Chapter 1: Introduction to Politics
Introduction to Politics
Chapter 1 introduces politics, providing frameworks for understanding political and economic systems and governments.
This includes analysis of power dynamics and decision-making processes.
Describes ideas that unite and divide Americans.
Explores fundamental values, beliefs, and ideologies shaping the American political landscape.
Examines the formation and purpose of political narratives.
Details how stories and myths influence public opinion and political action.
Discusses mediated channels and the narratives of citizenship, including what it means to be a mediated citizen.
Analyzes the role of media in shaping citizens' understanding of their rights and responsibilities.
What is Politics?
Politics is how we decide who gets power and influence.
It involves competition and cooperation among individuals and groups to achieve desired outcomes.
There isn't enough power for everyone to have as much as they want.
This scarcity of power leads to conflict and negotiation.
Rules determine who wins or loses in future power struggles.
The establishment and enforcement of rules are central to political processes.
Political narratives are stories used to persuade others about the nature of power, who should have it, how it should be used, and to what end.
These narratives can shape public opinion, mobilize support, and legitimize political actions.
Politics vs. Government
Politics is a process, while government is a system or organization for exercising authority over a body of people.
Government provides the structure within which political processes occur.
Authority is power that people consider legitimate or have consented to.
Legitimacy is essential for the stability and effectiveness of government.
One end of the spectrum: Government makes all decisions, individuals have no power.
This represents totalitarianism or authoritarianism.
The other end of the spectrum: Individuals make decisions, the government does not exist.
This represents anarchy or libertarianism.
Types of Government
Politics produces different kinds of government.
Different political ideologies and processes lead to diverse forms of government.
Authoritarian Governments
Rulers have all the power.
Citizens have limited or no say in decision-making.
Rules don't allow people to have any power.
Laws and regulations are designed to maintain the ruler's control.
People are called subjects.
Subjects are expected to obey the ruler without question.
Example: old school king and his subjects.
Historical examples include absolute monarchies and dictatorships.
Non-Authoritarian Governments
Rules regulate people's behavior in some respects (outlawing murder, theft, running red lights).
Laws are in place to maintain order and protect individual rights.
Allow considerable freedom in other aspects.
Citizens have the freedom to express their opinions, participate in politics, and pursue their own interests.
People are called citizens because the government doesn't have all the power over them.
Citizens have rights and responsibilities that limit government power.
Example: Citizens in a democracy.
Democratic governments are based on the consent of the governed.
Democracy
Citizens have considerable power to make the rules that govern them through elections.
Elections provide a mechanism for citizens to choose their representatives and hold them accountable.
Based on the theory of popular sovereignty.
Popular sovereignty is the principle that political power resides in the people.
Anarchy
No government at all.
There are no laws, regulations, or institutions to maintain order or resolve disputes.
Individuals are free to do whatever they wish.
Freedom in anarchy is absolute but also precarious.
Hypothetical situation with no real-world example.
Anarchy is often considered an impractical and undesirable form of government.
Example: described as similar to "The Purge".
"The Purge" is a fictional scenario in which all laws are suspended for a limited time.
Politics and Economics
Economics is the process for deciding who gets material resources and how.
Economic systems determine the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Political and economic systems are closely related.
Political decisions can have a significant impact on the economy, and vice versa.
Narratives are used to justify claims to resources.
Political and economic narratives often justify existing inequalities or advocate for alternative distributions of wealth and power.
Impossible to study politics separately from economics.
A comprehensive understanding of politics requires consideration of economic factors.
Types of Economic Systems
Socialism
The government (single ruler, party, or empowered group) makes decisions about what to produce and who gets the products.
Socialist economies prioritize collective ownership and control of resources.
Mixed Economies
Based on modified forms of capitalism.
Mixed economies combine elements of capitalism and socialism.
Capitalism
Relies on the market to make decisions about who should have material goods.
Capitalist economies emphasize private ownership and free markets.
