Political
Science: Micro-Fundamentals of an
Excellent Liberal Arts Education
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
A Note to My Readers >>>>> Introduction to a Series, Micro-
Fundamentals of An Excellent Liberal Arts Education
So wretched are curriculum and teacher quality
at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) that I have moved to expose the
deficiencies of the district in my Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect; and via
my Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal
Arts Education provide to my students in the New Salem Educational
Initiative with the education of excellence that they are not getting in MPS
schools.
In the cases of students who come to me
post-grade 8, time is of the essence;
thus, that I am now at work on a micro-version of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, so that my
students may take ACT or SAT exams and apply for and gain entrance to colleges
and universities upon the essence of the education that they should receive but
do not in MPS schools.
Below, readers will find Political Science: Micro-Fundamentals of
an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, the first of fourteen chapters that
condense my larger work to the most essential information pertinent to the
subject areas covered.
……………………………………………………………………..
Political
Science: Micro-Fundamentals of an
Excellent Liberal Arts Education
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
New Salem Educational Initiative
Introduction to Political Science and the
History of Governance
Political science is the study of who gets
what, when, where, why, and how. The
subject includes matters of theory and behavior and incorporates the subject
areas of government and civics (knowledge necessary to be a well-informed and
active citizen).
In history, political philosophers such as
Plato (ancient Greek), Aristotle (ancient Greek), and Confucius (ancient
Chinese); and the Enlightenment (Age of
Reason) thinkers Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes,
and Edmund Burke; pondered the
governmental framework that would best serve the interests the governed.
Plato thought that people were best governed
by philosopher kings in a society wherein people performed roles according to
the nature and lvewl of their, talents.
Aristotle generated a classification scheme using the concepts of
government by the one, the few, or the many.
Confucius thought the government was best entrusted to the morally
superior ruler in a hierarchical society of mutual respect and concern, within
the family and between ruler and ruled.
Montesquieu conceived the separation of governmental into equal branches
(executive, legislative, judicial). Jean
Jacques Rousseau posited the idea of the General Will, that widely prevailing
view of people in society as to the approach to governance that would best
serve their common good. John Locke
thought of governance as a social contract between the government and the
people, whereby government would protect citizen rights to life, liberty, and
property. Hobbes also thought of
governance as a social contract but emphasized the necessity of citizen
obedience, given that government protected them from conditions in the state of
nature that would be “nasty, brutish, and short.” Burke was another conservative who, having
witnessed the turbulence of the French Revolution (1789-1793). Thought that
obedience to monarchy and tradition best served the interests of the people.
Ancient Athens had featured a form of limited
democracy in which the participants were men who owned substantial
property; and Ancient Rome provided for
some expansion of political participation whereby people of substantial
property exercised political influence in Senate and people of more humble
means could elect leaders to a Tribunal.
But until the 19th century, most civilizations featured
governments in which one or a few rulers exercised power over other people in
highly stratified societies. During
feudal times in Europe, with close correlates in other regions of the globe,
aristocrats who owned most of the land by heredity dominated people who worked
the land as serfs. As weaponry and
commerce became more sophisticated, certain aristocrats were able to establish
authority over others and dominate larger territories that became nations. Thus, the monarchy was the common form of
government well into the 19th century.
Beginning with the Glorious Revolution
(1688-1689, characterized by concessions of monarchs William and Mary to
co-rule with Parliament) in England, though;
and under the inspiration of thinkers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
Locke, a tendency toward democracy became apparent during the 19th and 20th
centuries. But even in nations (England,
United States, France) in which the trend was most apparent, the expansion of
citizenship to include both genders and all ethnicities was very slow and
highly contentious.
Even as monarchy gave way to
republican (non-monarchical) government, many republics were led by
authoritarian rulers (dictators, autocrats).
In the early 21st century, a few monarchies remain but most
governments are authoritarian in reality, even if these regimes feature
constitutions or other documents that proclaim the principle of citizen rule. All societies are still struggling to resolve
issues of power focused on gender and ethnicity, but there are nations in the
world that operate more on the democratic principle than is the norm; examples include the Scandinavian nations,
the United Kingdom, France, many other European nations, Canada, the United
States, Japan, the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and Taiwan.
At mid-20th century,
governments of the world could be located on a continuum stretching from left
(communist: notably the Soviet Union and
the People’s Republic of China) through the middle (liberal democracies: notably the United States, most of Europe, Japan,
South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) to the right (fascists in Germany, Italy,
Spain, and Japan). In the years leading
up to and including World War II, the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler featured an extreme
form of fascism, Nazism, described by chauvinism (hyperbolic nationalism) and a
cruel creed espousing Aryan racial superiority.
Leaders of communist nations claimed to be following the political philosophy
of Karl Marx (see economics chapter) and to represent the masses of working people
(proletariat) but in practice leaders seemed stuck in a distorted version of
the dictatorship of the proletariat in which “dictatorship” was prime.
Both regimes of the right and those of
the left could be totalitarian (extremely authoritarian regimes
that dominated all facets of life): Both the Soviet Union led by Josef Stalin and
Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler were considered prototypical totalitarian
states by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt.
