Intro to
Government in
America
Sawyers – AP Government
• Many Americans- especially
young people (18-25 years old)
are apathetic about government
• Despite the lack of interest,
government has a huge impact on
our daily lives
• If we choose to, we have an
opportunity to impact government
Think about how government has
an impact on your daily life….
Government matters!!
• Government is defined as those institutions that make
authoritative policies for society
• There are four key institutions that make policies on the
national level: Congress, the President, the Courts, and
the federal administrative agencies (bureaucracy)
• Two main questions to think about this year in class:
• 1. How should we govern?
• 2. What should government do?
What is Government?
• Regardless of how they assume power, all governments
have certain functions in common
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Maintain national defense
Provide public goods-things everyone can share (clean air)
Have police power to provide order (national guard)
Provide public services like schools and libraries
Socialize the young into the political culture (pledge of
allegiance)
• Collect taxes to pay for services they provide
What Governments Do
• Politics determines whom we select as government
leaders and what policies they pursue
• “who gets what, when, and how” –Harold D.
Lasswell
• Political participation- ways in which people get
involved in politics
• Single-issue groups-interest groups whose
members will vote on a single issue, like pro-life
and pro-choice groups that ignore a politician’s
stand on everything except abortion
Politics
• A policy making system is a set of institutions and activities
that link together government, politics, and public policy
• In democratic societies, parties, elections, interest groups, and the
media are key linkage institutions between the preferences of
citizens and the government’s policy agenda
• The end product of government and politics is public policy
• When people confront government officials with problems for
them to solve, they are trying to influence the government’s policy
agenda
• A political issue arises when people disagree about a problem or
about a public policy choice – Examples??
• Translating people’s desires into public policy is essential to
the workings of democracy
The Policy Making System
• The writers of the Constitution were actually suspicious of
democracy!
• Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as “government of the people,
by the people and for the people”
• Democracy is a means of selecting policymakers and of organizing
the government so that policy represents and responds to the will of
the people
• Five criteria that are essential for an ideal democratic process
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Equality in voting
Effective participation
Enlightened understanding
Citizen control of government’s policy agenda
Inclusion- citizenship must be open to all within a nation
• Do we meet the criteria? Explain….
• In addition to the criteria, democracies must practice majority rule
and preserve minority rights - Examples??
Democracy
• Pluralist Theory contends that many centers of influence
compete for power and control
• Groups compete for power and control but no one group
dominates
• Multiple access points to our government with power dispersed
amongst the three branches
• Bargaining and compromise are essential ingredients of our
democracy
• Electoral majorities rarely rule; all active and legitimate groups
can make themselves heard
• The recent increase in interest group activity is cited as evidence
for pluralism
Pluralist Theory
• Elite and class theory contends that our society is divided
along class lines
• An upper class elite rules, regardless of government
organization
• Wealth is the basis of class power: a few powerful
Americans are the policy makers
• Big business and its power is at the center
Elite and Class Theory
• Hyperpluralism is pluralism gone wrong
• Many groups are so strong that government is unable to act
• There are too many groups with access to the different
levels of government and these groups have ways to both
prevent policies they disagree with and promote those they
support
• When politicians try to placate every group, the result is
confusing, contradictory, and muddled policy…or no policy
at all
• Which of the three contemporary theories of democracy do
you agree with? Why?
Hyperpluralism
Lets answer some questions….
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Are people knowledgeable about matters of public policy?
Do they apply what knowledge they do have to their voting choices?
Are American elections designed to facilitate public participation?
Does the interest group system allow for all points to be heard or do
biases favor particular groups?
Do political parties provide voters with clear choices or do they
intentionally obscure their stands on issues in order to get as many
votes as possible?
If there are choices, do the media help citizens understand them?
Is Congress representative of American society and capable of
reacting to the changing times?
Does the president look after the general welfare of the public, or has
the office become too focused on the interest of the elite?
Challenges to Democracy
• How active is American government?
• National, state and local govt’s about one out of every three dollars of our
gross domestic product
• National government alone spends over and average of $1.7 trillion annually,
employs five million people, and owns one third of the land in the U.S.
• A comparative perspective on the scope and size of our gov’t
• The U.S. gov’t actually does less and is smaller than gov’ts of similar
countries
• The tax burden on Americans is small compared to other democratic
nations…shocking, I know!
• American individualism is a dominant theme in American political
culture
• This developed from immigrants desire to escape gov’t oppression
• This has limited the scope of American gov’t
• Individualism remains highly valued in the U.S.
The Scope of Government
in America