Market is the collective decisions of multiple individuals about what to buy or sell, creating different levels of supply and demand.
Supply and demand determine prices and allocate resources.
If something costs at Walmart and on Amazon, people will buy it from Amazon.
Consumers make rational choices based on price and value.
Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy
Hybrids of democracy and socialism.
These systems combine democratic governance with socialist economic principles.
Combine socialist ideals with popular sovereignty and market capitalism.
They seek to balance individual freedom with social justice.
Democratic socialists want to achieve socialism through the democratic process.
They advocate for gradual reforms within a democratic framework.
Social Democrats are happy to keep the capitalist economy as long as they use the democratic process to attain some of the goals a socialist economy is supposed to produce.
They aim to mitigate the negative consequences of capitalism through social welfare programs and regulations.
Regulated Capitalism
Government intervenes to protect rights.
Governments regulate markets to prevent monopolies, protect consumers, and ensure fair competition.
A hybrid system that prioritizes economic health and enlists government action to protect markets.
The goal is to promote economic growth while addressing market failures.
Government intervention in market crashes.
Governments may intervene to stabilize the economy during recessions or financial crises.
Distinguished from socialist hybrids by how much political control of the economy supports and to what end.
Regulated capitalism seeks to balance government intervention with market freedom.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism
No restrictions on the market at all.
The government does not interfere in the economy.
Subject to wild swings up and down, which can cause costly public catastrophes.
Laissez-faire capitalism can lead to economic instability and inequality.
Exists in theory but is problematic in practice.
No country has ever fully embraced laissez-faire capitalism.
Before labor unions and child labor laws, there was no real control of the market leading to exploitation.
Unregulated markets can lead to the exploitation of workers.
Closest example given is before the Great Depression when the US was much more unregulated.
The Great Depression demonstrated the dangers of unregulated capitalism.
Graphic Advantage
Combines models for political and economic systems.
Provides a visual representation of different combinations of political and economic systems.
Focused on key attributes to show relationships or structure.
Highlights the essential characteristics of each system.
Four Main Political and Economic Systems
Capitalist Democracy
Totalitarianism
Authoritarian Capitalism
Marxist Utopia
Capitalist Democracy
Democratic governments and capitalist economies.
Combines political freedom with economic opportunity.
Most individual control over both political and economic life
Citizens have the right to vote, express their opinions, and own property.
Totalitarianism
Authoritarian governments that tell people how to live.
Governments control all aspects of life, including politics, economy, and culture.
Socialist economic systems where the government also decides who gets what material goods.
The government owns and controls the means of production.
Example: China.
China is an authoritarian state with a socialist-oriented market economy.
Authoritarian Capitalism
Individuals have no rights to push back against their governments.
Citizens lack political freedom and are subject to government control.
Governments are increasingly choosing to let subjects have some market freedom.
Governments may allow some economic activity to improve living standards and maintain stability.
Example: Singapore.
Singapore is an authoritarian state with a highly successful capitalist economy.
Michael Fay caning incident in 1994.
Marxist Utopia
Extremely free citizens who could choose to live their lives as they please.
Individuals are free from government control and economic exploitation.
A non-market economy.
Resources are distributed based on need rather than market forces.
Karl Marx thought that this system would emerge after capitalism was overthrown by the workers' revolution.
Marx believed that capitalism would inevitably be replaced by communism.
No real-life examples.
Marxist utopia has never been realized in practice.
American Political Culture
Fundamentals
Americans agree on some fundamentals, which ironically makes disagreements possible.
Shared values provide a basis for political debate and compromise.
Political culture is a set of shared ideas, values, and beliefs that define the role and limitations of government and people's relationship to that government.
Political culture shapes attitudes toward politics and government.
Woven together from political narratives.
Political narratives reinforce and transmit cultural values.
Intangible and unspoken.
Political culture is often implicit and difficult to articulate.
Easiest to see when you step outside of it.
Perspective is gained by comparing one's own political culture to others.