The world in the early decades of the
21st century, in addition to featuring a bevy of nations aligning from left to
center to right, also features a theocracy (state organized according to religious
principles) in Iran and movements that aspire to establish theocratic
regimes. Most of those involved in these
movements profess to be Muslims serving Allah, although most devout Muslims
disavow what they see as perverted forms of Islam. The zealotry of some in theocratic movements
has produced terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Among the liberal democracies of the
world, most are parliamentary (in which the leader of the majority party in
parliament serves as the prime minister);
the United States, by contrast, operates according to a presidential system
in which separate elections are held to determine membership of the United
States Congress and she or he who will serve as president.
Government in the United States
Government in the United States functions
in accordance with the United States (U. S.) Constitution, established in 1789
on the basis of federalism and thereby replacing the Articles of Confederation
that had been in force since 1781. The
principle of federalism undergirding the U. S. Constitution calls of separation
of powers of two sorts.
First, there is separation such as that
prescribed by Montesquieu, into legislative, executive, and judicial
branches. At the national level of
governance (federal government), the legislative branch consists of the United
States Congress, responsible for passing statutory legislation; the
executive branch includes the president and all of those people who make
up her or his administration who have the responsibility for carrying out laws
passed by Congress; and the judicial
branch, headed by the Supreme Court and responsible for making judgments as to
the constitutionality of statutory law and as to the legality of individual and
corporate actions.
Second, there is separation of power
between the national (federal) government and the governments of the
states. Only the national government has
the power to make laws relevant to foreign policy, military activity, and a
broad range of actions necessary to conduct federal governance
effectively. But any power not
explicitly outlined as a federal government prerogative is reserved for the
states. States generally establish
structures for government that also operate according to separation of
executive, legislative, and judicial functions.
The governor heads the executive branch, the lawmaking body is typically
called the state legislature; and the
judicial system is generally headed by a state supreme court.
At the national level of executive
governance, the president has a cabinet that includes Departments of Treasury,
Defense, State, Commerce, Labor, Education, Justice, Health and Human Services,
Energy, and Transportation. She or he
also has a number of key advisers, including Chief Presidential Adviser, Chief
of Staff, Chief Economic Adviser (who heads the Council of Economic Advisers),
and National Security Adviser. By
constitutional law, the president makes appointments for cabinet positions, for
members of the Supreme Court and for an array of positions necessary to carry
out executive governance; presidential
appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the Senate.
The U. S. Congress is divided into two
branches (bicameral system): the United
States Senate; and the United States
House of Representatives. Each state has
two senators. A senator serves a
six-year term. Each state has
representation in the House of Representatives based on the state’s
population. A representative (frequently
called, “congresswoman,” “congressman“
or “congressperson”) serves a
two-year term.
Senators are elected by all adult citizens
in the respective states.
Representatives are elected by members in their districts, the number of
these varying according to state (Minnesota has eight districts and thus eight
representatives in the United States House of Representatives). The president of the United States is
officially elected by the Electoral College.
Each state sends members to the Electoral College based on the sum total
of its senators and representatives (Minnesota therefore has ten members in the
Electoral College). There is a popular
election in each state; in most states
the winning candidate gets all of the votes from that state in the electoral
college. A presidential candidate must
get a majority of Electoral College
votes to be declared president; it is
possible to amass the majority 270 votes (total of 538, including three
electoral votes from the District of Columbia) necessary to win the electoral
college vote and be declared president without a majority in the popular vote.
A president of the United States must be at
least 35 years old and a natural citizen who has lived in the United States for
14 years; she or he serves a four-year
term and may stand for election twice. A United States Senator must be at least
30 years old and a U. S. citizen, either natural or naturalized. A member of the United States House of Representatives
must be at least 25 years old and a citizen, either natural or
naturalized.
Politicians in the United States are
generally classified as liberal, moderate, and conservative (see also Economics
chapter). Republicans tend to be
conservative, favoring limited governmental spending except for the military
and a slow pace of social change.
Democrats tend to be liberal, favoring spending more generously for
social programs than for the military and a faster pace of social change. Moderates (centrists, middle-of-the-roaders)
place themselves in between these two positions, according to the issue. Moderates may be found in either party, but there
has in recent decades been an inclination among politicians to align themselves
either with the liberal (progressive) or conservative position.
The terms liberal and conservative when
applied to Supreme Court justices are most applicable as focused on interpretation
of the United States Constitution. There
are nine members of the United States Supreme Court. They may serve until they opt to retire. Current members of the U. S. Supreme Court
include Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel A. Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett
Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and
Sonia Sotomayor. Alito, Gorsuch, and
Thomas are the staunch conservatives (strict constructionists who seek the
original intent of the Founders) among the current members of the Supreme
Court. Ginsburg, Kagan, and Breyer are
the liberals (emphasizing the contemporary context for application of
constitutional principles). Chief
Justice Roberts leans toward the conservative side but has flexibility that
occasionally might put him on the side of liberals, as in a key case involving
the Affordable Health Care Act. When Anthony
Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court in summer 2018, he was replaced after a contentious
Senate confirmation hearing by Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Kennedy had developed a reputation for unpredictability that
might in a given case have him voting with the conservatives but in another
case with the liberals. Kavanaugh has
only participated in a few Supreme Court decisions as of February 2019; he is considered likely to align his positions
firmly with the conservatives in the great majority of cases.
A major responsibility and power of the Supreme
Court is known as judicial review, which entails deciding if statutory
laws (laws passed by Congress) and actions taken by members of the executive
branch (including the president) are constitutional. This power accrued to the Supreme Court as a
result of the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall in the
1803 case, Marbury v. Madison.
No comments:
Post a Comment