Poli Sci 1 Final Exam

A problem that arises when judges have the authority to say the law is not allowed, can go against the majority (i.e. overturning a law that is passed by the majority in congress)

Judges are not elected by the people so people worry this is anti-democratic and goes against the democratic concept of majority rule.

The authority of a court to declare legislative and executive acts unconstitutional and therefore invalid.

Marbury v. Madison (1803) gave the courts the power of judicial review - set up the supreme court as the chief interpreter of the constitution.

Constitution and national laws are “supreme Law of the land” establishing supremacy over state law/constitutions.

Ensures that there are no conflicts between state and federal law as federal law is SUPREME

The judicial branch has independence because the judges aren’t elected (no pressure or influence from outside forces) so they make unbiased decisions that rely on the law and evidence.

No sword (military) or purse (financial power)

Plays important role in protecting individual rights of the people from majority rule.

Established judicial review!!! Declared that section of Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional (first time SCOTUS did that).

Generated a precedent for judicial review going forward.

When facing a legal argument if a previous court has ruled on the same/similar issue the court will make the decision that aligns with the previous courts’ ruling.

1. Appointment Process

   1. Makes it unlikely that the court will be too far from the party in power for a long time. President appoints judges (likely to align with the president’s views, but once appointed they might not do what prez wants)

2. The court cannot typically implement its decision directly

   1. The court can’t force the government or president to do what they want. ex. Andrew Jackson had an aggressive Native American “removal policy” he ignored the Marshall Court efforts to Native Americans.

3. Limits on court agenda

   1. The court must wait for actual cases to be brought to them by litigants with standing before they can act. Congress has expanded to sue over the years and therefore can choose from more cases.

4. Threatening the court

   1. Sanctions available to Congress/President (they can override statutory decisions (new statute can written), constitutional amendment to override court decision, impeach threats)

An order given by a superior court to an appellate court that directs the lower court to send up a case the superior court has chosen to review. (low court to lower to higher court). This is the central means by which the Supreme Court determines what cases it will hear.

President FDR wanted to expand SCOTUS to 15 people but lost his court-packing battle (to diffuse the power of those blocking the policies he was trying to push). SCOTUS rejected his proposal. He did this to win approval of his New Deal programs.

Pre-Civil War: African American people lacked voting rights and faced widespread racism, slavery was not a top priority for politicians. 3/5ths compromise.

Westward expansion: failure of Wilmot Proviso (1847), compromise of 1850 more power given to free states relative to states that permitted slavery, California no slaves bu Fugitive slave law passed (enslaved people that escaped and were caught could be returned to the south)

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Onset of the Civil War: Political Logics

• Institutions Matter

  • Institution of the senate with its equal representation creates the potential for balance

    • There are threats to this balance as new states enter the Union

    • States where slavery is legal want to seek balance

  • Separation of powers becomes relevant

    • Supreme Court upends Missouri COmpromise in Dred Scott decision

• Elections Makes Politicians Agents of their Constituents

  • Dred Scott flames northern public opinion

    • Creates opening for anti-slavery party in North

• Strategic Politicians

  • Licoln emphasizes “free soil” and “free labor”

    • North don’t want to face the competition of slave labor when moving Westward

    • The consequence of slavery for whites’ economic interests

  • Slavery thus because a winning political issue

• Significance:

  • The Constitution was designed to force an eventual resolution on slavery

  • Different states have different responses to the institution of slavery

  • Slavery becomes a competing political issue with electoral consequences

~Prof says it's unlikely to get this as a term, but start with talking about slavery and then talk about how race continues to be an important, unresolved issue in politics, just something to keep in mind

The rights to freedom, thought, expression and action and the protection of these rights from government interference (free speech, etc.)

The political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of "native-born" or established inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures (wiki)

Argument: “People who feel that a political party excludes them from the American social fabric based on their race/ethnicity should be less likely to perceive that party as serving their group’s interests and therefore less likely to support that party… Asian Americans are overwhelmingly likely to identify as Democrats”

Hypothesis: “If social exclusion causes Asian Americans to support the Democratic Party (and if they believe that the Republican Party is less likely to make them feel “American”), then priming exclusion based on their race/ethnicity in an experimental setting should cause Asian Americans to adopt more Pro-Democratic Party positions.”