Broadening horizons through travel and meeting people from other countries helps one understand political culture.
Cross-cultural experiences can deepen one's understanding of political culture.
Gives people a common set of assumptions about the world and a common language in which they can disagree.
Shared assumptions and language facilitate political communication and debate.
What Americans Believe
Americans prefer more individual control of how people live their lives and how they distribute material goods.
Americans value individual freedom and economic opportunity.
Democratic capitalists whose values are the same in enlightenment values of classical liberalism.
American political culture is rooted in the principles of classical liberalism.
Limited Government.
Limited Government
The power of government should be restricted to allow for maximum individual freedom.
Limiting government power protects individual rights and promotes economic growth.
Individualism
Emphasis on individual rights rather than the collective whole.
Individualism encourages self-reliance and personal responsibility.
Belief in core values of freedom, equality, and a representative democracy in a context of minimal government coercion.
These values are central to American political culture.
Freedom
Freedom from the government.
Individuals should be free to make their own choices without government interference.
Equality
Equality before the law, one person, one vote, and equal opportunities, all forms of equality that require minimal government intervention.
Equality is a fundamental principle of American democracy.
Representative Democracy
A decision-making process by which individuals register their preferences for their rulers and the policies that they promise.
Representative democracy ensures that government is accountable to the people.
Political cultures are foundational but not eternal. If consensus on basic elements weaken, it's difficult to maintain national unity.
Political culture can evolve over time, and changes in values and beliefs can lead to political instability.
American Political Ideologies
Ideologies
Competing narratives we create to explain divisions and disagreements.
Ideologies provide frameworks for understanding and interpreting political events.
There's the old left-right split on the economy.
Economic issues have historically been a major source of political division.
Economic Issues
Conservatives on the right call for less regulation of the economy (lower taxes, freer trade, and more competition).
Conservatives believe that lower taxes and less regulation promote economic growth.
Liberals on the left call for more government regulation (social welfare programs, universal health care, and free preschool programs).
Liberals believe that government regulation is necessary to protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
Non-Economic Issues
Starting in the 1960s and 70s, other non-economic issues started to motivate voters.
Social and cultural issues have become increasingly important in American politics.
Issues like racial desegregation, civil rights, women's rights including reproductive rights, prayer in school, and reducing crime.
These issues have divided Americans along ideological lines.
Four Ideological Categories
Economic Liberals
Economic Conservatives
Social Liberals
Social Conservatives
Economic Conservatives (Libertarians)
Believe the government that governs best governs least.
Libertarians advocate for minimal government intervention in all aspects of life.
Believe in minimal government.
They believe that government should only be responsible for protecting individual rights and enforcing contracts.
Tend to favor policies like gun rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, end-of-life decisions, and legalized marijuana.
Libertarians are generally supportive of individual freedom and autonomy.
Most only want as much regulation of the economy as it would take to keep competition fair and the market from tanking.
They believe that markets are generally efficient but may require some regulation to prevent fraud and abuse.
Believe in good loserism, willing to accept a political loss when the confidence that a win will eventually follow rather than trying to change the rules or delegitimize the process.
Accepting electoral outcomes is essential for maintaining democracy.
Democracies depend on losers consenting to their loss and believing they will have another chance to win.
Legitimacy and stability are undermined when election results are not respected.
Economic Liberals
See citizens not just as individuals but as members of groups, some of whom are often not treated equally by society.
Economic liberals recognize the existence of social and economic inequalities.
Believe government action may be necessary for all people to reach their full potential.
They believe that government has a role to play in promoting equality of opportunity.
Very libertarian when it comes to whether individuals get to call their own shots, but their narrative says that for individuals to reach their potential, they might need a boost from the government.
Economic liberals are generally supportive of individual freedom but also believe in social safety nets.
Favor economic policies to provide a basic standard of living to all individuals.
They support policies such as minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and affordable health care.
Social Conservatives
Put a priority on government serving a traditional social order.
