Chapter 3 The Constitution of the United States

After the United States attained independence, the federalists, who were most interested on the central government, fabricated a set of rules by which the country was going to be governed. One of the federalists James Madison believed firmly on the constitution. He even came to be know as the "Father of the Constitution." There was a lot of dispute over the constitution. The bigger states fabricated and supported the Virginia Plan, the smaller states, on the other hand, favored the New Jersey Plan. Eventually a compromise was reached, but there was yet another challenge; the anti federalists. In the end a compromise was reached with them as well, this was the Bill of Rights. Among the federalists who supported the Constitution were Jefferson and Hamilton.

James Madison was a central figure in the gatherings of Nationalists at the Constitutional Convention. He was a firm supporter of the central government and a firm believer on the importance of the Constitution. A key question in the debate about the new government was whether each state would have equal representation in the legislature or whether larger states would have more power than smaller states. The larger states came up with The Virginia Plan proposed; a bicameral national legislature, bigger states ought to have more power, an executive branch, and a judicial branch, right to tax for the government, and power to veto any act of a state legislature, and that the national government should have more power than the states. The alternative that the small states came up with was the New Jersey plan. Like the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey plan proposed that the government have an executive and judicial branch, and the right to tax. Unlike the New Jersey plan, this plan proposed that every state continue to have an equal vote in Congress. In addition, it ensured that the states would remain the most powerful governments in America. The compromise that was reached was that the legislative branch would be made up of two houses: the House of Representatives, and the Senate. In the house of representatives each state would have a number of representatives corresponding to its size. In the Senate each sate would have an equal number of representatives. Veto was refused. The Bill of Rights was the agreement that the federalists reached with the anti federalists. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect Americans from the powerful government the Constitution created. The Sixth Amendment, for example, ensured that the government could not put citizens on trial without a jury drawn from the people themselves.

The United States is currently ruled through the system of checks and balances. The government is ramified into the legislative branch, the judicial branch, and the executive branch. The control that James Madison wanted is found in the system of checks and balances. So strong was the Anti Federalist demand for a Bill of Rights that Madison and other Federalists gave in to it. Jefferson wished the Bill of Rights had been more explicit in protecting the rights of citizens. Unlike Jefferson who never really trusted the government and remained idealistic about the people, Hamilton believed that governmental power could accomplish great things.

Forging a constitution was a convoluted process. Numerous compromises had to be attained. Among these were the the Bill of Rights, and the compromise between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Unites States eventually developed a system of checks and balances which consists of the judicial, executive, and legislative branch. James Madison, Hamilton and and Jefferson were all in favor of the formation of the Constitution.



The Constitution of the United States

Discovery of the Americas

In 1492 the Americas were discovered. During the following years a process of conquering and colonizing took place. Different countries from all over Europe acquired possession of different areas in the Americas. Europeans brought with them crops and animals that were alien to the newly discovered lands, and they brought back to their continent crops that they had just discovered in the Americas. This trade of crops and animals became known as the Columbian exchange. Unfortunately, Europeans also carried with them diseases to which native americans had no immunity for. Europeans and native Americans frequently came into conflict. The Europeans first tried to use the native Americans as slaves. The native americans, however were not accustomed to such harsh treatments, and quickly perished when used as slaves. As a result the Europeans engaged in the African slave trade.

The Spanish were the first to invade the Americas. Their purpose was to christianize the natives, gain wealth, and win fame or improve their status. The Spanish conquistadores nearly obliterated the culture of the indians in the Americas. They exercised their power over the natives through the encomienda system, which required Native Americans to farm, ranch, or mine for the profit of an individual Spaniard. In return the Spaniard was supposed to see their well being. By the 1550s the Spanish had established colonies in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America.

The first settlement established by the English was Jamestown in 1607. The attitude of the English toward conquered people was different from the Spanish's. For them conquest was all or nothing. Unlike the Spanish they did not practice the blending of European and Native American societies. Initially there was conflict between Native Americans, and the English settlers. Uneasy peace was eventually established. However the Native Americans ended up carrying out a surprise attack against the English, and the English too struck back.

The French established Quebec in Canada in 1608. The Dutch established New Amsterdam (now New York) in 1626. Both the French and the Dutch traded knives, beads, and guns for fur that could be sold in Europe. Because the French depended on Native American trapping, Native Americans in areas of French contact remained more powerful than those in Virginia.

