Week 1- Constitutional: American Government

Directions: View the video below (rough transcript provided) and then take the 10-question quiz. There is no time limit and you may attempt the quiz up to two times. Your highest score will be recorded.

 iPad users: Click here to view the video. 

American Government

Talking Points

• Power and authority are at the heart of an understanding of government

• Power is the ability to get another to act in accord with one’s intentions. For example, if I tell the Air Force that they must build a B-52 Bomber so I can prank my friends...and they do it, then I have power.

• Authority is the legal right to use power. I think we can agree that I don’t have the authority to tell the Air Force to do anything.

• But authority is an important concept: we accept decisions from government if we believe they come from those who have the right to make them.

• The right to exercise power...Authority...usually comes from legal or constitutional sources.  This is a question of legitimacy.

• In the United States, the Constitution is almost universally accepted as a source of legitimacy.

• In the United States, the legitimacy of the government is also based on the concept of democracy.

• Democracy has become so ingrained in the American conscience that people extend its tenets to apply to other institutions (such as schools, universities, corporations, trade unions, and churches). Heck, I bet you even expect your families to be run democratically.

• Democracy has shades of meaning that must be understood in order to examine American government.

• Democracy has at least two widely used meanings:

• Aristotle put forth the most basic definition: government is democratic if all, or at least most, citizens participated directly by holding office and making policy. This is often called direct, or participatory, democracy (examples: Greece and Colonial New England...and not my childhood home). We also see forms of direct democracy today, such as referendums and recalls in various states.

• In a representative democracy, leaders gain office and power by means of a competitive contest for the votes of the people.  Because of limits on time, information, energy, interest, and expertise, it is impractical for the people to decide on all public issues, so representatives must be elected to formulate policy.  This is what most democratic nations practice today.  

• Representative government has many inherent problems:

• It prospers only when certain conditions are met.

• the opportunity for leadership competition (elections)

• free and untainted communication (speeches or media) so that voters can make meaningful choices.

• competition amongst political parties.

• The Framers of the Constitution clearly favored representative democracy...which we also refer to as “republicanism.”

• Most did not think that the will of the people was synonymous with the public good or even the common interest.

• Their philosophy was the government should mediate, not mirror, popular opinion.

• They assumed that most citizens do not have the time or knowledge to make good policy choices.

• Although representative democracy often proceeds slowly, a government capable of quickly doing great good would also be capable of quickly doing great harm.

• Representative democracy, they believed, is a way of controlling both a tyrannical majority and self-interested officeholders, thus assuring civil rights and liberties.