Intro to Government in
America
Government
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)

What is Government?

Regardless of how they assume power, all
governments have certain functions in
common
1. Maintain national defense
2. Provide public goods-things everyone can share
(clean air)
3. Have police power to provide order (national
guard)
4. Provide public services like schools and libraries
5. Socialize the young into the political culture
(pledge of allegiance)
6. Collect taxes to pay for services they provide
What Governments Do
The art/game of getting into power.
 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
◦ Voting, volunteering for campaigns, working a
voter registration drive
Politics
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The writers of the Constitution were actually suspicious
of democracy!
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
Our country is a representative democratic republic.
Democracy

How active is American government?

A comparative perspective on the scope and size of our
gov’t
◦ National, state and local govt’s spends about one out of every
three dollars of our gross domestic product
◦ National government alone spends almost $4 trillion annually,
employs three million people, and owns one third of the land in the
U.S.
◦ 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 (capacity or extent) of American gov’t
◦ Individualism remains highly valued in the U.S.
The Scope of Government in
America
How does policy happen?