American Political Culture and Values

American Political Culture and Values

• Encompasses individualism, equality of opportunity, free enterprise, rule of law, and limited government.
• Political culture constitutes the beliefs, customs, traditions, and values defining the citizen-government relationship.
• American values include individualism, equality of opportunity, free enterprise, rule of law, and limited government.
• Equality of opportunity means everyone should have the chance to succeed based on their effort, which differs from equality of result.
• Free Enterprise/Laissez-faire: Government intervention is minimized in economic transactions between citizens and businesses.
• Under Free Enterprise, the government does not set wages, prices, or production levels, leaving economic questions to individuals and businesses.
• The Rule of Law means everyone, including public officials, is subject to the law.
• Rule of Law entails that citizens and officials respect and abide by the law equally, guaranteeing fair trials, impartial juries, decisions based on precedents, and government transparency.
• Limited government ensures human beings possess inherent rights the government cannot infringe, facilitated through checks and balances, written constitutions, federalism, and a Bill of Rights.

Declaration of Independence

• Functions as a philosophical statement of natural rights
• Argues that governments exist to protect natural rights
• Claims citizens can rebel when the government infringes on their rights.

Federalist No. 51

• Explains checks and balances
• Argues that checks and balances limit government power and prevent the infringement of citizens' rights.

Federalist No. 58

• A collection of essays by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, written in 1788, stressing the need for a central government.
• Urged the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which was debated and drafted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
• It argued that the republican government could easily adapt to the large expanse of territory and widely divergent interests found in the USA.

Political Socialization

• This involves the experiences and factors shaping an individual’s political values, attitudes, and behaviors.
• Political ideology is understood as an individual’s coherent set of beliefs about government and politics.
• Family is the most important factor in the process of political socialization where party identification is strongly linked with the family's political beliefs and serves as a source of political information.
• Education helps transmit norms, teaches American civics, and introduces students to political participation and volunteering.
• Catholics and Jews lean more liberal, whereas White Catholics voted for Trump, Hispanic Catholics voted for Clinton, Evangelicals are among the most conservative, and Muslims strongly favor Democrats.
• Churches are influential due to doctoral positions, sermons, and social interactions among members.
• Civic engagement helps group members develop skills and experience in organizations.

Generational and Life-Cycle Effects

• Political views tend to change.
• Generational Effect: the impact of historical events experienced by a generation upon their political views
• Life-cycle Effect: the impact of a person's age and stage in life on his or her political views.
• Millennials are shaped by terrorism, like Baby Boomers are shaped by Vietnam and the Watergate Scandal.
• Younger people are generally less politically engaged than older people.

Globalization and American Core Values

• Globalization increases the interconnectedness of people, businesses, and countries throughout the world
• It blurs the lines between international and domestic politics
• America is no longer the only superpower: China is a global economic power that has built up military strength, and Russia aggressively asserts its interests in Europe.
• Other organizations that have a global impact beside countries are multinational corporations, companies that make, transport, and market foods and services in two or more countries.
• Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) are independent groups outside of the government that work towards a public cause.
• Interpersonal organizations (IGOs) challenge the sovereignty of countries, such as the European Union and the World Trade Organization.

Public Opinion

• Public opinion is the sum of individual attitudes about government, policies, and issues.

Scientific Polling

• Includes taking into account a representative sample of randomly selected respondents with a statistically significant sample size, using neutral language.
• A sample is a group of individuals from a larger population used to measure public opinion
• Random selection is a method of choosing all poll respondents in a way that does not over or underrepresent any group of the population
• A representative sample reflects the demographics of the population
• Pollsters sometimes use weighting to adjust the results of a survey according to the demographics of the larger population
• Sampling error is the margin of error in a poll which is usually calculated

Types of Surveys

• Straw polls are not reliable
• An entrance survey is a poll conducted of people who are coming into an event
• Exit polls are conducted by surveying after an event, or at a polling place, asking who or what individuals voted for and why
• Benchmark polls are surveys at the beginning of a political campaign to gauge support for candidates and determine issues that are important to voters.
• Tracking polls determine the level of support for a candidate or issue over the length of a campaign.

Survey Techniques

• Survey reliability and outcome can be affected by several factors.
• Random digit dialing involves using telephone numbers randomly generated by computer to select respondents
• Question order is the sequencing of questions in public opinion polls
• Question-wording is how a question in public opinion polls is phrased.

Public Opinion and Policymaking

• In the early 1990s, the public supported welfare reform, resulting in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.
• Only 3 in 10 Americans supported the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but it was passed by Congress in the fall of 2017, which was politically motivated by the Republican Congress, the Republican president, interest groups, and donors who wanted the results of the 2016 election.
• As more protects emerged in Ferguson in 2015, the public opinion shifted police tactics used in an attempt to change negative opinion.

Political Ideology

• It is a set of beliefs about the desired goals and outcomes of a process of governance
• Conservatism favors more control of social behavior, fewer regulations on businesses, and less government interference in the economy.
• Liberalism favors less government control over social behavior and greater regulation of businesses and the economy.
• Libertarianism favors little government regulation/intervention beyond protecting private property and individual liberty.
• Party ideology refers to a party's philosophy about the proper role of government and its set of positions on major issues.
• Party identification: an individual's attachment to a political party.

Economic Policy

• Laissez-faire is an economic policy in which governments intrude as little as possible in economic transactions between citizens and businesses, which includes free enterprise.
• Command-and-control economy dictates much of a nation's economic activity, including the amount of production and price for goods.
• Mixed Economy: many economic decisions are left to individuals and businesses, but the government regulates economic activity.
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP): the total value of goods and services produced by an economy.
• Economic Recession: a period of decline in economic activity typically defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
• Unemployment Rate: the percentage of people actively looking for work who cannot find jobs.
• Inflation: the rise in the prices of goods and services.

Keynesian Economics

• During times of expansion, individuals may make excessive, unwise investments, exacerbating the economic boom.
• During times of economic contraction, individuals may cut back on spending, exacerbating the contraction, which could lead to a national economic depression.
• Governmental policy counteract a contraction by injecting more money into the economy, which Democrats often support.
• Individual decisions drive business cycles. Boom encourages spending, and bust encourages cutbacks on spending, exacerbating contraction.
• Governmental policy should inject more money into the economy.

Supply Side

• It emphasizes the role of supply in fostering economic growth and is called "Reaganomics.”
• Critics argue that these policies are trickle-down economics that benefit the wealthy and that it is unlikely these benefits will make their way to individuals not directly impacted by lower tax rates
• Proponents claim that excessive taxation drags down the economy and the growth of businesses, of which Republicans support supply-side.

Monetary and Fiscal Policy

• Fiscal Policy: government use of taxes and spending to attempt to lower unemployment, support economic growth, and stabilize the economy, which is shaped by Congress/President and involves taxing/spending.
• Monetary Policy: a set of economic policy tools designed to regulate the amount of money in the economy by controlling the money supply through the Federal Reserve System.
• Medicare offers federal health insurance to seniors and the disabled
• Medicaid offers federal healthcare for the poor.

Other

• Individualism is the belief that individuals should be responsible for themselves and their decisions.
• Public Opinion is individual attitudes about government, policies, and issues.
• A Focus group is a small group of individuals assembled for conversation about specific issues