Chapter 1

Five Principles of Politics

Theodore J. Lowi

Benjamin Ginsberg

Kenneth A. Shepsle

Stephen Ansolabhere

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

POWER & PURPOSE

Why are you here?

• Let’s make a deal…

– Will you take a one question test?• With VERY high stakes??

Who is this person?

Who is this person?

Who is this person?

Making Sense of Government and Politics

• Two fundamental questions about government and politics:– What do we observe? An empirical question– Why? A fundamental concern of science.

Requires building a theory around principles– A third question could be normative

• Two objectives:– What is government and politics?– Introduce our five principles of politics

What is Government?

• The institutions and procedures through which a land and its people are ruled

• Governments may be simple, like a tribal council that makes all decisions, or they may be complex, like our own system of separate branches and levels of government

Discussion: Government in a Farming Society

• Imagine that everyone in this room is a farmer in our own self-contained society

• We’re all equal in every respect

• One of us proposes to build an irrigation system

• How do we make decisions?

Forms of Government:Inclusiveness

• Autocracy – A single individual rules• Oligarchy – A small group of landowners,

military officers, or wealthy merchants rules

• Democracy – A system of rule that permits citizens to play a significant part in the governmental process

Forms of Government: Recognition of Limits

• Constitutional – Formal and effective limits are placed on the powers of government

• Authoritarian – No formal limits are placed on government but government may be effectively limited by other social institutions

• Totalitarian – No formal or effective limits on government’s power of any kind

Clicker Question

Imagine a hypothetical society in which a king has almost total power but is constrained in his coercive power by the church. This government would best be described as a(n):

A.authoritarian democracy.B.constitutional autocracy.C.totalitarian oligarchy.D.authoritarian autocracy.

Imagine a hypothetical society in which a king has almost total power but is constrained in his coercive power by the church. This government would best be described as a(n):

A.authoritarian democracy.B.constitutional autocracy.C.totalitarian oligarchy.D.authoritarian autocracy.

Clicker Question

What is Politics?

• The conflicts and struggles over the leadership, structure, and policies of government

• Politics takes many forms – voting, running for office, joining groups and parties, lobbying, and even speaking to friends and neighbors

• The 5 principles of politics can be used to explain political action

Introducing the 5 Principles of Politics

• All political behavior has a purpose

• Institutions structure politics

• All politics is collective action

• Political outcomes are the products of individual preferences, institutional procedures, and collective action

• How we got here matters

Rationality Principle

• All political behavior has a purpose

• Political behavior is instrumental– Not random– Done with forethought– Calculation

• Political actors pursue policy preferences, reelection, power, and to maximize their agency budgets

Institution Principle

• Institutions structure politics

• Institutions are the rules and procedures that provide incentives for political behavior

• Remember that institutions themselves are not necessarily permanently fixed. Rules may change; they just don’t change easily

Institutions Provide Authority in Four Ways

• Jurisdiction – The domain over which decisions may be made

• Agenda and Veto Power – Control over what a group will consider for discussion and the ability to defeat something

• Decisiveness – Rules for decision making

• Delegation – Transmission of authority

Principal-Agent Relationship

• May be affected by the fact that each is motivated by self-interest, yet their interests may not be well-aligned

• As a result, the principal needs to have some way to monitor and validate what the agent is doing

• This leads to transaction costs – the cost of clarifying the relationship and making sure arrangements are complied with

Collective Action Principle

• All politics is collective action

• Collective action is difficult and the difficulty mounts as the number of people and interests involved grows

• Sometimes there are collective action dilemmas – situations in which individually rational incentives do not align with shared, collective interests

A Collective Dilemma

Collective Action and Public Goods

• Collective action is the pooling of resources and the coordination of effort and activity to achieve common goals

• Public goods are those that may be enjoyed by anyone and may not be denied to anyone

Collective Action is Difficult

• Collective action and provision of public goods becomes even more difficult as the number of parties involved increases or as the ability to bargain face-to-face is hampered. Examples:– Free Riding– Tragedy of the Commons

• Institutions are the solutions to these problems

Clicker Question

Which of the following is NOT an example of a collective dilemma?

A. free-riding.

B. tragedy of the commons.

C. formal bargaining.

D. prisoner’s dilemma.

Which of the following is NOT an example of a collective dilemma?

A. free-riding.

B. tragedy of the commons.

C. formal bargaining.

D. prisoner’s dilemma.

Clicker Question

Policy Principle

• Political outcomes are the products of individual preferences and institutional procedures

• The policy principle is the logical combination of the first three principles

• Policy outcomes are frequently “lacking in neatness” because we have a system where personal ambition mixes with a decentralized political system

History Principle

• How we got here matters

• Path dependency – certain possibilities are made more or less likely because of the historical path taken

• Three reasons why history matters:– Rules and procedures– Loyalties and alliances– Historically-conditioned points of view

A member of Congress seeks to bring additional dollars home to his districts for construction of roads and bridges. This is an example of the:

A.Institution Principle.B.Rationality Principle.C.History Principle.D.Collective Action Principle.

Clicker Question

A member of Congress seeks to bring additional dollars home to his districts for construction of roads and bridges. This is an example of the:

A.Institution Principle.B.Rationality Principle.C.History Principle.D.Collective Action Principle.

Clicker Question

The Five Principles of Politics Applied to a Case

Take the example of immigration reform and think about how each of the principles of politics might inform the debate

– Rationality Principle– Institution Principle– Collective Action Principle– Policy Principle– History Principle

2830

41

1