Introduction to American GovernmentPOLS 1101

Prof. Ryan BakkerFall 2015

Class Resources

• Lecture!• Class website• Discussion Section Leaders• Online resources – https://

edge.sagepub.com/kernell7e/student-resources– 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