Due Process: Established by the 5th and 14th Amendments saying the government can’t take away your life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. Also includes the right to a jury, attorney, etc.

Equal Protection: A 14th amendment clause that guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law, they can’t deny anyone protection under the law regardless of their identity. (Courts interpreted the clause to bar discrimination against minorities and women)

An essential component of democracy. Guarantees equal/social opportunities and protection (by means of voting, employment, schooling, etc.) under the law, regardless of race, religion or other characteristics.

A plan that matched Missouri’s entry as a slave state and Maine being a free state (maintaining the balance in the Senate between free and slave states).

South also agreed to accept Missouri’s southern border as the northern boundary beyond which slavery could not extend in the future (36º 30’ latitude line)

Admitted California as a free state in 1850, but the Fugitive Slave Law had to pass. “Popular sovereignty” was established in New Mexico and Utah territories (states use popular vote to decide the issue of applying as a free or slave state)

Result of the Mexican-American War— asserted that the land gained from the war would not allow slavery. The proviso failed but displayed the threat to balance (increased sectionalism that led up to the civil war)

Dred Scott an enslaved Black man owners took him from Missouri (slave state) to Wisconsin where slavery was illegal. Sued them for his freedom and claimed that once they took him to Wisconsin he was freed.

Court ruled that he’s not a citizen and can’t become one because he’s white, government couldn’t prohibit slavery in the territories and that once free does not mean always free.

The court’s decision upends all the compromises that were established to prevent the inflammation of public opinion in regards to slavery and abolition (inflamed public opinion in the North)

• Political Incentives

  • Republicans hold on power depended on winning seats in the South; as such, they provided voting rights to freed slaves

  • Taking into account that African Americans now counted as full rather than three-fifths citizens… the South would gain thirteen seats over its prewar level. 

    • Southern legislatures busily enacted laws, called Black codes, that effectively prevented former enslaved people from voting

• Constitution Amendments

  • 13th Amendment banned slavery (1865)

  • 14th Amendment establishes national citizenship (1868)

    • “All persons born or naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US and of the state wherein they reside”

    • Established due process and equal protection under the law

    • If a state failed to allow African American males to vote in state and federal elections, the state’s House seats would be reduced proportionately

  • 15th Amendment states that no state can deny the right to vote on account of “race, color, previous condition of servitude” (1870)

• First Reconstruction: Political Logics

  • Institutions Matter

    • Military occupation

    • Reconstitution of state legislatures

    • Make ratification of 14th and 15th amendments as a condition for states to re-enter union

  • Elections make politicians agents of their constituents

    • Republican Northerners exercising right or manipulating elections in order to…

      • Deprive white veterans rights to vote

      • Introduce Black office holding in South

      • Allow Republicans hold success

• Failing of First Reconstruction

  • Republicans dominated southern state legislatures for a few years, but white Democrats seized control of Tennessee and Virginia as early as 1869, and by 1877 all of the former Confederate states had reverted to white Democratic control

  • Northern politicians’ commitment to Reconstruction was waning

    • After many Republicans went down to defeat in the 1874 midterm congressional elections… because of an economic recession, the new Democratic majority in the House refused to appropriate funds to support the military forces that remained in the South

    • Congress passed additional laws to protect the freed enslaved people, but without serious enforcement provisions, they offered African Americans in the distant South little real support.

  • Reconstruction officially ended with the 1876 presidential election with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes

    • In 1877, federal troops pulled out of the South, leaving African Americans at the mercy of their former masters

  • Political Logics

    • Institutions Matter

      • Lack of national enforcement machinery 

      • No large standing army as occupation ends

    • Elections make politicians agents of their constituents

      • Politicians responded to lack of popular support for Reconstruction

    • Collective Action

      • Violence in South increase costs of pro-black political activity

        • Vigilante and state-based violence in the South

        • Engaging in resistance leads to threat to life

    • Political actions can lead to political backlash

    • Punishment of the South — Break down at the end of this era with new president, bridge the gap politically, solidify power, black people in the South thus become disenfranchised (and more racism towards Black people until the next Reconstruction) WHY IT ENDED (connected to black codes, fugitive slave law, and equal rights amendment)

Roe v. Wade (1973) is a landmark case that struck a blow against the power of states and identified a constitutional right to reproductive privacy and prevented states from banning abortions early in a pregnancy.

