1. INTRODUCTION TO GOVERNMENT
POWER, AUTHORITY, LEGITIMATCY

2. POWER
The ability to get others to do that which they wouldn’t ordinarily do by threat of sanction or punishment
Homework
Speeding Laws
Taxes
Influence/Persuasion are different in that they do not imply a threat of sanction or punishment

3. authority The right to exercise POWER
Varies from time to time and country to country
President, Senator, Federal Judge Formal Authority

4. LEGITIMACY The right to exercise political AUTHORITY
What are the sources of LEGITIMACY in the US?

5. SOURCES OF LEGITIMACY Constitution (also laws and state constitutions)
Civil War
New Deal
Civil Rights
Same-sex marriage
The People
“consent of the governed” – John Locke

6. GOVERNMENT
The INSTITUTIONS through which public policy decisions are made for a society
Executive Branch/Bureaucracy
Legislative Branch
Judicial Branch
Public Policy
Any decision by government, including the decision to do nothing

7. Who makes public policy
Legislative Branch
Laws
Executive Branch
Executive Orders
Japanese-American Internment
Integration of the Armed Forces
National Parks
Some National Holidays
Judicial Branch
Court Decisions
Bureaucracy
FCC

8. POLITICS “Who gets what, when and how” – Harold Lasswell
ALSO The PROCESS whereby we select our political leaders
Elections/Electoral College

9. State
A body of people, living in a defined territory, organized politically, and with the power to make and enforce law without the consent of any higher authority
Population
Territory
Government
Sovereignty
US as a whole is sovereign; the individual 50 states ARE NOT

10. How states came into being
Force Theory
One person or a small group claimed control over an area and forced all within it to submit to that person or group’s rule
Evolutionary Theory
State developed naturally out of the family
Family Clan Tribe
When the tribe turned to agriculture and stopped its nomadic way, the state was born

11. How states came into being
Divine Right Theory
God created the state and gave those of royal birth a “divine right” to rule. People were bound to obey their ruler as they would God
Popular in the Western World from the 15th – 18th Century
Began to be questioned in the 17th Century

12. How states came into being
Social Contract Theory
Most significant theory when it comes to the American political system
Hobbes, Locke, Harrington and Rousseau
“State of Nature” Life without Government
Everyone lives in a perfect state of freedom, free to take by force whatever they wanted
Individuals overcome this condition by voluntarily giving up this perfect state of freedom to form a STATE
The contract, in our case, is the Constitution
State is given only as much power is needed to promote the safety and well- being of all
State exists to serve the will of the people and that the people are the sole source of political power Popular Sovereignty
Promotes the ideas of popular sovereignty, limited government and individual rights, which were so important to the shaping of the American political system
Declaration of Independence King and his ministers had violated the contract

13. Popular Sovereignty
The authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people (through their elected representatives) who are the source of all political power.