American Government and Politics Deliberation Democracy and Citizenship

American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy and Citizenship Book by John J. Pitney and Joseph M. Bessette. This book has three underlying principles: Citizenship, History, and Democracy. American Government and Politics depends on the possibility of “deliberative democracy and government”: political systems work best when educated residents and open authorities conscious to distinguish and advance the benefit of all. Accentuating citizenship, the content analyzes how that municipal culture and migration sway understudies and shape the nation. It offers strong authentic inclusion and a nearby take a gander at community duty to inspect how that urban culture influences understudies and shapes the nation and investigates community obligation.

Author:

Joseph M. Bessette, Ph.D.

Joseph M. Bessette is the Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor of Government and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California.

John J. Pitney, Jr.

John J. Pitney, Jr., is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.

American Government and Politics Deliberation, Democracy and Citizenship

Brief Contents

PART ONE

PRINCIPLES AND FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER  1   Deliberation and Citizenship in Service of Freedom and Democracy
CHAPTER  2  The American Constitution
CHAPTER  3  Federalism
CHAPTER  4  E Pluribus Unum: American Citizenship
CHAPTER  5  Civic Culture

PART TWO

LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS

CHAPTER 6 Civil Liberties
CHAPTER  7 Civil Rights

PART THREE

DEMOCRATIC POLITICS AND PUBLIC DELIBERATION

CHAPTER 8  Public Opinion and Political Participation
CHAPTER 9  Interest Groups
CHAPTER 10 Political Parties
CHAPTER 11 Elections and Campaigns
CHAPTER 12  Mass Media

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

This book has five parts, each consisting of several chapters.

Part I, “Principles and Foundations of American Democracy,” examines the American system’s basic ideas as one might expect. It includes a discussion of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and federalism, in Chapters 1 through 3. Nevertheless, it differs from other textbooks in its breadth of coverage of the founding principles and its emphasis on the Federalist and other founding era writings.

Part I includes a unique chapter. Chapter 4, “E Pluribus Unum: American Citizenship and Civic Culture,” focuses on both the legal status of American citizenship and the deeper sense of national unity that ties together a large and diverse population.

The chapter links citizenship to broader ideas about attachments and duties. For example, it shows how the naturalization process highlights both the rights and obligations of American citizenship. The chapter describes the unique set of beliefs that Americans have in their relationship to government, their country’s place in the world, and their duties to one another. These beliefs show up in distinctively American traditions and include individualism, religion, patriotism, and community service. One can find these things in other countries, but they have a special force in American political life. Much American government overlooks these subjects, which is unfortunate. Because immigration has risen sharply in recent years, about one out of every eight residents of the United States was born in another country.

In some states, the ratio is much higher in California. It is at least one out of four. Accordingly, many students are not yet citizens or have parents who are not yet citizens. For these students, questions surrounding citizens and resident aliens’ legal status are central to their lives. For all people in the United States, immigration remains a key public policy issue, whether they were born here or elsewhere. Similarly, civic culture both touches students individually and shapes the country in which they live. Readers Of this text will learn how community service’s American tradition has influenced issues ranging from tax law to welfare reform.

Part II, “Rights and Liberties: includes a chapter each on civil liberties and civil rights. Each chapter roots its topic in the founding principles and draws attention to how those principles unfolded over time. Chapter 5. “Civil Liberties” includes an extensive treatment of the tension between civil liberties and the demands of war, with particular attention to the war on terrorism. Chapter 6, Civil Rights,” elaborates key debates on major contemporary issues and focuses on whether the Constitution and laws should be “color blind.”

Part III, “Democratic Politics and Public Deliberation,” looks at the structures that
enable ordinary Americans to participate in politics. Although the topics are the usual ones found in most American government texts, as the titles of Chapters 7 through II Opinion and Political Participation,” Interest Groups,” “Political Parties,” “Elections and Campaigns,” and “Mass treatment is strongly tied to our particular themes of civic responsibility and deliberation.

Part IV, “Governing Institutions,” has chapters on Congress, the presidency, the bureaucracy, and the courts. These chapters give special attention to deliberative processes showing how presidents, bureaucrats, lawmakers, and judges reason on the law’s merits and public policy. More often than many people acknowledge public officials’ decisions are the product of reasoned judgments about the public interest, not simply the result of political pressures.

Part V, Issues of American Politics,” looks at public policy in the fields of social welfare, economics, and national security. Responsible citizenship requires knowledge of the content of American public policy and the issues at stake in major policy debates. In American deliberative democracy, public opinion about social welfare, economic regulation, and national security information constrains deliberation by the governing institutions. As Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail without it; nothing can succeed.

Some Text with this Book

Theories of American Democracy :

The study Of the American government as a deliberative democracy is a relatively new approach within political science. Until the middle of the twentieth century, political scientists emphasized constitutions and laws when analyzing government. They gave short shrift to actual political behavior, But the decades after World War II ushered in a “behavioral revolution” within political science. New studies appeared that measured public opinion and voting behavior and linked them to broader theories of American democracy. Scholars examined why men and women sought to serve in government and how they behaved once they got there. Political scientists especially highlighted the power of organized interest groups in influencing legislators and bureaucrats. At the time, the leading interpretations of Congress reduced lawmaking to bargaining among groups, with legislators trading support for each other’s proposals (a practice called logrolling). As one of the leading works on American politics noted, “The very essence of the legislative process is the willingness to accept trading as a means.” Interest groups were the fundamental elements of American politics, and vote-trading was the only way to accommodate their competing desires. In the end, there was no public interest, just group interests: “In developing a group interpretation of politics, therefore, we do not need to account for a totally inclusive interest, because one does not exist.”

Judicial Review:

Constitutional Foundations and the Early Debate, Neither the Constitution nor the Judiciary Act said anything about the courts’ power to strike down federal or state laws as unconstitutional. Yet, some members of the Constitutional Convention seemed to assume that the Supreme Court would have such a power. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78, Congress derives all its authority from the Constitution, which is the people’s sovereign act and, therefore, “fundamental law.” Congress, thus, has no right to violate the Constitution’s provisions. If it does, the courts must defend “the power of the people” against the legislature. Despite Hamilton’s public defense of judicial review, the Supreme Court did not find such authority until the landmark case Marbury v. Madison in 1803. This complicated case began after Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent President John Adams in the election Of 1800. In those days, presidents served for nearly three months after the electoral vote was counted in December, even if they had lost. President Adams used this time to appoint Federalists to the judiciary, the so-called midnight appointments. One was William Marbury, nominated to serve as a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. Although the Senate confirmed the appointment and the president signed the commission, Adams’s Secretary Of State John Marshall failed to deliver Marbury’s commission before he left office. In the final days of his term, Adams also appointed Marshall to serve as chief justice of the United States. These last-minute appointments incensed the incoming Democratic-Republicans. Because James Madison became Jefferson’s Secretary Of State, it fell to him to deliver Marbury’s commission. Yet, concerned that Adams had attempted to load the judiciary With Federalists, he refused to do so. Marbury then asked the Supreme Court to issue a writ Of mandamus, a judicial command to a public official to do his or her duty ordering Madison to deliver the commission. Buy Now and Red More

Title:	American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy and Citizenship
Author Buy:	Joseph M. Bessette and John J. Pitney
Edition:	2nd Edition
Publisher:	Cengage Learning; 2 edition (January 1, 2013)
Language:	English
ISBN	ISBN-10: 1133587895 ISBN-13: 978-1133587897
Product Dimensions:	8.2 x 0.8 x 10.8 inches
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Shipping Weight:	2.6 pounds
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