2024-09-03 Name: Cali Jones Intro: Civic engagement- ensures that representative democracy will flourish and people will influence it Right to participate in government- key feature of democracy Voting - helps insure that the government serves the people, not the other way around *1.1 What is Government?* | Key Questions: | Notes | | ----------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | How does it affect our lives? | Determines where go to school, type of education we get, what we eat | | What is government? | Government describes how a society organizes and gives authority to accomplish goals and provide what the society needs | | | Politics - the process of getting and exercising control in a government for setting and achieving goals - who gets what and how? - civic engagement is vital to politics | | What does the government do? | There to provide benefits | | | creates a structure on how goods and services can be available to the people | | | makes laws to maintain order | **Government and Economy:** Socialism - means of generating is in the hands of the government - socialist countries are often an oligarchy US Economy and Democratic Government - interconnection of economy and government - private goods - market providing goods to private companies who in turn provide them to Americans - public goods - goods or services provided by the government, available to all with out charge - National security and education in america - funded by taxes - toll goods - available to all if they can pay **Different Types of Government:** - democracy - political power rests in the hands of the people - representative democracy - the people don't govern directly - election of representatives - direct democracy - people participate directly in the government - democracy - oligarchy - monarchy - totalitarianism *1.2 Who Governs? Elitism, Pluralism, and Tradeoffs* **Elitism v. Pluralism:** - elite theory - a set of elite citizens are the ones actually in charge of the government - pluralist theory - political power rests with competing interest groups - government can't function without participation **The Tradeoffs Perspective**: - government action and public policy are influenced by tradeoffs or compromises - ex. the tradeoffs with the supporters of a strong central government and those who support the stronger power in the states - tradeoffs also happen because of of conflict between groups representing the differing interests of citizens - happens often in congress due to voting for the benefit of the states people v. what the political party wants *1.3 Engagement in Democracy* **Why Get Involved?** Putman's thoughts: - idea that civic engagement is declining, may people belong to groups, but impersonally - decline in social capital has hurt peoples willingness to get involved in the representative government Civil Engagement: - allowed many things and rights to be brought to pass - allows representative government to work effectively- if the civilians are informed **Pathways to Engagement** - awareness is the first step examples of engagement: being informed filing complaints sending emails voting blogging petitions rallys community service/action **Factors of Engagement:** - less likely for young adults to be civilly engaged - partisan politics is the cause of this