Term
| What are the key institutions that make up the executive branch? |
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Definition
• The president is organized to coordinate policymaking across the major functions of government.
1. The White House Staff: influential in navigating the politics of presidential policymaking and also serve to represent the president to the public.
2. Departments: concern themselves with policies rather than politics.
3. Organizations: Presidential agendas often require the coordination of policymaking across function soft government. |
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Term
| What are the types of presidential management? |
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Definition
1. Competitive Advisory System (FDR): Information that comes from independent sources, fostering competition and rivalries between advisors, and the president is at the center of the information flow.
• Favors policies that are politically feasible and bureaucratically doable, rather than policies that are analytically optimal.
2. Formalistic System (Eisenhower) :Delegation to top advisors who serve as gate-keepers and figure out the overall strategy.
• Information is funneled and filtered hierarchically as it works its way to the President.
3. Collegial System (Kennedy): resembles a wheel where the President is the hub and advisors are spokes. All advisors are connected to the President and to one another; teamwork!
- Seeks both optimality and bureaucratic do-ability.
- Places enormous pressures on Presidents in terms of time and resources as well as skill in dealing with advisors and maintaining collective unity. |
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Term
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Definition
| - Local beer, Jester King (brewery) → style: Gotland Streka Swedish. |
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Term
| What is the key feature of campaigns? |
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Definition
| They highlight the achievements and failures of individuals, but do not focus on institutions or policymaking. |
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Term
| There is an illusion of separatism between the branches, what is the reality? |
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Definition
| The US is a system of shared powers due to checks and balances, all three branches are intertwined NOT separated. |
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Term
| What are the five differences between campaigning and governing? |
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Definition
• Campaigning:
1. Focuses on the individual.
2. The point is to sell ideas: big/small government, etc.
3. May talk about anything, any issues.
4. Public is most salient, because it elects the president.
5. Malleable and fluid, the direction can change at any point.
• Governing:
1. Focus is on the agenda, 2-3 issues.
2. Requires pragmatism. Values do not matter, must be willing to make ideological compromises.
3. Requires a plan of initiatives that Congress must know, because they have their own agenda to fulfill.
4. Policy elites are most salient: Congress, the bureaucracy, and interest groups.
5. Fixed institution, cannot simply get rid of people and change direction at will. |
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Term
| What are the types of electoral mandates? |
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Definition
1. Presidential mandate: The public overwhelmingly supports an issue. The president hopes that Congress votes in a manner not they would not normally do so, out fear of the public .
○ 6 month window before Congress goes back to voting as it usually does, becoming tied to its constituency.
2. Congressional mandates. |
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Term
| One of the strategies of governing is "going public," what does this entail? |
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Definition
∙ The Bully Pulpit → Stir up the public enough to cause Congress to vote or do a certain something.
• Economy good → gets support easily
• Economy bad → hard to get support
• Public feels threatened → supports the President.
✷ Relies on economic performance and foreign events, which causes it to be difficult to maintain and it is ineffective with Congress. |
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Term
| Another strategy of governing is the legislative strategy, what does it entail? |
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Definition
∙ Working through Congress, instead of blaming Congress. The latter causes a strained relationship between the president and Congress.
∙ Insiders are members of Congress or bureaucrats, they do much better than "outsiders" in office.
∙ Legislative process must be the priority, because Congress does not like to be surprised.
∙ The appointments of cabinet members or judicial appointees can help an outsider work through Congress, sine they have good relationships with important people. |
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Term
| The last strategy of governing is the administrative, what does it entail? |
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Definition
∙ The President issues an executive order, which directs the bureaucracy to do a certain something.
∙The power of appointment: the downside is that it has become plagued with political hacks to run government, which leads to poor performance and government failure.
∙ Congress may “insulate” bureaucracies from presidential influence. → draft legislation that pushes the president out of influence on a particular agency.
∙ the president chooses responsive competence, loyalty over expertise, because they have very little time to influence policies and need people who will side with them. |
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Term
| Who are the major players in budgetary politics? |
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Definition
1. The President: agenda setter.
2. Congress: the President requests it, but Congress must authorize it.
3. the Bureaucracy: begin the process by issuing a request.
4. OMB: reviews the agency requests and reconciles them with the President’s priorities.
5. CBO: reviews and issues a report to Congress on the President’s budget. |
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Term
| What is the key difference between the OMB and the CBO? |
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Definition
| The OMB is plagued by corruption of its principal, the president, and is a partisan institution with little sound analysis. While the CBO, serves all members of Congress, no matter what party affiliation, which makes it a reliable source. |
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Term
| What are the characteristics of the overhead democracy perspective, a form of congressional oversight? |
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Definition
∙ Rational self-interest plagues all decisions-making.
∙ The notion that elected officials have control over bureaucrats, representatives are the link between the public and bureaucrats.
∙ Stresses centralization of authority and hierarchy, where the main focus is preserving democracies and politics.
