Chapter 1 Review

1. Chapter 1 Review AP Government

2. Government • Institutions and processes that rulers establish to strengthen and perpetuate their power or control over a land and its inhabitants. • Simple – tribal council • Complex – establishments with elaborate procedures, laws, and bureaucracies • Complex Government referred to as state • Abstract concept referring to the source of all public authority

3. How Governments Are Different? • Who Governs? • Autocracy – one • Oligarchy – small group of landowners, military officers, or wealthy merchants • Democracy – Majority of population have influence over decision-making • How much government control is permitted? • Constitutional – (Liberal) Restricted by substantive limits • Authoritarian – No formal limits but government is restrained by the power of other social institutions. • Totalitarian – No formal limits to power and government seeks to absorb or eliminate other social institutions that challenge it.

4. Means of Coercion • Conscription • Draft • Compelled to serve on juries • Appear before legal tribunals • File official reports including tax returns • Attend school or force children to school

5. Substantive Limits • When governments are severely limited in terms of what they are permitted to control • Procedural Limits • Limited in how they go about exercising the control of society

6. Thomas Hobbes - 1588-1679 • Wrote “Leviathan” - how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. • Primary purpose of government is to maintain order • Only through control of people and territory • Absence of government – anarchy • Absence of rule • Anarchy is worse state than tyranny • Life outside of “the state” is often “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”

7. John Locke 1632 - 1704 • Ownership of property is important. • Property can be defined as all the laws against trespass that permit us to call something our own • Laws to make our claims stick. • Natural right to defend his “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” • Social contract – Reason and tolerance • Separation of Powers (Montesquieu)

8. Instrumental • Not knee-jerk reaction. • Individuals think through the benefits and the costs of a decision, speculate about future effects, and weigh the risks of their decision. • When politicians vote in a particular way in order to win reelection.

9. Politics • Efforts to gain power, to influence those in power, to bring new people to power, or to “throw the old rascals out” are forms of politics.

10. Five Principles of Politics • All political behavior has a purpose. • All politics is collective action. • Institutions routinely solve collective-action problems. • Political outcomes are the products of individual preferences and institutional procedures. • History matters.

11. Rationality Principle • All political behavior has a purpose in an expression. • Acts require effort, time, financial resources, and courage. • Simple – reading a headline, talking politics • Modest – watching a political debate, signing a petition, attending city-council meeting • Premeditation – Going to polls, writing a legislator, contributing time and money to campaign

12. Wholesale Politics • Retail Politics – Dealing directly with constituents • Wholesale Politics – Dealing with a collection of constituents

13. Collective Action • Building, combining, mixing, the goals of individuals into one to achieve that goal. • Hard to achieve – individuals involved in the decision-making process often have somewhat different goals and preferences.

14. Informal Bargaining • Informal – No organizational effort to do something. • Relations among neighbors- give and take • Formal – interactions that are governed by rules.

15. Benefits • Selective – Do not go to everyone but are distributed selectively • Only to those who contribute to the group enterprise • “Pay your dues” to join the organization

16. By-Product Theory • Groups provide members with private benefits to attract membership. • The possibility of group collective action emerges as a consequence. • “Free riding” – Most individual in large groups don’t make a difference in the final result. • Easy to abstain from participation.

17. Institutionalized • Routine responses to regularly recurring problems. • Standard ways of dealing with things. • Institutions • Routinized, structured relations • Rules and procedures that provide incentives for political behavior, thereby shaping politics. • Discourage conflict • Enable bargaining • Facilitate decision-making, cooperation, collective action.

18. “Tragedy of the Commons” • A common is owned by everyone • No incentive to restrict use of “free” resource • As a metaphor • “tragedy of the commons” suggests that individual purposes may clash with the collective welfare. • A common asset is depleted • Water

19. Jurisdiction • Designation of someone who has the authority to apply the rules or make the decisions • Standing Committees in Congress • Carefully defined by law. • Congressmen become specialists on subject of committee • Bill Bradley • Congressmen get to set agenda of larger chamber.

20. Gatekeeping • Decisiveness – Rules for making decision. • Agenda Power – What is considered in the first place • Gatekeeping – those who engage in agenda power • Block proposals • Veto Power – Ability to defeat something even if it does become part of agenda.

21. Transaction Costs • The cost of clarifying each aspect of a principal-agent relationship and monitoring it to make sure arrangements are complied with.

22. Products of Individual Preferences and Institutional Procedures • Personal Interests • Friends, business interests • Electoral Ambitions • Reelection, higher office • Institutional Ambitions • Appointment to better positions in organization.

23. Pork Barrel Legislation • Spreading benefits to all members of the legislature so they will vote for a piece of legislation.

24. Widely Distribute Benefits • Decentralized political system and political ambition • Policies can be sloppy and slapdash due to need to satisfy so many people. • Citizens desire neatness – can’t get that from Congress.

25. Path Dependency • Explain a current situation based on the historical path we have taken • Events in the past or choices made earlier in history. • In Politics • Rules and procedures • Loyalties and alliances • Jews and the Democratic Party • Historically conditioned points of view • Iraq viewed through Vietnam experience