Dobbs v. Jackson set a new precedent that abortion was not protected by the Constitution overturning the Roe v. Wade precedent. 22 states enacted immediate abortion restrictions.

Plessy v. Ferguson known as the “separation of equals” said segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in end.

Brown v. Board overruled the Plessy v. Ferguson decision as the court ruled that separation of children on the basis of color in schools is unconstitutional.

A series of laws enacted in the late 19th century by southern states to institute segregation. Created “whites only” public accommodations including schools, bathrooms, restaurants, literally everything.

An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indigenous people on various reservations known as the Dawes Act, emphasized severalty - the treatment of Native American people as individuals rather than as members of tribes.

Context: 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls. The convention produced demands called the declaration of sentiments. Helped given women the right to vote through the 19th amendment.

First women’s rights gathering in 1848 in Seneca Falls in Seneca Falls, New York. Declaration of sentiments (modeled after the Declaration of Independence but included women) important step and continued efforts of women to gain greater social, civil and moral rights. Considered to be the beginning of the women’s rights movement.

a proposed amendment to the constitution guaranteed equal legal rights for all citizens regardless of sex. Related to women’s suffrage but still women’s rights aren’t protected because the amendment didn’t pass. Demonstrates the difficulty of passing amendments in the constitution. Pushes for equal rights for groups that have been discriminated against.. strides towards equal rights but never completed.

Laws enacted by southern legislatures after the Civil War that prevented formerly enslaved people from voting and holding certain jobs among other prohibitions. Attempt by the southern states to maintain white supremacy and laid the groundwork for Jim Crow era.

included: Labor restrictions, vagrancy laws, curfew laws, restrictions on Freedmen’s mobility between states, education restrictions, weapon possession restrictions, marriage restrictions

• The 1850 law compelling Northerners to honor Southerners’ property claims to enslaved people, passed in return for the South’s agreeing to admit California as a free state (and hence the South loses its ability to block legislation in the Senate, Compromise of 1850)

• Coates argued that America is forever in debt to African Americans. Also says that they still face injustice

• Reparations: Monetary payments (from the government) towards extremely marginalized/discriminated groups as compensation for oppression over an extended period of time 

• Significance: Failure of reconstruction which tried to make financial amends to slavery. After reconstruction, racial discrimination still strongly remains. 

  • Reference to retrenchment

• Definition: “Those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.”

  • Informative patterns: income, education, state, age, gender, race

• Focus on lectures, how the public is on particular issues (e.g. public’s approval of public institutions such as President approval ratings or congressional members’ approval ratings and the public’s opinion on a particular issue, measured through polling)

• 1. How can we tell what people really think about politics? Measurement challenge (sampling bias)

• 2. Do most Americans even have meaningful attitudes when it comes to politics? Political ignorance challenge

3. Where does public opinion come from and how does it change? DExplanatory challenge

• Attitudes: Enduring predisposition to respond to a person, group, topic, or issue in a particular way

  • Includes feelings, beliefs, and thoughts

Opinions: Result of underlying attitudes evoked by survey questions/context

Question Context → Attitudes → Opinions

• Opinions ⇏ Attitudes

• How questions (things in general) are framed (put in context) affects outcomes

  • Response instability occurs when issues evoke opposing attitudes and beliefs

• Many people do not have time to be completely engaged/knowledgeable with politics, thus they use heuristics/shortcuts 

• Policy Proximity

  • Which candidates will represent the policies closest to one’s preferred policies?

  • Most demanding of these calculations to make

  • Scale of liberal and conservative where candidates stand – must know where oneself and candidates stand on issues

• Candidate Traits (an unlikely shortcut to proximity voting)

  • Character, trust, personality

• Partisanship (most likely to lead to voting by proximity, easy shortcut)

  • One of the dominant factors when deciding who to vote for

• Retrospection (more likely to lead to proximity voting without having to think too hard about engaging in proximity voting)

  • Looking back and seeing how the candidate has been doing

  • Has hold in both midterms and presidential elections (approval/disapproval of a President’s job performance)

• Political elites are polarized

  • Party leaders have been polarizing in their policy views

    • Trend is a bit stronger on the republican/conservative side

  • Evidence from congressional voting

• Masses are not as polarized

  • Fiorina: differences in policy preferences between residents of “red” and “blue” states are modest

