POLS 201: National Government in the United Staes!

Professor Jason Pigg

Introduction to American Politics As indicated on Moodle, I will be posting several lectures and essays throughout the quarter concerning numerous topics in American politics. I intend these to either supplement the reading material for the class, or to offer a somewhat different perspective on American politics. I miss having the personal interaction of the regular classroom, as it is more difcult for me to gauge how well students are keeping up with the material, and how engaged they are with the class. So, if you ever have any questions or concerns about the class, please e-mail or stop by during ofce hours to let me know! What is Politics? What is Political Science? Scholars have given different answers to these questions. One of the most famous answers comes from Harold Lasswell, who offered the concise denition that political science is the study of who gets what, when and how. The who part of this answer includes all political actors whether they are individuals, interest groups, corporations, or politicians. What are they getting? Perhaps a social security check, or a favorable tax policy, or a construction project for their Congressional district, or any other policy which the government produces. The when and the how part of this denition cover the political process. Do you have to go through Congress and the committee system? Do you need a Supreme Court ruling? How, exactly, can you achieve your political goals? As a starting point, you may nd this to be a good denition of political science (and an easy one to remember). Our textbooks denition of politics is the following: the process by which the actions of government are determined (Shea et al., p4). Throughout this quarter, were going to be going into much more detail about politics and political science; for now, I want us all to start with a fairly broad denition of politics, keeping in mind that anything that you can think of that the government has any say in at all is a political question, from government intervention in the economy to abortion to requiring a drinking age of 21 to family leave policies to restricting certain types of speech... All of these are political decisions! Before we move on to American democracy, lets look at one more denition of politics that captures some of its signicance in a way that the other denitions do not. Gouverneur Morriss (1752-1816) was one of the founding fathers (he assisted in drafting the Constitution, among other accomplishments) and he wrote of politics in the great sense, or that sublime science which embraces for its object the happiness of mankind. There is certainly a darker side of politics, of corruption and scandal, but its crucial to keep in mind that at its core, when we talk about politics we are talking about how to live, about which type of government and which policies will produce the best result for people. (If youre still too cynical to accept this denition, dont worrywell be examining some disturbing and controversial elements of American politics as well.)

POLS 201: National Government in the United Staes!

Professor Jason Pigg

What is Democracy? The origins of democracy are found in ancient Greece, and thats where well start. Athens in the 5th century B.C. is widely regarded as the pinnacle of direct democracy, a system in which every citizen fully participated in politics and in making political decisions. At this time there were approximately 50,000 people living in Athens, with about 6500 full citizens. About 40 times a year, assemblies were held at which all citizens could attend, with major decisions made by popular vote. In addition, some government ofces were lled by lot or rotation, giving every citizen a chance at serving in the government. The idea of ruling as well as being ruled was an important one; the type of representative democracy we have today would seem a pale imitation of the direct democracy in ancient Athens. Perhaps one or two of you have considered running for political ofce in the future, but for most of us we settle for second-hand democracy, through our representativesthis is not democracy in the Athenian sense of the word. However, as mentioned earlier, there were many who were left out of Athenian democracy: women, slaves, and poor workers were not among the 6500 citizens (out of 50,000 people) who could fully participate in politics. As well see next week, though, Americans shouldnt feel too smug about this numberover 2000 years later, at the time of our Constitution, a smaller percentage of people in the United States could even vote, let alone fully participate in the activities of government. Some sense of the importance of politics at the time can be found in Thucydides classic work The Peloponesian War, in

which he recalls the Athenian leader Pericles Funeral Oration: An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state [polis] because he takes care of his own household; and even those among us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of policy. This was not a common view of democracy at the time, however. Platos view perhaps represents a more common perspective: that democracy simply cannot work. Plato argued that the likely outcome of any democracy is tyranny. Since there are so few capable, intelligent people in any society, and since a democracy includes a large number of people, it follows that most decisions will be dominated by those of the lowest quality. As these rather ignorant people, the masses, wont tolerate any laws that restrain them in any way (such as laws concerning law and order), there will soon be chaos in any democracy. And this, Plato argued, opens the door for tyranny, as the mob will gladly give up its power to a tyrant as long as he restores society to some semblance of order. While others defended direct democracy, such as Pericles as well as Aristotle (who felt that the judgment of the many is better than the judgment of a few), it was not viewed as a viable option by most political thinkers. The most direct precedents for democracy in America came from political thinkers like John Locke, as the textbook discusses (see page 38), who favored representative democracy. While Locke did not believe that direct democracy was feasible or

POLS 201: National Government in the United Staes!

Professor Jason Pigg

desirable, he did argue for representative democracy, in which government is based on the consent of the governed. Well delve more into these ideas of representative democracy, and how they were put into effect in our government, when we cover the Constitution next week. Conclusion As I mentioned earlier, please let me know if you have any questions about any of these topics, or about any other aspect of class. Make sure to keep up with the readings for the course, as I wont be able to hector you about that in person in a classroom!