Americans & Their Political Values

  1. Government refers to the formal institutions and procedures through which a territory and its people are ruled. To govern is to rule. A government may be as simple as a town meeting in which community members make policy and determine budgets together or as complex as the vast establishments found in many large countries today, with their extensive procedures, laws, and bureaucracies.

  2. Politics is about the conflicts and struggles over the leadership, structure, and policies of government.

  3. Governments take many forms. An autocracy is rule by a single individual. An oligarchy is rule be a small group of elites. In a democracy, citizens play a significant role in government, usually by selecting leaders.

  4. Governments can be limited in what they are able to do. Constitutional government puts many formal rules and limits in place. There are fewer limitations placed on an authoritarian government. In a totalitarian government, rules have no checks on their decisions and eliminate challenges to it.

  5. The limits placed on American government are the basis for many freedoms for individual citizens.

  6. As more Americans participate in the political system, political power has shifted.

  7. In a democracy, power ultimately comes from the people, an idea known as popular sovereignty, and American government is structured as majority rule, minority rights.

  8. Participation takes several different forms. In a representative democracy, citizens elect their leaders who make decisions on the people’s behalf. In a direct democracy, citizens vote directly on policies and decision.

  9. The concept that different groups and ideas will compete for influence in American government is known as pluralism.
    Citizenship Is Based on Participation, Knowledge, and Efficacy

  10. Informed and active membership in a political community is the basis for citizenship. Citizens require political knowledge to be aware of their interests in a political dispute, to identify the best ways of acting on their interests, and to know what they cannot or should not ask of politicians and the government. However, today many Americans have significant gaps in their political knowledge.

  11. Most Americans know little about current issues or debates, or even the basics of how government works. In addition, disinformation complicates the process of acquiring valid political information.

  12. In order to participate, one must think it matters. The belief that individual citizens are able to influence government is known as political efficacy.
    Who Are Americans?

  13. As the American population has grown, it has become more diverse. In the early years of the Republic, the majority of Americans were European settlers, mainly from northern Europe, or enslaved persons forcibly brought to America from Africa. There was also an unknown number of Indians, the original inhabitants of the land, who were not initially counted by the census.

  14. Over time, the ebb and flow of immigration has changed the racial and ethnic makeup of America.

  15. Americans are not all one thing; there is tremendous variety in race, ethnicity, religion, age, socioeconomic status, and where different groups live in the country.

  16. From the start, the American government used racial and ethnic criteria to draw boundaries around the American population. Until 1870, nonwhites could not become naturalized citizens. In addition, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 outlawed the entry of Chinese laborers to the United States, a restriction that was not reversed until 1943.
    Liberty, Equality, and Justice Are American Political Values

  17. Most Americans affirm the values of liberty, equality, and democracy, but sharing broad values does not guarantee political consensus. Nonetheless, the values, beliefs, and attitudes that form our political culture date back to the time of the founding of the Union. 2. For Americans, liberty means personal and economic freedom, both of which are closely linked to the idea of limited government.

  18. Early American government saw a congruent support for laissez-faire capitalism, which gave government very little power to regulate commerce and the use of private property.

  19. Today, federal and state governments impose many regulations to protect the public.

  20. Most Americans share the ideal of equality of opportunity, which is the notion that all people should be given a fair chance to use their talents to reach their fullest potential, as well as political equality before the law.
    What Americans Think about Government

  21. Americans historically have been reluctant to grant government too much power and have often been suspicious of politicians, but they have also turned to the government for assistance in times of need and have strongly supported it in periods of war.

  22. Public trust in government has declined since high points in the 1960s and in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, reaching a new low in 2015. Low levels of trust in government have helped fuel support for “outsider” candidates, critical of government, in the 2016 presidential elections. 3. Americans today are less likely to think that they can influence what the government does. This view has led to increased apathy, declining political participation, and withdrawal from political life.