish justice (Jefferson said this was the “most sacred of the duties of government”; law must be fair, reasonable, and impartial)

• insure domestic tranquility (peace at home prevents anarchy; example: Beirut, Lebanon)

• provide for the common defense (security of the U.S.; defense mentioned most in U.S. Constitution)

• promote the general welfare (roads, public schools, air quality, Medicare, etc)

• secure the blessings of liberty (liberty is not absolute, but relative; behavior cannot interfere with the freedom of others)

How do we classify governments?

who can participate in the governmental process, the geographic distribution of governmental power within the state, the relationship between the legislative and executive branches

classification of able participants

Democracy: supreme political authority with the people; direct democracy: where the will of the people is translated into law directly by the people; indirect democracy: representatives chosen by the people express the popular will

Dictatorship: rulers not held responsible to the will of the people; autocracy: a single person has unlimited political power; oligarchy: the power to rule is held by small, self-appointed elites

classification by geographic distribution of power

Unitary Government: all powers are held by a single, central agency

Confederate Government: an alliance of independent states

Federal Government: the powers of government are divided between a central government and several local governments; an authority superior to both central and local governments makes this division of power on a geographic basis

classification by relationship between legislative and executive branches

The Presidential Relationship: voters elect legislature and Chief Executive who is part of the Executive Branch; legislature and executive are independent and co-equal

The Parliamentary Relationship: voters elect legislature and the Chief Executive is drawn from the legislature (example: Prime Minister)

What is the U.S. and Britain in terms of government classification?

U.S.: indirect democracy, federal government, presidential relationship, (also: mixed economy)

Britain: indirect democracy, unitary government, parliamentary relationship

What are the basic concepts of democracy?

• recognition of fundamental worth and dignity of every person

• respect for equality of all persons

• faith in majority rule and an insistence upon minority rights

• acceptance of necessity of compromise

• insistence upon widest degree of individual freedom

free enterprise system

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods; investments are determined by private decisions, rather than by state control; determined in a free market

What are decisions in a FES determined by?

the law of supply and demand

mixed economy

a private enterprise that exists in a combination with a considerable amount of government regulation and promotion

What is the relationship between democracy and the Internet?

• democracy demands people to be widely informed about the government

• the Internet makes knowledgeable participation in democratic processes easier than ever before theoretically

• fake news and untrue data on the World Wide Web pose an issue; long-term effects of the Internet on democracy are still TBD