Social conservatives believe that government should uphold traditional values and institutions.
Usually based on religious values and hierarchy rather than equality.
Their views are often rooted in religious beliefs and a hierarchical view of society.
Usually economically conservative but often see the proper allocation of resources as having to do with deservingness.
They believe that resources should be allocated based on merit and moral character.
Include several groups who believe that their vision of the social order or how people should live their lives is absolutely true and who want to put it into law.
Social conservatives seek to translate their values into public policy.
Individual choice is less important than following an authoritative leader who endorses their views on social order.
They prioritize conformity to traditional norms and values.
Social Liberals
Have concrete ideas about what they think is right and have more revolutionary philosophy behind their beliefs in a stronger role for government to create social change.
Social liberals advocate for progressive social reforms.
Progressives are those furthest along on this left continuum.
Progressives seek to challenge existing power structures and promote social justice.
Economic liberals who believe in an even stronger role for the state in creating equality.
They support government intervention to address systemic inequalities.
The essential tenet of social liberals is that the system is rigged to produce unfair economic and thus political outcomes.
They believe that the current system is inherently unjust and requires fundamental change.
To fix that requires radical system change, which does not bode well for the constitution's explicit endorsement of slow incremental policy making.
Social liberals often advocate for constitutional amendments and other systemic reforms.
The social liberal quadrant doesn't grab a lot of adherence because it pushes the limits of Americans' limited government and individualistic culture.
American political culture tends to be more moderate than social liberalism.
Both social conservatives and social liberals value a leader who promises to promote their views on the social order over individual choice.
Ideological leaders play an important role in shaping public opinion and mobilizing political action.
Social conservatives, in particular, may be less committed to democratic processes because there's a shrinking demographic that may lose in a majority rule situation.
Demographic changes can threaten the political power of social conservatives.
Intersection of Political Narratives and Mediation
This section is about the power of narratives and the ways we receive and create them.
Narratives shape our understanding of the world and influence our political views.
The channels through which they are disseminated to us and by us.
Media outlets and social networks play a key role in disseminating narratives.
The narratives and information we get can be altered by the way they are mediated by the channels or the media through which we receive them.
Mediation can distort or amplify certain narratives.
Mediation is essentially the act of connecting.
It involves the transmission of information from one source to another.
Media are also channels of communication and connection, and the integrity of the medium is critical to the trustworthiness of things we connect to.
The credibility of media sources is essential for informed decision-making.
Controlling the Narrative
Controlling the narrative equals power.
Those who control the narrative can shape public opinion and influence political outcomes.
In every one of the political economic systems, people with opposing views might struggle mightily to control the political narrative about who should have power, how it should be used, and to what end.
The struggle to control the narrative is a constant feature of political life.
Telling the political narrative that other people buy into can give you enormous authority over them.
Persuasive narratives can legitimize power and authority.
Political narratives can promote democracy or not.
Narratives can be used to promote or undermine democratic values.
Democratic narratives hold that all people have a tale to tell and their voices are worthy of being heard.
In a democracy, diverse voices and perspectives should be heard and respected.
Agreement on this narrative is essential for the toleration and mutual respect that supports democracy.
Tolerance and mutual respect are necessary for democratic governance.
Authoritarian Governments and Narratives
In authoritarian governments, the rulers set the narrative and control the flow of the information so that it supports their version of why they should have power.
Authoritarian rulers suppress dissenting voices and manipulate information to maintain control.
Authoritarian rulers often use punishment to coerce uncooperative subjects into obedience.
Coercion and intimidation are used to enforce conformity.
Political narratives were much easier to control before the print media.
The printing press made it more difficult to control the flow of information.
Authoritarianism used to be a lot easier to pull off in the Middle Ages and earlier when few people could read and write, and maintaining a single narrative about power that enforced a dictator's rule was relatively simple.
Literacy and access to information empower citizens and challenge authoritarian rule.
