2018 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

1 © 2018 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

CHAPTER 1

The Democratic Republic Learning Outcomes The five learning outcomes below are designed to help improve students’ understanding of this chapter.LO 1.1: Define the terms politics, government, order, liberty, authority, and legitimacy.LO 1.2: Distinguish the major features of direct democracy and representative democracy, and describe majoritarianism, elite theory, and pluralism.LO 1.3: Summarize the conflicts that can occur between the values of liberty and order, and between those of liberty and equality.LO 1.4: Discuss conservatism, liberalism, and other popular American ideological positions.LO 1.5: Explain how a changing American population and other social trends may affect the future of our nation.Summary Overview Politics is the process by which people decide which members of society receive certain benefits or privileges and which members do not. It is the struggle over power or influence within institutions or organizations that can grant benefits or privileges. Government is an institution within which decisions are made that resolve conflicts and allocate benefits and privileges. It is the predominant institution within society because it has the ultimate decision-making authority.Two fundamental political values are order, which includes security against violence, and liberty, the greatest freedom of the individual consistent with the freedom of other individuals. To be effective, government authority must be backed by legitimacy. Many of our terms for describing forms of government came from the ancient Greeks. In a direct democracy, such as in ancient Athens, the people themselves make the important political decisions. The United States is a democratic republic, also called a representative democracy, in which the people elect representatives to make the decisions. Some states provide a modern interpretation of direct democracy for their citizens. In these states, representative democracy is supplemented by initiative and/or referendum. An initiative is the process by which voters can directly propose a law or constitutional amendment. In a referendum, a law or constitutional amendment is proposed by the legislature and referred to the voters for ballot approval or disapproval. In addition, some states provide for a recall process where citizens may vote to remove an elected official before the end of his or her elected term.Theories of American democracy include majoritarianism, in which the government does what the American Government and Politics Today Essentials 2017-2018 Edition, 19e Barbara Bardes Mack Shelley Steffen Schmidt (Instructor Manual All Chapters, 100% Original Verified, A+ Grade) (Lecture Notes Only) 1 / 4

2 Chapter 1: The Democratic Republic

© 2018 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.majority wants; elite theory, in which the real power lies with one or more elite groups; and pluralism, in which organized interest groups contend for power. Fundamental American values include liberty and order, but also equality, and property rights. Not all of these values are fully compatible. The value of order often competes with civil liberties, and economic equality competes with property rights. Popular political ideologies can be arrayed from left (liberal) to right (conservative). We can also analyze economic liberalism and conservatism separately from cultural liberalism and conservatism.Although all four ideologies are popular, voters are more likely to describe themselves as conservative rather than liberal. The conservative movement has been successful in assigning a pejorative connotation to the term liberal in recent decades. As a result, many liberal politicians prefer to describe themselves as a progressive instead. The term progressive dates back to the years before World War I, when it was used to describe advocates of reform in both major parties.The demographic face of America is changing as citizens age and become more diverse. Like other economically advanced nations, the U.S. birthrate is falling and citizens are living longer. Today, 14 percent of the U.S. population is 65 or older and that number is expected to rise significantly by

• In addition, there is a change in the ethnic composition of America’s citizenry. Latinos now

are the largest minority group in the nation. The percentage of the population that identify as Latino and Asian is expected to continue to rise in the coming years. By 2050, non-Hispanic whites will no longer be a majority of the U.S. population at the current rate of change.While death rates are falling around the world, the death rates for white women age 35 to39 living in rural areas has risen by 48 percent in the U.S. White men living in rural areas are also in trouble.This catastrophe does not appear to affect whites who have college degrees or live in large urban areas. The increased mortality is driven primarily from excessive drug and alcohol in combination with suicide. Despite the attention to deaths in minority communities, death rates have fallen among African Americans and Latinos.Democracy requires that citizens remain vigilant by staying informed about government activities in areas such as healthcare delivery and entitlement programs. Entitlements are federal benefits that are available to citizens if certain requirements are met. Examples include monthly Social Security checks and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. There are several ways to become an informed citizen, such as seeking out quality sources of information from a wide variety of reputable media and research organizations. In addition, there are a multitude of political blogs that provide a variety of viewpoints and opportunities for expression. In order to learn more about how government works, citizens should become familiar with the activities of local legislative bodies, including city councils and school boards.Chapter Outline

• Politics and Government

A.Government Is Everywhere B.Why is Government Necessary? 2 / 4

Chapter 1: The Democratic Republic 3

© 2018 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

• Limiting Government Power
• Authority and Legitimacy

II. Democracy and other Forms of Government

• Types of Government
• Direct Democracy as a Model
• The Dangers of Direct Democracy
• A Democratic Republic
• What Kind of Democracy Do We Have?

III. Fundamental Values

• Liberty versus Order
• Equality versus Liberty
• The Proper Size of Government

IV. Political Ideologies

• Conservatism
• Liberalism
• The Traditional Political Spectrum
• Problems with the Traditional Political Spectrum
• A Four-Corned Ideological Grid
• One Nation, Divided

• The Changing Face of America
• The End of the Population Explosion
• Ethnic Change in America
• Are We Better Off?

Teaching Tools

Learning Outcome 1.1: Define the terms politics, government, order, liberty, authority, and legitimacy.

Critical Thinking Question:

How does politics affect the allocation of government benefits such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program?

Why is government necessary? Can you think of recent circumstances around the world where governments have failed when multiple groups were competing for power? What were the consequences for the citizens of those states in crisis?

Lecture Launcher:

Ask students to freely associate with the term liberty. When might the claim of liberty for one 3 / 4

4 Chapter 1: The Democratic Republic

© 2018 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.citizen infringe on the liberty of another?

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” How does his sentiment apply to today?

In-Class Activity:

If you were president, what policies, activities or benefits of government would you change and why? In small groups, design a platform of change and share with the class.

Working in pairs at the end of the class period without notes, ask students to rank the importance of student-authored definitions of order, liberty, authority and legitimacy in a democracy. Then ask two sets of pairs to compare answers, each pair arguing the ranking with the other pair.

Learning Outcome 1.2: Distinguish the major features of direct democracy and representative democracy, and describe majoritarianism, elite theory, and pluralism.

Critical Thinking Question:

Is the adoption of modifications to supplement representative democracy by some states, such as initiative, referendum and recall, a positive development for citizen empowerment, or do these mechanisms undermine the efficient workings of government?

Does the power in our American democracy reside with the people, political elites or with powerful interest groups? Defend your position.

Lecture Launcher:

In the 1790s in the United States, only free white males were able to vote and in some states, they had to be property owners as well. Women in many states did not receive the right to vote until 1920 and the right to vote was not secured in all states by African Americans until the 1960s.Today, universal suffrage is the rule. How many people in this room would have been eligible to vote using the property standard in 1790? In 1920? In 1965? The extension of suffrage, as it is termed, is an interesting American historical development. We will talk more about this when we get to the chapter on civil rights.

In-Class Activity:

Ask students in pairs or as an individual take-home assignment to design a Venn diagram (sometimes referred to as a mind-map) that demonstrates the power structure in the American political system based on their understanding of majoritarianism, elite theory and pluralism with American Government as the center. Note: There are now Venn diagram apps for mobile devices and it is possible to assign this as digital assignment that can be shared in a learning management system as a jpg or tiff file. It is also possible for students to manually create the diagram and then scan it, and upload it to a LMS system.

Briefly define the non-democratic types of government as defined in the text. Ask students to form small groups and create a chart with the headings {totalitarian, authoritarian, aristocracy, theocracy,

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