Five Principles of Politics

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• Five Principles of Politics

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Making Sense of Government and Politics

• Two fundamental questions about government and
  politics
• What do we observe? An empirical question
• Why? Requires building a theory around principles
• Two objectives in this introductory chapter
• Explain what we mean by government and politics
• Introduce our five principles of politics

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What is Government?

• The institutions and procedures through which a
  land and its people are ruled
• Governments may be simple, like a tribal council
  that makes all decisions, or they may be complex,
  like our own system of separate branches and
  levels of government

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Discussion Government in a Farming Society

• Imagine that everyone in this room is a farmer in
  our own self-contained society
• Were all equal in every respect
• One of us proposes to build an irrigation system
• How do we make decisions?

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Forms of GovernmentInclusiveness

• Autocracy A single individual rules
• Oligarchy A small group of landowners, military
  officers, or wealthy merchants rules
• Democracy A system of rule that permits
  citizens to play a significant part in the
  governmental process

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Forms of GovernmentRecognition of Limits

• Constitutional Formal and effective limits are
  placed on the powers of government
• Authoritarian No formal limits are placed on
  government but government may be effectively
  limited by other social institutions
• Totalitarian No formal or effective limits on
  governments power of any kind

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What is Politics?

• The conflicts and struggles over the leadership,
  structure, and policies of government
• Politics takes many forms voting, running for
  office, joining groups and parties, lobbying, and
  even speaking to friends and neighbors
• The 5 principles of politics can be used to
  explain political action

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Clicker Question

• Imagine a hypothetical society in which a king
  has almost total power but is constrained in his
  coercive power by the church. This government
  would best be described as a(n)
• authoritarian democracy.
• constitutional autocracy.
• totalitarian oligarchy.
• authoritarian autocracy.

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Introducing the 5 Principles of Politics

• All political behavior has a purpose
• Institutions structure politics
• All politics is collective action
• Political outcomes are the products of individual
  preferences, institutional procedures, and
  collective action
• History matters

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Rationality Principle

• All political behavior has a purpose
• Political behavior is instrumental
• Not random
• Done with forethought
• Calculation
• Political actors pursue policy preferences,
  reelection, power, and to maximize their agency
  budgets

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Institution Principle

• Institutions structure politics
• Institutions are the rules and procedures that
  provide incentives for political behavior
• Remember that institutions themselves are not
  necessarily permanently fixed. Rules may change
  they just dont change easily

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Institutions Provide Authority in Four Ways

• Jurisdiction The domain over which decisions
  may be made
• Agenda and Veto Power Gatekeeping power and the
  power to say no
• Decisiveness Rules for decision making
• Delegation Transmission of authority

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Collective Action Principle

• All politics is collective action
• Collective action is difficult and the difficulty
  mounts as the number of people and interests
  involved grows
• Sometimes there are collective action dilemmas
  situations in which individually rational
  incentives do not align with shared, collective
  interests

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A Collective Dilemma
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Collective Action is Difficult

• Collective action becomes even more difficult as
  the number of parties involved increases or as
  the ability to bargain face-to-face is hampered.
  Examples
• Free Riding
• Tragedy of the Commons
• Institutions are the solutions to these problems

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Policy Principle

• Political outcomes are the products of individual
  preferences and institutional procedures
• The policy principle is the logical combination
  of the first three principles

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History Principle

• How we got here matters
• Path dependency certain possibilities are made
  more or less likely because of the historical
  path taken

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Clicker Question

• A member of Congress seeks to bring additional
  dollars home to his districts for construction of
  roads and bridges. This is an example of the
• Institution Principle.
• Rationality Principle.
• History Principle.
• Collective Action Principle.

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