∙ Emphasizes responsive competence: loyalty > expertise.
∙ Congress has to develop really detailed legislation, they would have to envision every scenario that bureaucrats would exercise authority and then encode those scenarios into legislation → leave nothing up for interpretation.
∙ The job of bureaucrats is to execute the decisions of the elected branches of government.
∙ Bureaucrats are seen as "budget-maximizers," or shirkers of their duty to representatives and the public.
✶ In reality, bureaucrats accumulate slack, which is a pool of money that cushions the effects of bad economic budget cuts. |
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Term
| What problems come attached to the overhead democracy perspective? |
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Definition
• Politicians face problems of asymmetric (not balance) information, where bureaucrats have the expertise, politicians and the public do not.
1. Adverse selection 2. Moral Hazard are the two types of information assymetric.
• Problems with control, which can be dealt with through:
1. Police-patrols: constant monitoring ( oversight hearings and review regulations), gains control but is expensive.
2. Fire-alarms: no need for monitoring; deck-stacked against the bureaucracy through detailed legislation and oversight panels. Very responsive and cheap, but loses the ability to prevent loss of control. |
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Term
| What are the characteristics of public administration perspective? |
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Definition
• Politics and administration are separate spheres, focusing on policies rather than politics.
• This view stresses delegation, bureaucratic discretion, and autonomy; there is a lot of leeway to make policies, independent from politics.
• Values and analysis are separable; it emphasizes neutral competence → Competence > Loyalty.
• The job of the public and elected officials is to set the general direction of policies and then allow bureaucrats the freedom to get the job done.
• The job of the bureaucrat goes beyond carrying and executing policy, it includes reforming the goals of policy in light of real-world circumstances → Educating the public.
• "Internal checks" in the bureaucracy: professional norms, allegiance to their institution, and highly routinized and rule-bound organizations.
• Administrative Procedures Act (APA) guides all bureaucratic activities and ensures an outlet for “politics” or democracy to enter into bureaucratic calculations.
• The assumption is that bureaucrats do not think about politicians very much, the driver is the task at hand.
• Reliability > Efficiency |
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Term
| Though not elected, how is the bureaucracy a representation of the public? |
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Definition
| Bureaucracies represents a powerful segment of society and are created to deal with an issue that the public demanded attention to. |
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Term
| What are the characteristics of the judicial branch? |
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Definition
• Establishes the constitutionality of policy, but it has nothing to do with substance or goals of policies.
• Works on the basis of precedent. → Let previous decisions to guide their thinking on current decisions.
• Concern is with the process of establishing authority and making policy, rather than the content of public policies. |
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Term
| What is the process of judicial selection? |
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Definition
o At lower courts, there is a senatorial courtesy. → District courts, 91 of them, which means senators have to “OK” the president’s judicial decisions with NO way to overturn that decision.
o President has more freedom at the appellate court level, because senatorial-courtesy does not work at this level.
o Supreme Court → decisions are the supreme law of the land. Appellate jurisdiction, they do not hear the original case. |
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Term
| What makes up the district courts? What about the federal circuit courts of appeals? |
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Definition
• District Courts:
o Original Jurisdiction-hears the FACTS of the case, the evidence plays an important role.
o Types of cases: federal crimes, civil suits under federal law and across state lines, and naturalization of aliens.
• Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals:
o Appellate jurisdiction- reviews legal issues (constitutionality)
o 12 Circuit Courts.
o Focus is on procedure and law; they want to hear legal arguments, NOT facts. |
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Term
| How does a case reach the Supreme Court? |
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Definition
| When two circuits disagree on a body of law → This gives judges a great opportunity to make policy. |
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Term
| What are the different types of opinions within the judicial system? |
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Definition
1. Majority: case decided, with reasonably clear
precedent; this decision governs all federal courts.
2. Minority: in opposition of the majority, gives legal reasoning behind the opposition. This opens an avenue for lawyers to have future legal basis for bringing more cases into the legal system.
3. Concurring: the majority is right, but for the wrong reasons |
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Term
| What are the different roles of the judiciary? |
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Definition
1. Original intent: Constitution should be interpreted with the framers' intent in mind.
2. Judicial Restraint: judges should play a minimal role in a shaping public policy (does not exist in practice).
3.Judicial Activism: judges should play a major role in shaping public policy.
4.Statutory Construction: role lies in interpreting acts of Congress, the Court constructs meaning to congressional statutes. |
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Term
| What is the purpose of interest groups? |
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Definition
• Purpose of organization is to influence public policy.
• Interest groups are NOT parties; parties are generalists, while interest groups are specialist.
• Contribute money and organization.
• Provide two types of information:
1. Policy information.
2. Political information. |
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Term
| What influences interest groups? |
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Definition
1. Latent interests: Law of large, disparate numbers and diffuse interests
2. Collective action and the problem of “free riders.” |
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