POLS 34102 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Supreme Court Of The United States, United States Congress, Federal Government Of The United States
12 Oct 2018
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Department
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POLS 34102
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
CH 01 OUTLINE
What Americans Think about Government
1. Americans historically have been reluctant to grant government too much power and have
often been suspicious of politicians, but they have also turned to the government for assistance in
times of need and have strongly supported it in periods of war.
2. Public trust in government has declined since high points in the 1960s and in the aftermath of
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, reaching a new low in 2015. Low levels of trust in
government have helped fuel support for "outsider" candidates, critical of government, in the
2016 presidential elections.
3. Political efficacy is the belief that citizens can affect what government does. In recent decades,
the public's trust in government has declined. As public distrust of government has increased, so
has public dissatisfaction with the government's performance.
4. Americans today are less likely to think that they can influence what the government does.
This view has led to increased apathy, declining political participation, and withdrawal from
political life.
Citizenship: Knowledge and Participation
1. Informed and active membership in a political community is the basis for citizenship. Citizens
require political knowledge to be aware of their interests in a political dispute, to identify the best
ways of acting on their interests, and to know what they cannot or should not ask of politicians
and the government. However, today many Americans have significant gaps in their political
knowledge.
2. Opportunities for political knowledge and participation have migrated online, creating a new
concept of digital citizenship.
Government
1. Government is the term used to describe the formal institutions through which a land and its
people are ruled. Governments vary in their structure, their size, and the way they operate.
2. Beginning in the seventeenth century, two important changes began to take place in the
governance of some Western nations: governments began to acknowledge formal limits on their
power and they began to give citizens a formal voice in politics through the vote.
3. As Harold Lasswell, a famous political scientist, put it, politics is the struggle over "who gets
what, when, how." The term politics refers to conflicts and struggles over the leadership,
structure, and policies of governments.
4. Politics can take many forms, including blogging, sending emails to government officials,
voting, lobbying legislators, and participating in protest marches and even violent demonstrations.
Who Are Americans?
1. As the American population has grown, it has become more diverse. In the early years of the
Republic, the majority of Americans were European settlers, mainly from northern Europe. One in
five Americans was of African origin, and the vast majority of this group had been brought to the
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United States against their will to work as slaves. There was also an unknown number of Indians,
the original inhabitants of the land, who were not initially counted by the census.
2. In the 1800s and early 1900s, a large wave of immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and, later,
from southern and eastern Europe changed the demographic profile of the United States. As the
population of foreign-born residents reached 14.7 percent in 1910, a movement to limit
immigration gained ground. After World War I, Congress placed sharp limits on immigration. It
also established the National Origins Quota System, which was designed to limit the numbers of
immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.
3. From the start, the American government used racial and ethnic criteria to draw boundaries
around the American population. Until 1870, nonwhites could not become naturalized citizens. In
addition, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 outlawed the entry of Chinese laborers to the United
States, a restriction that was not reversed until 1943.
4. In 1965, Congress opened the doors to immigrants once again. At the same time, it greatly
expanded the number of immigrants who could come from Asia and Latin America. The American
population has become much more diverse as a result. European Americans accounted for less
than two-thirds of the population in 2012. The African American population stood at 13 percent,
and, reflecting the new immigration, Hispanics accounted for 17 percent and Asian Americans for
5 percent of the American population. In 2012, 13 percent of the population was foreign-born. A
small percentage of the population now identifies itself as of "two or more races." The biracial
category points toward a future in which the traditional labels of racial identification may be
blurring.
American Political Culture
1. Most Americans affirm the values of liberty, equality, and democracy, but sharing broad values
does not guarantee political consensus. Nonetheless, the values, beliefs, and attitudes that form
our political culture date back to the time of the founding of the Union.
2. For Americans, liberty means personal and economic freedom, both of which are closely linked
to the idea of limited government. Most Americans share the ideal of equality of opportunity,
which is the notion that all people should be given a fair chance to use their talents to reach their
fullest potential. In a democracy, power ultimately comes from the people, an idea known as
popular sovereignty.
American Political Culture and Your Future
1. Despite mounting distrust in government, when asked about particular government programs,
a majority of Americans are more than likely to support the activities that government
undertakes. As the demographics of the United States change, these conflicting views reflect the
tensions in American political culture: there is no perfect balance between liberty, equality, and
democracy.
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Document Summary
Low levels of trust in government have helped fuel support for outsider candidates, critical of government, in the. 2016 presidential elections: political efficacy is the belief that citizens can affect what government does. In recent decades, the public"s trust in government has declined. As public distrust of government has increased, so has public dissatisfaction with the government"s performance: americans today are less likely to think that they can influence what the government does. This view has led to increased apathy, declining political participation, and withdrawal from political life. Informed and active membership in a political community is the basis for citizenship. Citizens require political knowledge to be aware of their interests in a political dispute, to identify the best ways of acting on their interests, and to know what they cannot or should not ask of politicians and the government.
