>Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota<, Volume V, No. 10, April 2019 >>>>> Article #3 >>>>> Political Science: Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education

Political Science:  Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education

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 19^th 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 19^th 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 20^th 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 21^st 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-20^th 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.