In 1630 the Puritans arrived in New England. They came fled from England to the Americas because they were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Nevertheless, the
Puritans did not believe in religious toleration. They completely reformed the land in which they settled. They replaced forests with fields, cultivated wheat, barley, and corn, and raised domestic animals.

The era of conquering and colonization was of colossal change. Both the Europeans and Native Americans were introduced to new crops, animals, diseases, and cultures. Africans that were brought to the Americas to work as slaves, also introduced their culture to the Americas.The Europeans benefitted from this discovery. For the Native Americans, however, it was unfortunate more than anything. The Spanish, the English, the French, the Portuguese, all established settlements in different areas of the Americas, and they all faced some kind of conflict with the Native Americans. Some faced more conflict, others faced less. They all had different relationships with the Native Americans.


The Niña, the Pinta, And the Santamaria. The ships in which the Spanish arrived at the Americas in 1492.

Year End Reflection

This semester I learned a lot about politics. Before this course I had very little knowledge about them. I discovered knew things not only about their function, but about their development as well. We studied their history and how they came about. One of the most important concepts this course taught me, is that often certain characteristics that are commonly thought of as being exclusive to a particular situation, may apply to many other situations. For example; people tend to think that elections are held only in democracies. They think of elections as a characteristic exclusive to democratic nations. However, autocracies also held elections. It is examples like these that have helped me comprehend the whole purpose and structure of politics, and furthermore clarify ideas that I did not know were erroneous.

Chapter 14 & 15: Parliamentary and Presidential Government

The parliamentary government is conceptually simpler than the presidential government. It does not allow for any separation of powers. The parliament and the cabinet which operates only by the support of the parliament hold all the states' governmental political power. With this simple concentration of power, political decisions should in principle be made clearly and directly, with a minimum of delay. Presidential government is a democratic system in which the legislature and the executive exist independently and are elected independently of each other. Both parts of the governmental apparatus are responsible for the making and carrying out of law; but they are independent, so it often happens that they compete and find themselves in conflict. The executive and legislature are not forced into the kind of cooperation that tends to be ensured in a parliamentary system, where the two depend closely on one another.

The basic principles of a pure parliamentary system are: a parliament of representatives is elected by the citizens of the state. The executive power of the state is lodged with a cabinet of women and men who are selected by the parliament to conduct the affairs of the state. The cabinet retains power as long as it has the confidence of the parliament: that is, only as long as it can command a minority of the votes. Just as the parliament holds the cabinet in jeopardy the leader of the cabinet usually has the right to have the parliament disbanded, forcing a new election that will lead to a new distribution of power.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the parliamentary government. The advantages are that the government can respond fairly directly to changed circumstances because power is unified. Also the lines of responsibility for policy making are clear. Elections should mean more, because voters can know exactly whom to blame for their current situation. The disadvantages are that in a parliamentary system there are few protections for a minority that feels it is being wronged. A secondary disadvantage with the parliamentary system is that it may produce unstable government.

In a presidential system the political party may operate to soften the natural competition between independent executives and legislatures. Parties are often more loosely unified in presidential systems than in parliamentary systems. In parliamentary systems, the premier and cabinet hold over the heads of ordinary members of parliament the threat that they may not advance into executive office if they do not cooperate with the leadership. In a presidential system, the president has little control over the careers and advancements of members of the legislature and cannot force unity on them. Even when the president's party has a majority of the seats in the legislature, the president will usually not be able to control what happens in the legislature as closely as most cabinets can control their parliaments in parliamentary systems.

There is no guarantee that the party that holds the presidency will also control the legislature. The two parts of the governmental apparatus are elected independently; therefore, it may well happen that one party will have prevailed in the presidential election and another in elections for the legislature. For instance, throughout the 1980s, the Republican Party held the U.S. presidency and at times controlled the Senate, but the Democratic Party controlled the House of Representatives. And thee same situation held in reverse for much of the 1990s. When there is divided control such as this, cooperation between the two branches of government is even more fragile.

The main differences between a parliamentary and presidential system are; policy leadership is often more clearly lodged with a president than with a parliamentary cabinet. Responsibility for policy is more difficult to identify in a presidential system. Comprehensive policy is more difficult to accomplish in a presidential system than in a parliamentary system. Recruitment of executive leaders differs in two systems. There are special problems for review and control of the executive in a presidential system. The symbolic and political aspects of the executive are unified in a presidential system but split in a parliamentary system. Constitutional review of some sort seems to be more necessary in a presidential system, as is true in general of divided systems of power.

