Introduction to American
Government
POLS 1101
Prof. Ryan Bakker
Spring 2016
Class Resources
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Lecture!
Class website
Discussion Section Leaders
Online resources
– https://edge.sagepub.com/kernell7e/studentresources
– CNN, Drudge Report, Five Thirty Eight, Political
Wire, Politics1, The Monkey Cage, Vox, The
Upshot
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? Requires building a theory around
principles
• Two objectives in this introductory chapter:
– Explain what we mean by government and
politics
– Introduce the collective action problem…
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
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
The Logic of American Politics
• Politics - the process through which individuals and groups
reach agreement on a course of common, or collective,
action – even as they may continue to disagree on the goals
that action in intended to achieve
•
Institutions - a set of rules proscribing a process for reaching
and enforcing collective agreements
• Constitution - establishes a nations governing institutions and
the set of rules and procedures these institutions must (and
must not) follow to reach and enforce collective agreements.
Institutional Design
• “So strong is the this propensity of mankind to
fall into mutual animosities, that where no
substantial occasion presents itself, the most
frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been
sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions
and excite their most violent conflicts”
--James Madison, Fed 10
Institutions Provide Authority
in Four Ways
• Jurisdiction – The domain over which
decisions may be made
• Agenda and Veto Power – Gatekeeping
power and the power to say “no”
• Decisiveness – Rules for decision making
• Delegation – Transmission of authority
Constitutions and Govt’s
• The Constitution sought to reassure diverse
interests they would be better off under the
proposed system than under the Articles of
Confederation.
• Authority versus Power…
Constitutions and Govt’s
Authority: The
acknowledged right to
make a particular decision
Power: the actual
influence with other
officeholders
Institutional Durability
• Why are institutions so durable?
– Authority is generally assigned to the institution
(not people). Thus, it should exist long after an
office holder retires
– People make plans contingent on the expectation
that the institution will persist
– It’s hard to agree on alternatives.
Collective Action
Two classes of challenges to efforts for groups to reach
and implement agreements:
• Coordination:
– Problem increases with group size
– Solutions:
• Delegation, self-enforcing rules, focal point
•
Prisoner’s Dilemma:
– Free riding, tragedy of the commons
–
Solutions:
• Make reneging and defection expensive
• Create institutions to enforce agreements
A Collective Dilemma
Free Riders
• Large groups must address members’
temptations to free ride:
– To defect from the agreement by withholding
their contribution to the group while still enjoying
the benefits of the group’s effort
• Becomes a problem as individuals recognize
that their small contribution will not make a
difference.
How to Solve Free Riding
• Private inducements to participate with the
group efforts
– Membership benefits
– Coercion
• Use law to force participation
• Provide tax breaks
Tragedy of the Commons
• There is a public good that is in danger of
being squandered unless members cooperate
to preserve it.
• The good already exists, but will be destroyed
if exploitation is not controlled.
Tragedy of the Commons
• The trick to avoiding the dilemma lies in
institutional design
– Link the individual’s personal interest to the
provision of the public good.
• Solutions:
– Force/regulation
– Privatization
Collective Action Costs
• Collective action offers benefits that
individuals cannot achieve on their own.
• Participation may require costs
• The key: design a system that minimizes costs.
• Costs may be material:
– Taxes for roads, schools, etc.
– Police salaries
Collective Action Costs
• Two kinds of costs that are relevant for
designing institutions:
– Transaction costs
– Conformity costs
• Different aspects of how a group deals with
collective action
• Often involve trade-offs with one another
Transaction Costs
• Transaction costs: The time, effort and
resources required to make collective
decisions.
• More people = higher costs
• Sometimes transaction costs are intentionally
included.
– Changing the Constitution
Conformity Costs
• Conformity costs: The difference between
what an individual prefers and what the
collective body requires.
– Paying property taxes
– Military deployment
– funding gov’t programs you oppose
Transaction vs Conformity
• Often a trade off:
– When transaction costs are low, then decisions are
made more quickly, often leaving more people
unsatisfied.
– When conformity costs are low, then transaction
is more costly
• Unanimous decisions.
Institutional Design to Achieve
Collective Action
• Two important design principles
• Voting rule
– Majority Rule: 50% + 1 to make a decision
– Plurality Rule: the most votes wins
• Bill Clinton never won a majority of the popular vote
• Delegation: assigns authority to make decisions to some
smaller number of people who act in the interest of the larger
group
Delegation
• Preferred solution to controlling transaction
costs
• Principle: individual/group authorized to
delegate
• Agent: individual/group to whom power is
delegated.
Problems with Delegation
• Agency Loss: The discrepancy between the
principle and the agent.
• Some loss is inevitable
– Members of Congress shirking responsibility
– Agents turning against principles
• Radical views about the 2nd amendment.
Representative Gov’t
• Representative gov’t: Citizens limit their
decisions to the selection of gov’t officials
who, acting as their agents, deliberate and
commit the citizenry to collective enterprises.
• Contrast with direct democracy, where citizens
participate directly in decision-making.
Representative Gov’t
• Republic: voters elect their representatives, but these
representatives are constrained in following the majority’s will
in the form of constitutional guarantees for minorities and by
institutions requiring large majorities for some decisions.
• Most of the world’s democracies are parliamentary govt’s
where the legislature elects the executive.
• The U.S. has a system of separation of powers, which
increases transaction costs.
The Work of Government
• Is collective action greater than private action?
• Private goods: things people buy and consume
themselves in a marketplace that supplies these
goods according to demand
• Public good: costs are born collectively and
nobody can be excluded
• Externalities: negative public goods.
The Work of Government
• Citizens look to the gov’t to provide public
goods.
– National defense
– Highways
– Legal system
• Govt’s also work to minimize externalities
– Clean air/water