The Logic of American Politics

1. The Logic of American Politics Chapter One

2. The Logic of American Politics • Choices breed conflict. • Conflicting interests. • Conflicting values. • Conflicting ideas about how to allocate limited resources.

3. The Logic of American Politics • Politics is how people attempt to manage conflict. • What happens when politics fails? • Anarchy. • Civil war. • Successful politics almost always requires bargaining and compromise. • Bargaining: the give and take between two parties when coming to an agreement. • Compromise: agreement on a decision that two parties accept. • Preferences = “givens.”

4. The Logic of American Politics • Effective political institutions. • Set of rules and procedures for negotiations. • Examples: • Impeachment trial in Senate. • Harrington Treatise. • The Constitution.

5. Constitutions and Governments • Constitutions. • To guide an organization’s members in making essentially political decisions. • What are political decisions? • Why is it hard for nations to make them? • Larger number of participants. • Issues may be complex. • Monitoring and enforcing agreements made by participants may be difficult.

6. Constitutions and Governments • Success in political decision making depends on: • Development of good constitutions. • Aconstitution of a nation establishes its governing institutions and the set of rules and procedures these institutions must (and must not) follow to reach and enforce collective agreements. • Range. • Highly formal, such as U.S. Constitution. • An informal “understanding” based on precedent and common law, Great Britain.

7. Constitutions and Governments • Agovernment consists of those institutions and the legally prescribed process for making and enforcing collective agreements. • Monarchy. • Representative democracy. • Theocracy. • Dictatorship.

8. Authority versus Power • Authority: The ability to make decisions-independent of the power to enforce them. • The acknowledged right of the office to make a particular decision for all participants (book). • Assigned to the office, not to the individual. • The organization of effective institutions prevents an individual from usurping power from it. • Authority is distinguished from power. • Power: The exercise of influence or authority. • refers to actual influence. • Ability to exercise one’s will onto others.

9. Authority v. Power • Examples of Authority: • Congress has the authority to pass laws. • Lay & collect taxes (16th amendment) • Mayor/Council has authority to make ordinances. • Examples of Power: • Executive Departments have the power to enforce laws. • IRS makes sure that you pay your taxes. • Police has power to enforce laws.

10. Authority v. Power • A person who has the power to enforce, also has the authority to make decisions. • A police officer has the power to enforce the law by pulling you over, he also has the authority to only give you a warning. • Other examples????

11. Institutional Durability • Institutions tend to be stable and resist change. • Reasons: • Institutions persist beyond the tenure of officeholders who occupy them. • Content with the status quo. • Discontented cannot agree on alternatives.

12. The Political System’s Logic • Core values embedded in our institutions. • Elections as a means of popular rule. • Equally fundamental notion of protection of individual liberties. • Logic based on principles about how members of a community should engage one another politically in order to identify and pursue their common goals.

13. Collective Action Problems • What is it? • “The efforts of a group to reach and implement agreements.” (page 10) • May involve: • Comparing preferences (coming to compromise). • Agreeing on a course of action that is preferable to doing nothing (is there a need for action?). • Implementing and enforcing the collective choice (how do we do this?).

14. Collective Action Problems • Two classes of challenges to efforts of a group to reach and implement agreements: • Coordination. • Problem increases with size of group. • ie: US Senate v. US House • Solutions. • Delegation, self-enforcing rules, focal point. • Prisoner’s dilemma. • Free riding: • Tragedy of the commons: • Solutions. • Make reneging and defection very expensive or participating rewarding. • Create institutions that guarantee that agreements are honored.

15. The Costs of Collective Action • Collective action offers participants benefits they cannot achieve on their own. • But participation may require some cost. • The key: to minimize costs. • Costs may be material. • Other costs: transaction and conformity costs.

16. Transaction and Conformity Costs • Transaction costs. • The time, effort, and resources required to compare preferences and make collective decisions. • Increase when the number of participants rise. • Conformity costs. • The difference between what any one party prefers and what the collective body requires. • Paying one’s taxes. • Serving in Iraq. • Transaction and conformity costs tend to be inversely related. • Can be manipulated. • HOW????

17. Discussion • In small groups, think about and discuss the statement below: “Explain the concept of the prisoner’s dilemma using the politics around President Bush’s plan for privatizing parts of social security. Identify & discuss TWO distinct ways to avoid negative consequences of defection when faced with the prisoner’s dilemma.”

18. Designing Institutions for Collective Action • Examples of attempts to manipulate transaction and conformity costs: • Majority rule. • Delegation. • When modified and combined they provided the Framers with many means to adjust the mix of transaction and conformity costs.

19. Majority Rule • Majority rule normally refers to simple majorities or one-half plus one. • Political equality. • Each citizen’s vote carries the same weight. • Same opportunity to participate. • If disagreements arise, the more widely shared preference will prevail. • Explicitly required in limited number of instances in the Constitution.

20. Delegation • Delegation is by far the favored solution to controlling transaction costs. • It assigns authority to make and implement decisions to some smaller number of persons who act on behalf of the larger group. • Principals. • Agents. • Agency loss.

21. Representative Government • Modern democracies blend delegation with majority rule into what is known as representative government. • Direct democracy. • Citizens participate directly in collective decision making. • No agents. • Representative democracy. • Republics.

22. Majority Rule versus Republics • A republic is a form of government designed to allow some degree of popular control and avoid tyranny. • Voters elect their representatives. • Representatives are constrained in following the majority’s dictates. • Constitutional guarantees for minorities. • Institutions and rules requiring exceptionally large majorities for some kinds of decisions.

23. Majority Rule versus the Republic • Parliamentary government. • Fuses executive and legislature. • System promotes majority rule through parties that control the legislature and the executive. • Lessens transaction costs.

24. Politicians • Professionals. • Public servants or entrepreneurs? • Specialize in pulling together coalitions. • Behave strategically. • What does it mean to behave strategically?

25. The Work of Government • Private goods. • Market provides. • Toll road, cars, prom dresses, Ipods, cheeseburgers. • Individually purchased, individually consumed. • Public goods. • Government provides. • National safety, clean air and water. • Cost born collectively, everyone benefits. • Mixed goods/collective goods more accurate name. • Public “bads” or externalities.

26. Mitigating Popular Passions • American government: a republic whose framework is defined by the Constitution. • Majority rule is visibly present, it is also constrained by some powerful rules. • Separation of powers. • Staggered legislative terms. • An unelected judiciary. • Limited national authority.

27. Mitigating Popular Passions • Understanding the logic of such a complex set of institutions is important to understanding the nature of our own governance and the trade-offs that must occur in any process of collective decision making.