• Over and/or under-sampling is the issue (with certain demographics/groups like not enough young people being sampled with telephone polling)

  • Ex: Nonresponse bias

  • There is an attempt to use weighting to counter this issue

• Elaborate set of organized, internally consistent attitudes that allow one to understand, evaluate, and respond to political phenomena

  • EX) Liberal, conservative, libertarian

    • ⅕ of Americans use these terms spontaneously to explain why they vote one way or another

  • Most people don’t express policy views that neatly fit into a category

• prejudice in favor of, and strong support for, a particular candidate, issue, or political party

  • Shapes opinions and organizes other attitudes

  • Is more tightly connected to how people vote than ideology

  • Knowing where politicians stand helps people decide their positions on public policy issues when they don’t know much

  • Large majority of Americans identify themselves as Democrat or Republican

    • Psychological Attachment leads to a sense of identity

    • A scale of partisanship (e.g. high partisanship vs. low partisanship)

• Voting benefits: route to represntation, policy influence, civic pride

  • Non-excludable - Policy Benefits and “Cheerleading” (cheer on your team/candidate)

  • Excludable - Expressive benefits (Sense of contributing to victory) and Civic responsibility (democratic values)

• Voting Costs: accessibility, time off work, polling location, prior education, physical threats

  • Actual:  Register, Find polling place, Take time out of day

  • Psychic: Who to vote for, Internal/external conflicts

• Factors determining who votes

  • Resources to pay “costs” of voting: Time, Getting registered, Getting informed

  • Education

  • Income: Gas to go to the polls, Affording time to go to polls

  • Residential mobility/immobility

  • Correlation with age and race

• Reducing costs of voting

  • Mobilization

    • Direct contact asking one to vote

      • Door-to-door canvassing works best 

        • Revival in direct contact recently

    • Decline in mobilization in the 1960-90s -> decline in turnout

    • Rooted in decline in party organization, unions

  • Driving people to the polls

An individual’s affiliation with a political party (democrat, republican, etc.)

Significance: plays a huge role in determining what an individual votes for, their beliefs, their community, etc. Signals to individuals what they should be supporting even if they aren’t particularly educated in a given topic.

• Retrospective Voting: The notion that voters make decisions based on their retrospective view of how the party in power has done over the past four years.

• Blind Retrospective Voting: Voting for or not voting for the party in power for circumstances beyond their control. For example, if the economy is doing poorly while Democrats are in power because of a massive earthquake, voters are likely to call for a change in leadership despite the cause being unrelated to the party’s policies.

Significance: Highlights the uninformed ways voters tend to make decisions, without regard to actual policies.

When votes cast their ballots based on specific issues they feel are at stake based on the outcome of the election.

ex. Pro-choice voter may vote for a democratic candidate because they’re more likely to have pro-choice views.

Significance: Allows politicians to campaign on highly charged political issues in order to gain support, sometimes mobilizing voters purely in opposition to how the other party might handle the issue

• Definition: People who base their votes on candidates' or parties' positions on one particular issue of public policy, regardless of candidates' or parties' positions on other issues

Significance: These voters are important because Single-issue voters can sway election outcomes, especially in close races (overlook policy differences and support candidates for issues); politicians emphasize specific issues/ tailor messages they know these voters look out for, focusing on certain policies compared to others; contributing to political polarization

• Definition: Not enough electoral votes to anybody shortly after Adams, so he became President and appointed Henry Clay as his Secretary of State, a position often seen as a stepping stone to the presidency. Many believed that Clay had made a deal to support Adams in exchange for this high-level appointment.

• Significance: Led to a perception that the election had been manipulated, and it damaged the political careers of both Adams and Clay. 

• Andrew Jackson's supporters were especially vocal in their criticism of this alleged deal, and it fueled Jackson's campaign for the 1828 presidential election, in which he ultimately won and became the 7th President of the United States.

Changed the skew of votes, voter trust in politicians matters

• Definition: Increasing ideological distance and divergence of political attitudes and preferences among the general public. It describes a situation where individuals in a society become more divided along ideological lines, with less overlap or common ground between different political, social, or cultural groups.

