EReading:
Easton

Politics and Perspectives

 

Since we are going to study American politics
maybe the first question should be:


 What do we mean by the term politics?


Political scientist Harold Lasswell said politics is about:

who gets what, where, when, why and how



We're going to adopt a definition from another political scientist named David Easton. (ERead)
According to him, politics is:

the authoritative allocation of values for society


How will we explore this situation?
From theoretical, comparative and empirical perspectives !!!!!!


The Keys to Our Exploration!

The "great" concepts": power, organization, culture, system, comparison



Let's Put the Study of ContemporaryAmerican Government Into Context!

Many argue that the signs of political paralysis are all around us:

1) crisis in public confidence
2) the disintegration of the political parties
3) rejection of presidential and congressional leadership
4) administrative incompetence
5) the impact of the mass media and the trivialization of politics
6) the impact of special interests
7) privatization




What Has Led to This Paralysis?

1) the failure of leadership?
2) the failure of citizenship?
3) the growth of partisanship?
4) the failure of institutional competence?
5) failure by design??







Empirical: application of the scientific method to the study of phenomena












Empirical: testable utilizing the procedures of the scientific method