MAKING SENSE OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Can we find order in the apparent chaos of politics? Yes. Doing so is precisely the job of political scientists and is in fact the purpose of this text. The discipline of political science, especially the study of American politics, seeks to identify and explain patterns in all the noise and maneuvering of everyday political life. This inquiry is motivated by two fundamental questions: What do we observe? And why?
The first question makes clear that political science is an empirical enterprise: it aims to identify facts and patterns that are true in the world around us. What strategies do candidates use to capture votes? How do legislators decide how to vote on bills? What groups put pressure on the institutions of government? How do the media report on politics? How have courts regulated political life? These questions (and many others) have prompted political scientists to observe and ascertain what is true about the political world, and we will take them up in detail in later chapters.
The second question—Why?—is the fundamental concern of science. We not only want to know whether something is, in fact, true about the world. We also want to know why it is true, which requires us to create a theory of how the world works. And a theory is constructed from basic principles. The remainder of this chapter presents a set of such principles to help us navigate the apparent chaos of politics and make sense of what we observe. In this way we not only describe politics but also analyze it.
Political science also asks a third type of question that is normative rather than empirical or analytical. Normative questions focus on “should” issues, rather than empirical “what” issues or analytical “why” issues: What should the responsibilities of citizenship be? How should judges judge and presidents lead? In this book we believe that answers to the empirical and analytical questions help us formulate answers to the normative questions.
One of the most important goals of this book is to help readers learn to analyze what they observe in American politics.1 Such analysis requires thinking about politics in an abstract, as opposed to specific, way. For example, in political science, we are not much interested in an “analysis” that explains only why the Democrats gained congressional seats in the 2018 elections or why the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests were so close. Such explanations are the province of pundits, journalists, and other commentators. Rather, we seek a more general theory of voting choice that we can apply to many particular instances—not just the 2020 elections but the 2022 and 2024 elections as well.
In this chapter, we first discuss what we mean by government and politics. Then we introduce our five principles of politics. These principles are intentionally somewhat abstract because we want them to apply to a wide range of circumstances. However, we provide concrete illustrations along the way, and in later chapters we will apply the principles intensively to specific features of politics and government in the United States. We conclude the chapter with a guide to analyzing evidence, something you will find useful as we examine empirical information throughout the rest of the book.
What Is Government?
Government is the term generally used to describe the formal political arrangements by which a land and its people are ruled. Government is composed of institutions and processes that rulers use to strengthen and perpetuate their power or control. A government may be as simple as a small council that meets occasionally to advise a leader or as complex as our own vast establishment, with elaborate procedures, laws, governmental bodies, and bureaucracies. This more complex kind of government is sometimes called the state, an abstract concept referring to the source of all public authority.
Forms of Government
Governments vary in institutional structure, size, and modes of operation. Two key questions help us determine how governments differ: Who governs? And how much government control is permitted?
In some nations political authority is vested in a single individual—a king or dictator, for example. This state of affairs is called an autocracy. When a small group of landowners, military officers, or wealthy merchants controls most of the governing decisions, the government is an oligarchy. If more people participate and the populace has some influence over decision making, the government is tending toward democracy.
Governments also vary in terms of how much they control. In the United States and some other nations, governments are severely limited in what they are permitted to control (they are restricted by substantive limits) as well as in how they exercise that control (they are restricted by procedural limits). These are called constitutional governments. In other nations, the law imposes few real limits on the government, but government is nevertheless kept in check by other political and social institutions that it does not control, such as autonomous territories or an organized church. Such governments are called authoritarian. In a third, very small group of nations, including the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, Nazi Germany, and present-day North Korea, governments not only are free of legal limits but also seek to eliminate organized social groups that might challenge their authority. These governments attempt to dominate political, economic, and social life and, as a result, are called totalitarian.
Politics
The term politics broadly refers to conflicts over the character, membership, and policies of any group or organization. As the political scientist Harold Lasswell once put it, politics is the struggle over “who gets what, when, how.”2 Although politics exists in any organization, in this book politics refers to conflicts over the leadership, structure, and policies of governments—that is, over who governs and who has power. But politics also involves collaboration and cooperation. The goal of politics, as we define it, is to influence the composition of the government’s leadership, how the government is organized, or what its policies will be.
Politics takes many forms. Individuals may run for office, vote, join political parties and movements, contribute money to candidates, lobby public officials, participate in demonstrations, write letters, talk to their friends and neighbors, go to court, and engage in numerous other activities. Some forms of politics are aimed at gaining power, some at influencing those in power, and others at bringing new people to power and throwing the old leaders out. Those in power use myriad strategies to try to achieve their goals. Power, in short, is valued in politics, but not always for its own sake. Power is sought as a means to attaining certain ends—to elevate some people and remove others, to introduce policies, or to preserve old ones.3
Glossary
- government
- The institutions through which a land and its people are ruled.
- autocracy
- A form of government in which a single individual rules.
- oligarchy
- A form of government in which a small group of landowners, military officers, or wealthy merchants controls most of the governing decisions.
- democracy
- A system of rule that permits citizens to play a significant part in government, usually through the selection of key public officials.
- constitutional government
- A system of rule that establishes specific limits on the powers of the government.
- politics
- Conflict and cooperation over the leadership, structure, and policies of government.
- totalitarian government
- A system of rule in which the government’s power is not limited by law and in which the government seeks to eliminate other social institutions that might challenge it.
Endnotes
- For an entire book devoted to the issue of political analysis, see Kenneth A. Shepsle, Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 2010).Return to reference 1
- Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (New York: Meridian, 1958).Return to reference 2
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We distinguish between power and authority. Power deals with who can, in fact, make decisions and influence outcomes, whereas authority deals with who has the right, in principle, to make decisions. The powerful may not always have the authority to do what they do, and those authorized to do things may not be very effective (that is, powerful) in accomplishing their goals.Return to reference 3