Hello and welcome to our first substantive
lecture for this political science 15 course. This lecture's opening slide features a painting
of Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the committee tasked to draft the Declaration of Independence
presenting the original draft of that document to the presiding officer of the Second Continental
Congress before that body edited and ultimately adopted it on July 4th 1776. For this lecture
we will cover a basic introduction to political science, the concepts of government and politics
in general, and a general overview of the course as a whole. The readings covered for this video
will be the Bardes et al., American government textbook chapter one. Political science as
its own separate and distinct field of study, as something a university student could major in,
is relatively new in higher education starting in the late 19th century at least in the US. Google
here provides a simple single sentence definition: "the branch of knowledge that deals with systems
of government the analysis of political activity and behavior." Now, while this is a great single
sentence definition, we should be asking ourselves what exactly do we mean by "government?"
what do we mean by the word "political?" as well as the words "activity" and "behavior?"
Whose activity and behavior are we concerned with? But, most simply, political science is the
study of politics, as vague and all-encompassing a definition as that might be. The study of politics
in general started in the West with works by Plato and Aristotle in the 5th and 4th century BC Athens
and has developed into a long tradition that has historically been couched under the wide umbrella
of "Humanities." I have here some examples of some of these works. As it is today, political
science as a major has a handful of subfields as listed here: American politics is of course the
study of American politics and can cover American institutions such as the US Congress, President
or state governments, just to name a few. This course will be primarily couched within the
subfield of American politics. Political theory as a subfield concerns itself with more theoretical
questions such as, "What is justice?," "What is the best way to rule?" or "How can we explain
and theorize a certain political phenomenon such as democratic rule?" Comparative Politics
concerns itself with comparing the institutions or politics of different countries. This could look
like comparing democracies to other democracies or various civil wars within different countries.
International Relations concerns itself with issues of how countries interact with
one another at the international level. For example, IR studies can look at
questions of international war and peace or international government organizations such
as the United Nations or the European Union. Political Economy is sometimes distinguished as
its own sub-field, but is usually seen as a part of international relations. It looks at the global
economy as it pertains to international politics. Finally, Behavioral Politics looks at questions
of political behavior of various political actors such as voters or politicians and may do so
through the lens of race, gender, religion, or other demographic characteristics. These subfields
often overlap and can incorporate methods that are historical, philosophical, psychological,
statistical and use both qualitative and quantitative data, and recently many studies have
begun to mix these forms of data and methods. To hopefully clear up some of the ambiguities
of the definitions of the previous slides we have some nice definitions of these terms
from our textbook. First and foremost we have "politics" which our textbook defines as "the
struggle over power influence within organizations or in formal groups that can grant or withhold
benefits or privileges." In other words, it is "who gets what, when, and why."
"Institutions" on the other hand are "an ongoing organization that performs certain functions for
society." Institutions serve as the mechanism by which politics and other social functions can meet
and operate within. Institutions can be churches, schools, or, for our purposes here, a governmental
body such as Congress or the Federal Reserve. And finally, we have "government." "Government"
is "an institution that has the ultimate authority for making decisions that resolve conflicts
and allocate benefits and privileges within a society." Government is the general institution in
which the process and operation of politics plays itself out; it is the authority or authoritative
institution in a society that decides many questions and resolves conflicts within that
society. Throughout history we have seen a wide variety of governments which mostly differ by
who it is that is controlling that government; they range from most or all people within the
society to a single ruler. This particular chart ranges from the single, more drastic extreme ruler
to that which is ruled by the people. The first we have here is a totalitarian regime which is
a form of government that controls all aspects of the political social and economic life of a
nation. Think Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR. Second we have an authoritarian regime: a type
of regime in which only the government itself is fully controlled by the ruler. Social and
economic institutions exist that are not under the government's control. This actor can be either a
political ruler like a president or prime minister or can be a military actor such as a general who
would seize power. An example of this would be Pinochet's Chile or communist China. Next we have
a monarchy which derives its name from the Greek "monos" "kratia" which means power of a
single person. This is rule by one single, often hereditary ruler, who controls all or most
aspects of political and social life. We can think ancient Israel or the United Kingdom. A theocracy
coming from the Greek prefix of "theos" or a divine or God. It's a rule by God. That is, rule
by self-appointed religious leaders. Think Iran or this can also be found ideally--hypothetically--
in Saint Augustine's "City of God." Next we have an oligarchy which comes from the Greek prefix
"oligoi" which means "few." This is rule by the few; rule by a council or party or group.
