American politics short response
Explain why both those in favor of and opposed to the Vietnam War supported lowering the voting age to 18.
Anti-vietnam war wanted war to end and wanted their votes to count, pro vietnam war kids were risking their life at 18, they should be allowed to vote. (443)
What is the difference between a signing statement and a line item veto
Signing statement is a President saying, even though I signed this into law, I won't enforce all of this bill. Line-item veto would be vetoing spending provisions w/ in 5 days or tax breaks that affect fewer than 100 persons or entities. Line item veto deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court. (295-296)
How has does the modern presidency differ from the 19th century presidency?
The modern president is much more concerned with passing legislation, foreign affairs, and regulating services the federal gov employs. The 19th century president was much more concerned with filling government vacancies, interviewing people, they took more power during war time, national crises, and rebellions . But left legislation and goals for the country to congress.Role of commander in chief increased (279)
Explain why the pamphlet was such an important medium before the Revolutionary War.
The pamphlet was such an important medium before the revolutionary war because they were more durable than newspapers and could be passed from person to person. It did not require a different press everyday, or a huge press, as a newspaper did. It was smaller and cheaper to produce. (563)
Explain the prisoner's dilemma faced because of the relationship between the press and politicians.
The press wants a good story, but doesn't want to be a publicist for a politician, while the politician wants attention, but in a favorable light. They need to risk working together for the best outcome, politicians must trust journalists won't fck them w/ a bad story, while journalists want good stories, but don't wanna be politicians lil btches.
What is policy gridlock and why has the proliferation of interest groups contributed to its occurrence?
Policy gridlock is the inability for something to be passed due to so many competing interest groups. More players, having more specialized wants, makes it hard to accommodate all. Example: budget, every spending program and tax break has interest groups defending them, really hard to please all. (555)
Explain the assertion that "Congress's authority to declare war is, in most respects, a hollow check."
"Congress's authority to declare war is a hollow check" because The President can send troops in somewhere have them act as a war regardless of declaring a war or not. There are laws requiring president to tell congress when he is deploying troops but this law has been broken and nothing has really happened. If the president sends troops the American people usually ar backing, and congress can't order troops to be brought back per se, and defunding the military puts the troops in a vulnerable place to defend themselves. (284)
Explain the political importance of the Judiciary Act of 1801 and how it sets the stage for the emergence of judicial review.
(356) Federalists packed the courts, judicary act shrunk supreme court to 5, dem-repubs reorganized court and passed a law to repeal the judiciary act of 1801. Feds argued unconstitutional, supreme court decided to rule nothing, started to set the stage that supreme court had first chance to deem something unconstitutional in stuart v laird.
Explain the purpose and role of a random sample. Include in your explanation how a random sample is obtained and what problems and benefits, if any, exist as a result of its use.
(400) You can't poll everyone, so you choose a random sample to be representative of the population. You try to get your sample to be representative of the larger population, same amount of men/ women/ socio-economic class/ ethnicity. It's really hard to do this and not create inherent biases, also people lie sometimes, questions can be misleading.
Explain the effect of negative advertising in the U.S. elections.
(458) exploit insecurity of people for a candidate, inform people about both candidates and increase people's interest in election
Why is a merit based bureaucracy less corrupt than a patronage or spoils system?
- When bureaucrats know they only have four years they don't care, they are also given their jobs by being in the President's party. Patronage, people can't get fired for no reason, they have incentive to work and do well, they will be there for longer than 4 years. They were hired because they are worthy. (323)
Explain the characteristics of bureaucratic institutions as delineated by Max Weber.
1. Hierarchical structure of authority (command flows down, information flows up) 2. Division of labor and specialization for complex tasks 3. Consistent set of rules, creates the red tape 4. Impersonality (person is doing a job, they aren't a politician, also to treat fairly and not fire for no reason) 5. Career of merit based system (so people wanna do well, not just slack off and make some money) 6. Specified goals (all in a organization working toward one goal) 322
Describe the three levels of the federal judiciary and their different roles.