Overall the structure of the parliamentary government is less complex than that of the presidential government. Presidential governments are systems in which power is securely retained by a president, and the symbolic and political aspects of the executive are unified. In addition constitutional review of some sort seems to be more necessary in a presidential system. In parliamentary systems on the other hand power is more loosely lodged with a parliamentary cabinet. Responsibility for policy, and comprehensive policy are much more easy to identify in a parliamentary system as well.




Parliamentary government

Chapter 13: Structured Conflict: Interest groups and Politics

The interest group is an organized group of citizens one of whose goals is to ensure that the state follows certain policies. All sorts of organize groups may function as interest groups. A modern state contains a vast amount of interest groups, so vast that it is hard to calculate their number with precision. Interest groups are not exclusively destined for democracies or open societies; all states have interest groups. There are many different types of interest groups, and many different tactics that they can use. They tend two vary in two important ways. Pluralism and neocorporatism are two aspects related to interest groups.

Interest groups are probably the most frequent tool states use in order to represent public opinion and bring it to bear in an orderly fashion on the governmental authorities. Each interest group is free to present its group's wishes clearly and precisely. The task of representing the people's desires, then falls on the interest group. Interest groups generally accomplish this task very well but in certain cases barriers exist that keep them from functioning as well as desired in this area. The first one is that not all interest groups are equally organized, also, some groups command a disproportionate voice in the interest-group system because they have special advantages. Finally, most interest groups are not organized democratically; their leaders are not closely responsive to the members' wishes. The internal structure of interest groups is not very democratic; therefore, there is a real danger that their leaders may gradually drift away from the ordinary members and follow their own political line. Interest groups, then, are not on the whole democratically organized, and their leaders may depart considerably from the members' views.

Three major types of interest groups are sectoral; those that represent a sector of the economy, institutional which are set up primarily for purposes other than political activity and would certainly exist even if they did not deal with politics, and promotional which organize around an idea or point of view to support a cause.

Just like there are different types of interest groups, there are different tactics of interest groups. Control of information and expertise, electoral activity, use of economic power, public information campaigns, violence and disruption, and litigation. A general principle for the interest groups is that they will pick a tactic that best fits the group's resources and the political opportunities offered by those resources.

Interest groups vary in at least two important ways; the degree of organization, and the degree of direct involvement of interest groups in government and administration. Pluralism is a system in which all interests organize and compete freely and no one group is able to dominate. The government is open to pressure from the interest groups, and politics consist largely of the competition among these interest groups to see that the policies they favor are adopted by the government. Neocorporatism is another abstraction. It is a system in which all interest groups are organized and government deals directly with all affected interests at all stages in the making and administration of policy. Unlike pluralism, under neocorporatism the government does not merely respond to the interest groups' pressure but actively involves the groups in the job of governing.

Interest groups are organizations conducting politics within the decision-making structure of the state, but with a goal of influencing one or more policy outcomes rather than achieving overall governmental power. These groups are often able to accomplish the task of representing the desires of their people, however they often come across barriers. There are three major types of interest groups; sectoral, institutional, and promotional. Similarly there are different tactics that interest groups can use. They often chose one based on their resources available. Interest group systems vary in at least two important ways. With pluralism the government is open to pressure from the interest groups. With neocorporatism all interests are organized.

Chapter 11 Elections

Today elections are widespread around the world. This trend has occurred for several reasons. The first one is that even if countries are not democratic, they want to appear democratic. The second reason is that elections can serve more purposes for the state than merely the democratic one of allowing the mass of people to help in the selection of leaders and policies. Elections were invented to make democracy possible but once invented they turned out to have further uses. Autocratic systems would want to have elections because they can serve two main purposes; the purely democratic purpose of allowing the mass of people to have some direct say in the choice of leaders and policies, but also the more or less universal purpose of allowing the state to mobilize its people and to build up their support for the state by acting out support and participating in the process of government. There are different types of electoral systems, and there are certain kinds of electoral choice that a government may grant to its people.

Elections are not normally thought of as functioning to build support for the system, but they deserve this purpose as much in democracies as in autocracies. The state needs to maintain sufficient support among its citizens so that its authority does not lose strength. For democracies and autocracies alike, elections help ensure this popular base of support.

