AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
POWER & PURPOSE
Chapter 1
Five Principles of Politics
Theodore J. Lowi
Benjamin Ginsberg
Kenneth A. Shepsle
Stephen Ansolabhere
Why are you here?
• Let’s make a deal…
– Will you take a one question test?
• With VERY high stakes??
Who is this person?
Who is this person?
Who is this person?
Making Sense of Government
and Politics
• Two fundamental questions about
government and politics:
– What do we observe? An empirical question
– Why? A fundamental concern of science.
Requires building a theory around principles
– A third question could be normative
• Two objectives:
– What is government and politics?
– Introduce our five principles of politics
What is Government?
• The institutions and procedures through
which a land and its people are ruled
• Governments may be simple, like a tribal
council that makes all decisions, or they
may be complex, like our own system of
separate branches and levels of
government
Discussion: Government in a
Farming Society
• Imagine that everyone in this room is a
farmer in our own self-contained society
• We’re all equal in every respect
• One of us proposes to build an irrigation
system
• How do we make decisions?
Forms of Government:
Inclusiveness
• Autocracy – A single individual rules
• Oligarchy – A small group of landowners,
military officers, or wealthy merchants
rules
• Democracy – A system of rule that permits
citizens to play a significant part in the
governmental process
Forms of Government: Recognition
of Limits
• Constitutional – Formal and effective limits
are placed on the powers of government
• Authoritarian – No formal limits are placed
on government but government may be
effectively limited by other social
institutions
• Totalitarian – No formal or effective limits
on government’s power of any kind
Clicker Question
Imagine a hypothetical society in which a king
has almost total power but is constrained in his
coercive power by the church. This government
would best be described as a(n):
A.
B.
C.
D.
authoritarian democracy.
constitutional autocracy.
totalitarian oligarchy.
authoritarian autocracy.
Clicker Question
Imagine a hypothetical society in which a king
has almost total power but is constrained in his
coercive power by the church. This government
would best be described as a(n):
A.
B.
C.
D.
authoritarian democracy.
constitutional autocracy.
totalitarian oligarchy.
authoritarian autocracy.
What is Politics?
• The conflicts and struggles over the
leadership, structure, and policies of
government
• Politics takes many forms – voting,
running for office, joining groups and
parties, lobbying, and even speaking to
friends and neighbors
• The 5 principles of politics can be used to
explain political action
Introducing the 5 Principles of
Politics
•
•
•
•
All political behavior has a purpose
Institutions structure politics
All politics is collective action
Political outcomes are the products of
individual preferences, institutional
procedures, and collective action
• How we got here matters
Rationality Principle
• All political behavior has a purpose
• Political behavior is instrumental
– Not random
– Done with forethought
– Calculation
• Political actors pursue policy preferences,
reelection, power, and to maximize their
agency budgets
Institution Principle
• Institutions structure politics
• Institutions are the rules and procedures
that provide incentives for political
behavior
• Remember that institutions themselves are
not necessarily permanently fixed. Rules
may change; they just don’t change easily
Institutions Provide Authority in
Four Ways
• Jurisdiction – The domain over which
decisions may be made
• Agenda and Veto Power – Control over
what a group will consider for discussion
and the ability to defeat something
• Decisiveness – Rules for decision making
• Delegation – Transmission of authority
Principal-Agent Relationship
• May be affected by the fact that each is
motivated by self-interest, yet their
interests may not be well-aligned
• As a result, the principal needs to have
some way to monitor and validate what the
agent is doing
• This leads to transaction costs – the cost
of clarifying the relationship and making
sure arrangements are complied with
Collective Action Principle
• All politics is collective action
• Collective action is difficult and the
difficulty mounts as the number of people
and interests involved grows
• Sometimes there are collective action
dilemmas – situations in which individually
rational incentives do not align with
shared, collective interests
A Collective Dilemma
Collective Action and Public
Goods
• Collective action is the pooling of
resources and the coordination of effort
and activity to achieve common goals
• Public goods are those that may be
enjoyed by anyone and may not be denied
to anyone
Collective Action is Difficult
• Collective action and provision of public
goods becomes even more difficult as the
number of parties involved increases or as
the ability to bargain face-to-face is
hampered. Examples:
– Free Riding
– Tragedy of the Commons
• Institutions are the solutions to these
problems
Clicker Question
Which of the following is NOT an example of
a collective dilemma?
A. free-riding.
B. tragedy of the commons.
C. formal bargaining.
D. prisoner’s dilemma.
Clicker Question
Which of the following is NOT an example of
a collective dilemma?
A. free-riding.
B. tragedy of the commons.
C. formal bargaining.
D. prisoner’s dilemma.
Policy Principle
• Political outcomes are the products of
individual preferences and institutional
procedures
• The policy principle is the logical
combination of the first three principles
• Policy outcomes are frequently “lacking in
neatness” because we have a system
where personal ambition mixes with a
decentralized political system
History Principle
• How we got here matters
• Path dependency – certain possibilities
are made more or less likely because of
the historical path taken
• Three reasons why history matters:
– Rules and procedures
– Loyalties and alliances
– Historically-conditioned points of view
Clicker Question
A member of Congress seeks to bring
additional dollars home to his districts for
construction of roads and bridges. This is an
example of the:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Institution Principle.
Rationality Principle.
History Principle.
Collective Action Principle.
Clicker Question
A member of Congress seeks to bring
additional dollars home to his districts for
construction of roads and bridges. This is an
example of the:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Institution Principle.
Rationality Principle.
History Principle.
Collective Action Principle.
The Five Principles of Politics
Applied to a Case
Take the example of immigration reform and
think about how each of the principles of
politics might inform the debate
– Rationality Principle
– Institution Principle
– Collective Action Principle
– Policy Principle
– History Principle
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