• Significance: It can lead to gridlock and governance inefficiency; decline in trust in institutions, democracy, candidates; political instability, with protests, crises. Can be exacerbated by media landscape, can cater to specific groups and create echo chambers; can create challenges in constructive dialogue and create divisive public discourse 

• Fiorina: differences in policy preferences between residents of ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states are modest

• There are very few Democrats and Republicans who are modern, most crowd on center-left, center-right

  • Ideology is tightly lined with partisanship

• Sorting - People’s partisanship is closely associated with their ideology

• If you have extreme politicians, you are likely to have sorted masses

  • Politicians, by moving apart, force the voter to choose sides

Polarization - The way we are sorted on these partisan issue

• Even though there aren’t many big political differences, one party dislikes the other side.

• Abrams and Fiorina argue that while polarization has not increased, affective polarization has. Meaning that partisan voters are now more likely to harbor negative feelings toward members of the opposite party.

  • Opposite party members less likely to date or marry, modern gridlocks

• When the key values and practices that make democracy strong start to weaken (EX: Erosion of civil liberties, centralization of power, corruption) 

• Voting rights and restrictions such as ID requirements

• Anything that would undermine free elections and governmental decision making

  • EX. Trump’s current threats to prosecute his opponents using the Justice Department

• Affective polarization

• Primary Elections Definition: An election held before the general election in which voters decide which of a party’s candidates will be the party’s nominee for the general election (slide on this from Week 13).

• Polarization Definition: The process of public opinion dividing and going to extremes, usually with political parties, ideologies, or groups. 

  • The multitude of news choices allows consumers to avoid information that contradicts their prior beliefs.

  • There is little evidence that the increase in polarization is being shaped by social media—a popular accusation after the 2016 presidential election

  • Ideological polarization thus helped to unite the parties internally, separate them from each other, and strengthen party leaders.

  • Becoming more polarized towards the right or left to win the primary election but then becoming too polarized to appeal to the general public to win the general election OR end up with a very polarized member of Congress (snowball effect leading to polarized elites)

• A form of lobbying

  • Lobbyists make it “cheaper” for politicians to get involved in an issue by providing information they need not spending time/money obtaining it on their own

    • EX: Manufacturing companies are more likely to be concerned about pollution laws and will lobby with legislators, providing information to support their side

  • Hall and Deardorf argue that lobbying from interest groups is a Legislative Subsidy, not a transaction of campaign contributions for votes as there is no enforcement mechanism for politicians to renege on agreements

  • Nor do they believe that it is persuasion as lobbyists petition politicians that share their position and have their own ways of collecting info

    • Hall and Deardorf argue that lobbyists subsidize representatives’ effort to influence legislation by doing the information gathering on particular subjects and presenting that data to the representatives, thus reducing the effort a congressman or their office have to put in to gather the same information

    • This explains why lobbyists predominantly lobby their allies in Congress, not try to convince their enemies

• Economic-based groups

  • Business groups

    • A single company, trade association, or peak level (chamber of commerce)

  • Labor unions

    • Helped along by the fact that unions are required for certain jobs

  • Farm groups

    • Big dispersed interests, but the government made it possible to organize them to form groups

  • Professional associations (AMA, ABA, Trial Lawyers)

    • Supported by government regulations that only allow people to practice if they are a member of group/passed a certain exam

• Non-Economic Groups

  • Often started by patrons (people with money who support the cause), either for expressive benefits or to start collective action to accomplish a personal goal

  • Historical examples - Abolitionism, Prohibition, Women's Suffrage

  • Explosion of social movements. Advocacy groups in the 60s-70s - Civil Rights, Feminism, Gay Rights, Anti-War Movements, Environmentalism, Christian Rights, Anti-tax movement, NRA

Effort by an organized group or individual to influence the decision of the government (1st or 2nd face of power influence - either keeping something off the agenda or winning when it comes on the agenda)

• 3 Main Resources for Lobbying:

  • Information (insider strategy) - Provides info to legislators to persuade or help them do something

  • Votes (outsider strategy) - Interest groups that have a big following scare or encourage politicians to take their side

  • Money - A resource that interest groups can use to get what they want

• Inside Strategy: Information (Hall and Deardorff)

  • Lobbying as a legislative subsidy

  • Time is scarce—Lobbyists make it “cheaper” for politicians to get involved in an issue