In many countries elections do more than just win support for the regime; they are the means by which leaders and sometimes policies are chosen by the people. For this to be the case an election must involve a choice between candidates or a choice whether a particular policy is to be followed.

If elections are to be used to choose political leaders, there must be some rule for translating people's votes into a particular selection of leaders. States need to design rules determining which people win office as a result of any particular result in the voting.; these rules are called the electoral system of the state. Two broad types of electoral systems are used in almost all democracies: single member district pluralist systems and proportional representation systems. In the SMDP system, the state is divided into a set of districts, usually having roughly equal populations. One representative is elected from each district to be a member of the legislative body of the state, and whoever gets a plurality of the votes wins the seat. SMPD electoral systems tend to encourage the emergence of two large parties rather than a variety of small parties. With a few exceptions, all PR systems have more than two major parties.

Many democracies restrict their citizen's involvement in the affairs of state to a vote that expresses their choice among potential political leaders. The states' policies are then set by the elected leaders, without any direct input from the voters. Some democracies, however, allow voters under some circumstances to choose directly, in an election, whether a given policy should be followed. Such an electoral choice is called a referendum.

Elections are common across the globe. Both autocracies and democracies make use of elections. Even of countries are not democratic they want to appear democratic. Aside from serving the obvious purpose; providing a means to select leaders and policies, elections serve as a means of building support. It allows the state to mobilize its people and to build up their support for the state by acting out support and participating in the process of government. There are two broad types of electoral systems; single member district plurality systems and proportional representation systems. Some democracies grant referendums to their people. They allow voters under some circumstances to choose directly in an election whether a given policy should be followed.

Chapter 16: Bureaucracy and the Public Sector

A part of policy making is done by a large number of people. Bureaucracy is the most common mode of organization. Certain defining characteristics exist for a good public administration. People often refer to the public administration as the bureaucracy, but a bureaucracy is a mode of administrative organization that was developed in the nineteenth century. There are certain problems with bureaucracy. Although it accurately translates leaders' decisions, and it prevents arbitrary behavior, it does not provide for local flexibility. As well as the very nature of it allows for incompetent administrators to hold their positions for a long time. Fortunately adjustments can be made to bureaucracy in order to improve it.

A significant part of the governmental power of any state is necessarily not under close political control. Good public administration should have: an honest, accurate translation of political leader's decisions into more specifically designed policies, flexibility in dealing with special cases at the point of delivery, flexibility should not be used arbitrarily, feedback of expert advice, active imagination, and assertive inquiry on the port of administrators, and efficiency.

Bureaucracy is one way to organize the public administration. It is a particular mode of administrative organization that was developed as a reform in the nineteenth century and spread widely to be the most generally used mode today. Under a system of bureaucracy; members of the public administration are promoted based on their qualifications for the jobs they are to do, special requirements of experience are set for the position, administrative procedures are standardized, clear lines of command are established, and political administrators are shielded from day to day political pressure.

Bureaucracy is particularly strong on the accurate transition of leaders' decisions and on preventing arbitrary behavior. However this means that it does not provide for local flexibility. Administrators under most version of bureaucracy tend to hold their advice until it is asked for. Another common problem of bureaucracies is a ramification of two factors. The first one is the difficulty in public transportation as compared with private business, of evaluating how well a person has performed a job, and the the second one is the requirement in a bureaucracy that administrators be shielded from direct political pressure, usually by a system of tenure. As a consequence incompetent administrators are rarely removed from their positions.

Bureaucracy is the principal mode of organization around the world. Adjustments can be made to a bureaucracy when it reaches a point where it becomes too bureaucratic. These adjustments include the office of ombudsman. An ombudsman is an official who listens to criticism and negotiates. Other adjustments include freedom of information laws, interference in administration by political leaders, and pressure from public opinion.

Bureaucracies are very common around the world. This term is so widely and commonly used that it is sometimes applied wrongly. The term bureaucracy specifically refers to a particular mode of administrative organization that was developed as a reform during the 19th century and spread widely to be the most generally used mode today. Bureaucracy has its advantages and its disadvantages. It is efficient, clear and prevents arbitrariness, but it does not provide for local flexibility and it is common for incompetent administrators to hold their positions extensively. However adjustments can be made to bureaucracy in order to improve it.