American Government › Section A · Government and civic engagement › Topic A.1
What is government?
Every society has to decide how it keeps order, pays for shared needs and settles disagreements. Government is the set of institutions that makes those decisions binding, and the way it is organised shapes who holds power and whose rights are safe.
Government before breakfast
Before you leave home in the morning, government has already been busy. Federal and state rules set how clean your tap water must be, and a local utility delivers it. Federal agencies set the safety standards for the car or bus you ride and the labelling on your cereal box. A local school board chose your school's start time, and state law requires you to attend. Most of this goes unnoticed because it works quietly. This course asks how such decisions are made, who makes them, and how citizens can influence them.
Government, power and politics
Government is the set of institutions through which a society organises authority, makes rules that bind everyone, and pursues goals that people cannot reach alone, such as defence or a road network. Political power is influence over those institutions, their leaders and their policies. Power that people accept as rightful is called legitimate authority. Politics is the contest over gaining and using that power, especially over how scarce resources are shared out. The political scientist Harold Lasswell summed it up in the title of his 1936 book, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How.
What governments do
Governments everywhere keep order and protect people from attack, through armed forces, police and courts. They raise money through taxes on income, property and sales, then decide in budgets how to spend it. They provide services such as schools, mail delivery and help for people in poverty. They regulate markets, for example by setting food safety and pollution limits. Democratic governments also give citizens ways to be heard, through elections, a free press and the right to petition. In the United States these jobs are split among local, state and national governments.
Four kinds of goods
Economists sort goods with two questions. Is the good excludable: can people who do not pay be kept from using it? Is it rival: does one person's use leave less for others? Private goods, such as a sandwich, are both. Public goods, such as national defence or a flood barrier, are neither, so markets tend to under-supply them and governments step in. Toll goods, sometimes called club goods, are excludable but not rival, like a toll road or a streaming service. Common goods, such as fish in the ocean, are rival but hard to exclude people from.
Worked example: classifying goods
Sort four goods using the two questions. 1. A city fireworks show: anyone nearby can watch, and one more viewer does not spoil the view, so it is non-excludable and non-rival, a public good. 2. A bridge with a toll booth: non-payers are turned away, but one more car rarely crowds it, so it is a toll good. 3. Cod in the North Atlantic: hard to fence off, yet every fish caught is gone, so it is a common good. 4. A cinema ticket: excludable, and your seat is no one else's, so it is private. Check: each answer follows from the two questions alone.
Protecting common goods
Common goods face a special danger. Each fisher gains by catching more, yet if everyone does, the stock collapses and all lose. The ecologist Garrett Hardin called this pattern the tragedy of the commons in 1968. Governments respond with rules such as catch limits, fishing seasons and permits, aiming at sustainability, the use of a resource without exhausting it for future generations. These rules involve real disagreements. Conservation groups often press for stricter limits, while many commercial fishers argue that tight limits threaten their livelihoods, so regulators weigh scientific advice against economic costs.
Governments and economic systems
A form of government answers who rules; an economic system answers who owns and directs production. The two are related but not the same. In capitalism, private owners run most businesses for profit in competitive markets; the Scottish thinker Adam Smith defended this in The Wealth of Nations in 1776. In socialism, the state or the public owns major industries. Most real economies are mixed. The United States combines a largely market economy with public programmes and regulation. Some one-party states, such as China, call themselves socialist, while democracies differ widely in how much they tax, spend and regulate.
Forms of government
In a democracy, political power rests with the people. In a direct democracy, citizens vote on laws themselves, as adult male citizens did in the assembly of ancient Athens. In a representative democracy, citizens elect officials to make laws for them. In a monarchy, one ruler, usually hereditary, holds the top office; absolute monarchs, as in Saudi Arabia, face few legal limits, while constitutional monarchs, as in the United Kingdom, mainly have ceremonial roles. In an oligarchy, a small group rules. A totalitarian government, such as North Korea's, seeks control over nearly every part of life and tolerates no opposition.
The United States: a republic
The United States is a representative democracy, which the founders called a republic. Article IV of the Constitution promises: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government". Voters elect members of Congress, presidential electors, governors, state legislators, mayors and school boards. Elements of direct democracy survive too: many states let voters decide ballot measures, and some New England towns still govern through town meetings. Decisions usually follow majority rule, but the Constitution also protects minority rights, freedoms that no ordinary majority can vote away.
Worked example: majority rule meets minority rights
Suppose voters in a town approve, by 70 percent to 30, a law forbidding a small religious group to hold services. 1. Majority rule: the measure won, so in a pure majoritarian system it would stand. 2. The Constitution: the First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, and the Fourteenth Amendment applies that protection against state and local governments. 3. Enforcement: a member of the group could sue, and a court would very likely strike the law down. 4. Conclusion: American democracy lets majorities choose leaders and policies, but within limits set to protect individual rights.
Common mistakes to avoid
First, treating democracy and capitalism as the same thing: one describes who rules, the other who owns and directs production. Second, calling every service a government provides a public good; public schooling, for example, is excludable in principle, even though it is free to pupils. Third, assuming a republic cannot be a democracy: a republic is a form of representative democracy. Fourth, thinking every monarch holds real power. Fifth, believing majority rule means the majority can do anything; constitutional rights limit it.
Key takeaways
Government is the set of institutions that makes binding decisions and pursues collective goals; politics is the contest over who gets what, when and how. Governments keep order, tax and spend, provide services, regulate markets and give citizens a voice. Goods are private, public, toll or common, depending on whether they are excludable and rival, and common goods need protection from overuse. Forms of government include direct and representative democracy, monarchy, oligarchy and totalitarianism. The United States is a republic that combines majority rule with protected minority rights.
Flashcards
Flashcard
The institutions through which a society makes binding rules and pursues collective goals
Test your understanding
Question 1 of 5
A city offers a public park that anyone may enter free, where one more visitor rarely crowds anyone else. Using the two questions about goods, how should the park be classified?
Question 2 of 5
Why do governments set catch limits for ocean fisheries?
Question 3 of 5
Which statement best distinguishes a form of government from an economic system?
Question 4 of 5
In which system does a single hereditary ruler hold an office that today is mostly ceremonial, while elected lawmakers govern?
Question 5 of 5
Town voters approve a law banning a small religious group's services by 70 percent to 30. What is the most likely outcome in the United States?