Transcript People and Politics - Cathedral High School

People and Politics
Political Culture
• Political culture is a distinctive and
pattered way of thinking about how
political and economic life ought to be
carried out.
Five Elements of the American
view of the political system
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Liberty
Equality
Democracy
Civic Duty
Individual Responsibility
Liberty
• People are free to do as they please as
long as we do not hurt other people
• Liberty over authority
• Freedom over responsibility
• Americans are preoccupied with rights
• Rights over Duties
Equality
• Political Equality
• Equal treatment under the law
• One man one vote
• Equal chance to hold public office
• Economic Equality
• Equal opportunity
• Not Equal results
• Social background, race,, religion, and gender
should not limit opportunity to achieve to the best
of our ability
Democracy
• Government of the people, by the people,
and for the people
• Government officials should be
accountable to the people
Civic Duty
• Civic duty is the belief that one has an
obligation to participate in civic and
political affairs
• People ought to take community affairs seriously
• People ought to help out when they can
Individual Responsibility
• Individuals are responsible for their own
actions and wellbeing
• A persistent commitment to the individual
• Concern for preserving individual freedom
of choice and what if any limits
• Limits generate intense conflict
Other American Democratic Values
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Power to the People
Democratic Consensus
Justice and Rule of Law
Nationalism, Optimism, and Idealism
Political Ideology
• Ideology – One’s basic beliefs about
power, political values, and role of
government
• Beliefs that arise out of education, economic, and
social conditions and experiences
• It includes the views that people have about how
government should work and how it actually works
• Links values to policies
• People can disagree on ideology but share a
political culture
Ideologies
• Contemporary Liberalism
• Belief in the positive use of government to bring
about justice equality of opportunity
• Preserve rights of the individual and private
property
• Government should intervene into the economy to
remedy defects in capitalism
• Government should provide against inadequate or
deficient healthcare, housing, and education
• Generally, believe in affirmative action, worker’s
safety and health protections, tax rates that rise
with income, and union’s right to organize and
strike
• Believe in progress and change
• Trust government programs
• Conservatism
• A belief limited government ensures order,
competitive markets, and personal opportunity
• Private property and belief in enterprise are central
attributes of conservatism
• Keep government small, especially national
government, except in national defense
• Believe in strong leadership institutions, firm laws,
and strict moral codes to ensure social order
• Believe in individual responsibility
• Believe change in moderation
• Socialism
• An economic and government system based on
public ownership of the means of production and
exchange
• Socialism has been combined with democracy –
Democratic Socialism
• Socialism and totalitarian governments combined
is simply referred to as Totalitarian Socialism
• American Socialism
• There are a few examples – favor
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Expanded role for government
Nationalize certain industries
Institute public jobs program
Steeper tax burden on the wealthy
Drastically cut defense spending
• Environmentalism
• An ideology that is dominated by concern for the
environment but also promotes grass-roots
democracy, social justice, equal opportunity,
nonviolence, respect for diversity, and feminism
• Associated with the so called “Green Movement”
• Libertarianism
• An ideology that cherishes individual liberty and
insists on sharply limited government, promoting a
free-market economy, a noninterventionist foreign
policy, and an absence of regulation in the moral
and social spheres
• Opposition to most all government programs
• Massive cuts in government spending
• Abolish government agencies – FBI, CIA, and
regulatory agencies
• Oppose participation in the UN
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Make war only if attacked
Decriminalization of drugs
Abolish income tax
Withdraw American troops from abroad
Public Opinion
• The distribution of individual preferences
for, or evaluation of, a given issue,
candidate, or institution within a specific
population
• Distribution means the proportion of the population
that holds a particular opinion
• The framers of the Constitution intended to give
the people an active voice in governing
• The framers also wanted to insulate the
government from the shifting whims of ill-informed
public opinion
• Methods of measuring public opinion
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Political party organizations
Interest groups
The media
Scientific polling
– Three steps
» Selecting a sample
» Presenting carefully worded questions
» Interpreting the results
Where do we get our public
opinions and values?
• The process by which we develop our
political attitudes, beliefs, and values is
called political socialization
• Starts in childhood
» Children learn the content of our culture in childhood
and adolescence but reshape it as they mature
• Socialization lays the foundation for our political
beliefs , values, ideas, ideology , and partisanship
(party preference)
• Nationalism is a common element of socialization
• The sources of our views are varied due to our
pluralistic political culture
• Political attitudes may originate in religious, racial, gender,
ethnic, or economic beliefs and values
• We form our attitudes in groups
• Family
• Schools
• Social Organizations
• Everyone is exposed to the mass media
• The media acts as agents of socialization
• Our choice of media source is selective and people often
choose sources they agree
• Often the media influences what we think about but not
always what to think