Transcript The Logic of American Politics

The Logic of American Politics
The Politics of “Choice”
Politics equals ‘Choice’
• Politics is how people try to manage conflict [choices]
• A good local example is the politics of the forest
– Endangered species-spotted owl and coho salmon
– The environment v. forests/lumber/jobs
– Global warming and hurricanes
• Who manages ‘choices’?
– The states or the federal government?
• Is the environment a federal issue or a state issue?
• The Kyoto Agreement-an example of a dilemma
Definitions to know
• Politics
• Government
• Constitution
– Positions of authority created
Choices require Collective Action
The Problems of Collective Action
• Coordination
Simplest barrier to overcome
Members of the group must decide what they want
What they are prepared to contribute to the goal
How they must coordinate their effort with others
• Prisoner’s Dilemma
Free-rider problem
The tragedy of the commons
Examples of the free-rider problem
• Voting
• Public Broadcasting
• The Draft
• Taxes
Examples of the tragedy of the commons
• Grazing animals on public land
• Cod fishing off of New England
• The Midwest and wheat growing
• The National Park Service
The costs of collective action
• The dollar cost of creating the project
• Overhead costs
• Transaction costs
The decision making process of
collective action
• Majority rule
• The rule of plurality
• Direct democracy
• Representative government
The general goal of collective action
Provision of Public Goods
• Private goods are the things people buy and consume
themselves in a marketplace that supplies these goods
according to the demand for them [capitalism]
• Public goods are provided
– Almost always through tax dollars [cost born collectively]
– For all to use freely [no one can be excluded from their benefits
• Examples of public goods are
• Examples of public ‘bads’ = externalities