An example of this would be modern Russia and China. And finally we have a democracy which
comes from the Greek prefix "demos" which means people or the many. This is rule by the people or
the many. An example of this would include the US, Nigeria and Canada. The previous slide presented
a range of governments and while they certainly all differ, all of them presuppose that government
is necessary. But why is this the case? Well, many political thinkers argue that without government
as an authority that regulates our behaviors we would live in a form of chaos or anarchy, which
would be plagued by violence and destruction. In US history, the "Declaration of Independence"
provides an answer to this question on behalf of Americans, and it is mainly inspired by the
writings of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, who felt without government we would live in
a State of Nature that Hobbes argued would leave people with lives that were "poor, nasty,
brutish, and short." We will explore Jefferson's answer to this question in the "Declaration of
Independence" further in our next lecture video. Our text provides this quote that gets at the
heart of this question: "What happens when multiple groups compete violently with one another
for power within a society?" The short answer is that it would result in mass violence and as
has been the case historically even genocide. Beyond simply instilling authority over
society, government is also tasked with striking a balance between security or order on
the one hand and freedom or liberty on the other. The balance between these two concepts is at the
heart of many political and policy questions in American politics. It is perhaps useful to
think of this question of balance in terms of trade-offs: usually the more of one means
the less of the other. In terms of government's relationship to these concepts, the more order
in the society usually means a bigger government that can instill that order; on the other hand the
more freedom in a society usually means a smaller government to ensure that that freedom is not
infringed upon. If we think of practical examples a bigger more authoritarian government such as
North Korea, though it is done through oppression, it's relatively successful at instilling
an extreme degree of order over its people; however this means that its people have very
little freedom. For example they cannot travel abroad without government permission. This
concept of trade-offs is an extremely useful way of looking at this concept as well as others
in which we look at throughout the course. Two terms that we have touched upon but have
yet to define properly are "authority" and "legitimacy." Authority is "the right and power
of a government or other entity to enforce its decisions," while legitimacy is "the popular
acceptance of the writing power of a government or other entity to exercise its authority." This
popular acceptance will come from the people and foreign nations. An effective government will
have both of these concepts. In the US, this was done with the Constitution and the subsequent acts
of the federal government following its adoption. The federal government's authority came from the
Constitution laying out its ability to carry out its duties. Its legitimacy was granted in the
ratification process and subsequent adoption of the various states. But, this isn't all. It
also takes time, practice, and a developing sense of compliance from the people and the
local state governments to earn its legitimacy. Examples from the three branches of the
federal government include: when the Congress passed the Bill of Rights; when the
president, George Washington at the time, was able to muster a national army to
put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794; and when the judicial branch, in the Supreme Court
ruled in Marbury vs Madison and established the principle of judicial review. Of the types of
governments we've discussed previously we will focus here on the types of democracies, as the
US functions as in itself a type of democracy. A direct democracy is a system of government
in which political decisions are made by the people directly rather than by their elected
representatives. An example of this historically is ancient Athens. A republic on the other hand
is a form of government in which sovereign power rests with the people rather than with a king or
a monarch. A republic does function as a democracy but in this case we elect representatives
that make political decisions on our behalf. An example of this would be the ancient Roman
Republic before the time of the Caesars. And finally a representative democracy is a form of
government in which leaders elected by the people make and enforce laws and policies but in which
the monarchy may be retained in a ceremonial role. This would include the US or the United Kingdom.
Often republics and representative democracies are used interchangeably though the key difference
is that a republic will not have a monarch. As a model, direct democracy was a contending
system of government at the time of the US founding and Constitutional Convention. As a
model, direct democracy maintains that every citizen can participate through debating and
voting directly on all laws often put forward by a ruling council. This requires, of course,
a high level of participation from citizens. In a direct democracy all major decisions of
government are decided by majority vote. As our textbook tells us the ancient Athenians believed
that although "a high level of participation might lead to instability and government citizens if
informed about the issues could be trusted to make wise decisions." The instability would come
from having so many citizens together arguing and debating with one another and possibly not being
able to come to a consensus on any particular piece of legislation. This also presupposes that
citizens will be informed about the issues and that they can be trusted to make wise decisions
based on deliberative reason and argument and not prejudice and passion. This points us to some of
the weaknesses of direct democracy as a model of government, as the US Founders saw. So, what's
the problem with direct democracy? Well it is worth noting that all surviving ancient Athenian
political texts from men like Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, and Thucydides, were all highly critical
of direct democracy under which they themselves lived in. They argue that the people can be too
uneducated or uninformed about the issues in which they were debating; they were too prone to the
influence of demagogues who were political leaders who manipulated popular prejudices; or they could
be too likely to subordinate minority rights to the tyranny of the majority. In other words,
if the minority was constantly being unvoted they could not only have their political needs
neglected but even worse they could be oppressed. In response to these weaknesses of direct
democracy the US Founders had decided that while they still wanted a democracy they were not going
to opt for a direct one so they instead chose a republic which is based on popular sovereignty
or the concept that the ultimate political authority is based on the will of the people. The
US Constitution creates a form of republic called a democratic constitutional public: it is a
republic that will have democratic elements that will ultimately be subservient to the rule
of law which in our case is the Constitution, the system that attempted to achieve perfect
balance between liberty and order keeping the dangers of pure or direct democracy in mind. It
is noteworthy though that in California, in our state constitution, we do have elements of direct
democracy that we will talk about in subsequent lectures. In opting for a representative
democracy, the Founders, ideally at least, tried to adhere to three basic principles.
These would include universal suffrage, the right of all adults to vote for their government
representatives; majority rule, which asserts that the greatest number of citizens in any political
unit should select officials and determine policies; and a limited government, as opposed
to an authoritarian or totalitarian government, with limited powers either through a
written document such as a constitution or widely shared beliefs. As we conclude this
lecture video, it is important to note that the previous slides served as a basic introduction
to political science, government and politics, as well as those pertaining to US politics
in general. And as we go through this course, I encourage you to think about these elements that
influence US politics and how what we can learn about them and how US politics operates. These
would include the Constitution, the formal and informal institutions, such as the US Congress
and president, that influence US politics, as well as the people themselves, and how we are
socialized and how we participate in politics to influence it--elements and concepts we will
talk about further in subsequent lectures. Now of course, this introductory course
also looks at California politics, and as we look at California politics later on
in the course, keep these questions in mind: What makes California politics unique, as opposed
to other American states, as well as the American nation as a whole? And, what are the similarities
and differences of California and US politics? And that will conclude this lecture video.