The European Age of Enlightenment from to gave voice to multiple narratives about power that weakened the hold of the traditional authoritarian monarch.
The Enlightenment promoted reason, individualism, and limited government.
Ideas about the free flow of information flourished in the eighteenth-century political narratives of classical liberalism because they limited government power.
Classical liberalism emphasized individual rights and freedoms.
The narratives that emerged from the enlightenment emphasized individual rights and non-authoritarianism, a tradition referred to as classical liberalism.
The Enlightenment challenged traditional sources of authority and promoted individual autonomy.
One of the key narratives of classical liberalism is that a story that said power is derived not from God but from the consent of the governed.
The concept of popular sovereignty is central to classical liberalism.
The idea that power is derived not from God but instead comes from its limited, it comes from and is limited by the consent of the governed who can revolt against the government they contract with if their rights are not protected, that is if the contract is not kept.
Social Contract
A social contract is literally saying the governed consent to be governed.
The social contract is the basis of legitimate government.
The government protects the governed, and the governed will revolt against the government if the government is not protecting the governed.
Citizens have the right to resist tyranny.
The founding of political narratives of The United States grew out of the Enlightenment tradition.
American political thought is deeply rooted in Enlightenment ideals.
The Declaration of Independence is a founding narrative of the rights of Americans.
The Declaration of Independence articulates the principles of self-government and individual rights.
At the time of the founding, literacy among average citizens was still very limited.
Limited literacy posed a challenge to democratic participation.
Political elites played a major role in mediating information, but new channels also started to play part.
Political elites shaped public opinion through newspapers, pamphlets, and public speeches.
Newspapers, pastors, and independent political actors all began to shape narratives.
Mediated Citizens
People born in this century are almost all digital natives.
Digital natives have grown up with technology and are comfortable using it.
Digital natives are people who've been born in the era in which not only are most people hooked up to electronic media, but they also live their lives partly in cyberspace as well as real space.
The internet and social media have transformed the way people interact with the world.
For many of us, the lives we lived are almost entirely mediated.
Media plays a central role in shaping our perceptions and experiences.
Mediated citizens are people who are constantly receiving information through channels that can and do shape our political views.
Media can influence our political attitudes and behaviors.
Naturalized citizens, on the other hand, are people who are not born in The United States, or to parents, American parents, but become citizens legally.
James Madison thought that people would be so filled with what he called Republican virtue that they would put the country ahead of self.
Public Interested Citizenship
Citizens who put aside their self-interest to advance the public interest.
Public interested citizens prioritize the common good over their own personal gain.
Self Interested Citizenship
Trying to use the system to get the most they could for themselves.
Self-interested citizens prioritize their own personal gain over the common good.
Citizenship in a Mediated World
Mediated citizens experience the world through multiple channels of information and interaction, which gives them more opportunities and raises more potential hazards for being public interested or self-interested.
The proliferation of media channels has created both opportunities and challenges for civic engagement.
Many older Americans are not digital natives who nonetheless experience political life through television or through web surfing and commenting, usually anonymously and often rudely.
Older Americans may be less familiar with digital media and more likely to rely on traditional sources of information.
Younger, more media-savvy digital natives certainly get their views digitally and increasingly organize, register to vote, and enlist in campaigns and call each other to action this way.
Younger Americans are more likely to engage in politics through social media and other digital platforms.
Hazards to Digital Participation
Hashtag activism is the forming of social movements through viral calls to act politically.
Hashtag activism can raise awareness and mobilize support for political causes.
Organizers warn that action has to go beyond cyberspace to reach the real world or it will have a limited impact.
Online activism must be translated into real-world action to be effective.
An intensely mediated world does not automatically produce public interested citizens.
Media can be used to promote self-interest and undermine the common good.
Information Bubble
In an information bubble, our narratives get reinforced by everything we see and hear.
Information bubbles can lead to polarization and echo chambers.
Without opening ourselves up to multiple information and action channels, we