370 District Courts (where cases start), Circuit Court of Appeals (where cases go when defendend goes when doesn't like outcome), Supreme Court (Final decision on cases)
What were some of the major reforms of the Progressive Era and what effect did those reforms have on political participation?
Aimed to stop party machines, party politicians provided people who serviced them (if they won) by giving them gov jobs. Progressive reforms were Pendleton act (made civil service appointees based off merit not party affiliation, protected people from getting fired for no reason) Australian/secret ballot (all parties on one ballot that looked the same so they could more easily vote for multiple parties and keep their votes secret) and primary elections (putting the power of electing nominees in the people's hands not the parties) Consequences were lower voter turnout, less incentive to be part of the party if no job, tighter voting laws also restricted voting ability, turned attention from parties to candidates. (494-496)
What is an executive order?
An executive order is a law that the president can put into effect just by signing it himself, can be taken away by another executive order by next president (or same president) or congress can pass a law that invalidates it, President can veto it, but congress can ⅔ majority override the veto. (274)
Why do politicians sometimes try to communicate with other politicians through the news media rather than privately?
Because doing this forces a response from other politicians, or it gets a message across better than saying it privately. If the statement is not in the public, it has no force to it as the public call out forces attention. Not doing so can damage reputation. (587)
Compare the bureaucracy during the Federalist years with the bureaucracy under the spoils system.
Bureaucracy during federal years, jobs passed down by good behavior for life, father to son or nephew, spoil system given each 4 years jobs given to political parties in president's party that sucked him off during the campaign, people didn't care as much about their job. (320-322)
What Constitutional and institutional structures and processes led to the emergence of political parties in the United States?
Constitution's rules for passing laws require majorities, winning elections is hard to do on your own, (480) cooperation among lots of politicians w/ different interests and purposes is hard, party organization makes that easy
Why do Americans insist on the right to vote but then frequently not vote in elections? Make sure you frame your answer in terms of collective action and collective benefits.
Freeriding problem, Free and fair elections are necessary because Americans want gov to be checked, but the collective benefits for this do not require Americans to vote and thus exercise collective action. (444)
Define gerrymandering and explain the rationale behind it. What makes it so difficult to reform?
Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing voting districts to help a political party win, either by spreading a parties' voters thinly so they can't win a single district or by clumping them all together so they can only win one district. It is so difficult to reform because both parties utilize the strategy so they want to keep it and proving gerrymandering is hard, as well as drawing fair unbiased voting districts is very difficult as well. Also hard to reform because congressional districts must be equal in size, but populations are not equally spread out. Helps republicans because their base is more spread out. (218)
How does proportional representation affect party systems?
Helps preserve smaller parties, they don't need to win a 50% threshold for representation, whatever percentage of the vote they get, thats how much representation they have in congress. (484)
Why is red tape simultaneously important and challenging?
Helps principles exercise control over agents, leaves a paper trail to insure things are happening legally. Allows for easy transition of job replacement. It slows down bearuocracy, makes it 'difficult' to get things done, but allows Congress to make sure people doin their shit (349)
In a two party system, why would the two major parties poach or adopt any idea promoted by a third party that proves to be popular with voters?
If a third party has an idea that is popular w/ voters it could take away part of their base. By adopting that idea they take away the reason for voters to support that party as that party only has that popular idea going for it, it does not have the benefits a big party has (484)
Why do interest groups provide volumes of technical information to politicians?
If interest groups want to persuade legislation, politicians know this, their suggestions are inherently bias, by proving loads of technical information, it helps to persuade politicians to their side. Also, politicians have a need for information, their jurisdiction of legislation is wide and deep, they can't know everything, so interests groups supplying information works (539-44)
What are the differences between insider and outsider tactics and what determines which strategy a group uses?