  • Lobbying has an incentive to be truthful (to a politician) in order to protect and maintain their reputation

    • Lobbying is a career

    • Lots of former members of Congress (and staff) become lobbyists

      • Congress and staff members are also well acquainted with lobbyists

• Outside Strategy: Votes

  • Interest groups that can marshall votes and get people to vote for or against an issue

    • It sends the message: back us or you will lose votes at home

    • Does not require access, if there is access, it might be unpleasant

  • Tactics: Media campaigns, demonstrations, protests, mobilizing members to send messages to politicians

  • Delivering votes is a key resource and gives a chance for broad-based interest to compete

• A federally-registered fundraising group that pools money from individuals to give to political candidates and parties

• However, corporations and unions were allowed to establish political action committees, or PACs, which could receive contributions from individuals within a union or business and use the funds to support candidates and political causes

  • Tend to stick with incumbents

• Donations are strictly limited (less than $10k to a single candidate)

  • Can’t really buy elections or pay enough to buy a vote

• Campaign coverage tends to focus on a “horse race” rather than policy stands

• Coverage of policy fights (ex. Health care) focus of strategy, the likelihood it will pass (not substance)

• Coverage has become more negative over time

• News Media, when it provides coverage, does not have significant power to change public opinion (minimal effects thesis)

  • Need to get people to hear the message (exposure)

  • People have attitudes/predispositions that are hard to move, even when they hear the news

• Agenda-setting: When an issue is covered a lot, the public sees it as a bigger problem (ex. crime)

  • EX) If news focuses on Sudan, people will want Biden to address Sudan

• Priming: Media coverage primes the public to weigh an issue more heavily when evaluating leaders

  • EX) If news focuses on economy (issue that is primed), people judge Biden on economy 

• Beyond a bias in the tone and type of coverage, many people accuse legacy media outlets of having an ideological slant 

  • The New York Times and MSNBC are thought to lean left, and the Washington Times and Fox News the opposite

• Politicians typically complain that the news media are biased and uninformed; reporters may charge that they, or the news, are being manipulated

• First, the respondent is afraid the person asking the question might judge them. 

• Second, even if respondents are told the poll/survey is anonymous, they don’t necessarily believe it. Clearly, the person asking the question has his/her name, address, and phone number.

  • Ex. Socially desirable to turn out to vote, but the truth is, a lot of people don't and people lie to make pollsters not think poorly of them

• Polling suggested that white Democrats who held racist attitudes were afraid to admit to pollsters that they weren’t going to vote for Tom Bradley in 1982 California gubernatorial election

  • When they came to the polls with no one looking over their shoulder, they voted for the white guy

  • A theory concerning observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some United States government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other (Wiki)

• Political Ignorance Challenge; how voters decide who to vote for; an alternative way to make vote choices that are less tricky and require less information

  • Traits: 

    • How they enter politics, their face value

    • Ex: Trump’s age

  • Personality: 

    • How politicians go about making political decisions/their stance on issues 

• Significance: Way that one can make political decisions, like heuristics

  • Response to political ignorance challenge

    • How one makes decisions about candidates

  • This heuristic is one way people make political decisions without knowing much about politics

• The process by which individuals rationalize their choices in a way that is consistent with what they prefer to believe, rather than what is actually true (the brain’s way of making preexisting attitudes easier to believe at a subconscious level)

• Identifications that can motivate a voter to be swayed

  • Ex: Partisanship; if democratic they vote for Biden by default

• Like selective perception — Reasoning motivated by partisanship

  • Assessment that one may think that if their party is in control, that the economy is doing well

• Motivated to make excuses for party of candidate because of one’s partisanship

• 1st Face of Power: Prevailing in open conflict

  • There is a clear winning and losing side

  • Ex. No public option in ACA (was considered for agenda but rejected by Congress)

• 2nd Face of Power: Constraining scope of conflict

  • Keeping something off of the policy agenda, that could be considered as an alternative

  • Parties have negative agenda control in Congress

  • Ex. No single-payer alternative; no proposal or agenda item on raising the minimum wage, even if it would pass

• 3rd Face of Power: Shaping the field of play

  • In American politics, the field of play displays that socialism and communism are never active or successful political ideologies or policy-making ideologies

  • Not involving interest groups, but powerful sources in society

  • Ex. No socialism in the US