Chapter 1 Notes

Politics is often described as 'who gets what, when, how', but self-interest explains only part of political life. The public interest or common good includes justice, rights, and the welfare of the larger community.
People disagree about the public interest, yet many act on beliefs beyond self-interest, such as duty or community spirit.

Citizenship is both legal status and a set of civic virtues: self-restraint, self-reliance, civic knowledge, and civic participation.
Patriotism denotes a public spirit that can inspire sacrifice and is grounded in beliefs about natural rights, equality, and self-government.

Deliberation = reasoning about the merits of public policy to identify the public interest or common good.
Citizens expect institutions to deliberate on behalf of the public interest: Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court.
Deliberative democracy seeks rule by reasoned and informed majorities through institutions; used as a standard to judge the political system.

Early postwar political science focused on behavior, public opinion, and interest groups.
Logrolling: trading support for proposals among legislators.
Group/pluralist theory: many diverse groups influence policy to serve their interests.
Elite theory: a small set of elites controls government and promotes mutual interests.
Rational choice theory: actors maximize personal utility in politics.
The big picture: deliberative democracy adds a focus on public reasoning; it does not wholly reject these theories.

Public interest and deliberation shape national policy; examples include the 2009-2010 stimulus response and health care reform debates.
Presidential decisions in the war on terror were framed as custodianship of national security, not personal advantage.
Democracy works best when citizens and leaders deliberate to identify and promote the common good.

Democracy: rule by the people; originated in ancient Athens (about 2{,}500 years ago).
Direct democracy: people directly vote on laws; Representative democracy: people elect leaders to make laws.
Major forms of rule in the ancient world include Aristocracy, Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Theocracy, Timocracy, Tyranny.

Mayflower Compact ( 1620 ) established self-government roots in New England.
Town meetings represented forms of direct democracy at the local level; colonies also used elected assemblies with a governor appointed by the Crown.
Emerson celebrated the open democracy of the early American experience.