Insider tactics are more personal: meeting w/ politicians, giving them legislation drafts, providing technical information, keeping in good relation with them, provide research and testimony. Outsider tactics do not require a personal relationship, they apply pressure: shape public opinion, publicize what they want to do, what politicians are doing, put out reports, in hope of bad publicity for politicians who don't support them. Demonstrations: picketing, marches, sit-ins, to call public attention. Groups w/ money and expertise choose insider as their interests might not be in the general public, whereas broader issues w/ less funding choose outsider as public pressure is an easier tactic. Neither are mutually exclusive though. (539-47)
What is the relationship between opinion leaders and issue publics?
Issue publics are the people connected to the issues, opinion leaders are public figures who lead opinion. (418-419) The relationship is they both influence legislation and legislators. Opinion leaders influence aggregate opinions, which affect legislation and voting, and issue publics are taken into consideration when laws are affecting them. They both form most of the pressure felt on lawmakers.
Why is political ignorance rational?
It's not worth it to have to study politics, it will happen with or without you, there are shortcuts you can take (410) The payoff to research opinions often isn't worth it, you got other things to do.
Describe the three eras of the Supreme Court's history. (get examples)
Nation v. State Dredd scott v sandford (ruled unconstitutional for states to not allow settlers to own slaves) Regulation national economy Lochner v New York (ruled unconstitutional to limit work hours of bakers to 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week) Civil rights and liberties incorporation of free speech through 14th amendment
Does Congress have exclusive authority over legislation? Explain.
No Congress does not have exclusive authority over legislation. They begin the progress of legislation but all bills must be signed into law by the president. Giving some power to the President. Congress can override a President's veto with a ⅔'s majority in the house and the senate. Supreme court can struck down a law if unconstitutional. (217)
What does the Federal Register do?
Publishes all administrative rules that have the force of laws. (administrative laws are laws government sets for itself) (330)
Briefly explain the concept of judicial review.
Review by the supreme court of the constitutional validity of a legislative act. Can render it unconstitutional and thus not a law. (357) Established by Marbury v Madison, Dred Scott got the ball rolling for judicial review tho.
How have Supreme Court decisions affected campaign spending?
Supreme court has been pretty consistent in categorizing campaign spending as free speech, and continue libertalizing it. Overturned amount of personal money candidates can spend
What is the President's role in the budgetary process?
The President's role in the budgetary process is he submits and writes the budget for congress to pass. This gives him the ability to set priorities by funding or defunding certain things. (290)
What role does the filibuster play in the United States?
The filibuster plays the role of stopping bills that would normally be passed in the senate by the majority party. A speaker can talk for endless amounts of time in hope of killing any action on the bill. To stop a filibuster a ⅗ senate majority (60 votes) must vote on cloture which limits further bill debate to maximum 30 hours (for appointments 2 hours). Filibusters can be stopped in advance if there is a unanimous consent agreements, however minority party always has say in this. (259-260)
Explain the pluralist defense of interest groups.
The argument in defense of interest groups from the pluralist perspective is that interest groups represent a group's shared belief, it is their right to form and advocate on it, if one group is too powerful another group will form against it. (530)
How does the electoral system established by the Constitution differ from that of parliamentary democracies?
The electoral system set in the constitution is a majority wins system, most parliamentary systems have a proportional representation system. Where the proportion of votes a party gets determines how many seats that party gets. Also executive and legislative voting is seperate, where in parliamentary systems the winning party elects their executive (prime minister usually). American system has legislators elected by territory, rather than party list. (217-218)
What is aggregate public opinion?
The sum of all individual opinion, is stable and coherent. (414-415)
How did the first papers of the "penny press" attract new readers?
They cost a penny, but also began including human interest stories: crime, business, and social events. They muted party affiliations to attract broader audience, thus becoming more independent (financially too) (565)
Why did the Federal Communications Commission dismantle the fairness rules?
They dismantled the fairness doctrine (required radio to devote a share of airtime to public affairs in a fair and balance manner) because they thought it stopped shows from examining issues for fear of not being fair. (571)
Explain the fundamental dilemma that presidents face and its causes.
They have too little authority to satisfy what they are expected to do. They can't force legislators to vote the way he wants, he can't stop a terrorist attack, he can try to pass laws to increase aviation security, but when something bad happens, the president gets the blame. (311)
