Political Science

Horizontal policy-making focuses on collaboration and cooperation to make the best possible decisions. There is a decreased focus on a traditional hierarchy of those with decision-making powers and...

Interest groups play an important role as the “voice” of the people to advocate for their rights and push forward their agenda. Thus, without some interest groups or pressure groups, the voice and...

One advantage of so many local and state (i.e., subnational) governments in the United States of America is often attached to freedom. When the Founding Fathers were thinking about how to organize...

Technology has allowed the president to instantly reach hundreds of millions of people with a simple Tweet. It has also allowed the media, which operates across television, the radio, and the...

At the federal level, single-member elections are how congressional representatives in the House of Representatives are elected. Each state is divided into districts, and each district has the...

A voting cue is something that helps someone know how they should vote on a particular issue. It is often used with regard to members of legislatures, but can also refer to the voting behavior of...

Government is necessary because human beings aren't angels. Almost everyone is a mixture of good and bad, and, one could argue, it's the bad side of human nature that needs to be restrained by the...

Political parties influence public policy precisely because that is why they exist: to influence public policy. Political parties are large groupings of like-minded individuals who collectively...

Interest groups are often criticized for being "single issue." This means they will support whichever political candidate promises to champion their one issue. The political candidate could have a...

Political science, by nature, is a social science that deals with humans and their interactions. As a branch of sociology, it essentially deals with the large-scale actions of humans, and group...

A bill has to pass through both houses of Congress to make it to the president because the Framers of the Constitution wanted to make sure that it was hard for the government to oppress us and...

The House has a reputation of being much more contentious and impulsive when it comes to legislation. By comparison, it is fairly easy to be elected to the House, which means you have won a...

Social movements are varied, but they do have a few shared characteristics. Generally speaking, social movements are geared toward creating, perpetuating, or stopping social or political change....

The primary advantage of elections is that, when fairly conducted, they provide the best expression of the electorate's political preferences. As the alternative to elections is autocratic, or...

The similarities between the nations' governments are practically all surrounding how the government is run and how it was established. The nations are both democracies, established as federations...

What these parties have in common is a belief in the basics of the American system. Both believe in a capitalist economy and a democratic goverment with free electionss and civil rights and civil...

The term "political cue" is one that has a different meaning for political professionals than members of the voting public. To the former, it refers to any signal that reveals to a legislator what...

There are, in theory, ten potential steps a bill can go through before it becomes law. Although a president, a member of cabinet or head of a federal agency may propose a bill, only a member of...

The main difference between the three theories is how each of them perceive international relations. The realist views each state as being out for itself and power between states as a zero-sum...

One advantage that could occur when one party controls both the Congress and the presidency is that is could be easier to get laws passed and signed. If one party has a majority in both the House...

Public participation is very important especially in running a democratic government and this does not stop after elections. The public is responsible for most of the actions and decisions that the...

The importance of freedom is that it allows us to develop our morality and our consciences. If we lack freedom, we cannot truly become mature human beings. When we are forced to do things or not...

Pork barrel spending is spending that is intended for specific projects that benefit donor or constituent groups. Pork barrel spending can make legislation easier to pass because it allows for...

Sovereignty refers to the power of a state to make and apply its own laws and to control its affairs without the interference of other states. The United States is a sovereign state, as it can make...

There is much to like in this statement. When "the people" as a whole make big decisions, they can do so in very short-sighted ways. For example, "the people" in the US today want lots of...

The governor of Texas is one of the least empowered executives of any state in the country. This is largely by design, as the drafters of the Texas Constitution were worried that a strong state...

There are various forms of government, but political philosophers have often looked at monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies. Neither of the three governments are inherently good or bad. All of...

Having worked on many cases on behalf of the constituents of the members of Congress for whom I worked on Capitol Hill, I can provide many examples of casework. My first two employers served on...

A bill faces several obstacles to becoming a law, which is why most bills are not, in fact, enacted into legislation. Without tracing the familiar steps by which a bill becomes a law, the biggest...

The other two answers define cross-cutting cleavages and provided American examples, so I thought I'd contribute a global case. In India, the north-south divide splits people economically. Southern...

In the British Parliament, the party that governs is, by convention, the one that can command majority support in the House of Commons. Once that majority is secured, the government is entitled to...

Wars can be beneficial in all the ways already mentioned. World War II is probably one of the few instances in which both the victors and the losers benefitted from the war -- the victors by...

The difference between a proportional system and a winner-takes-all system is in the amount of representation the minority gets following a vote. In a winner-takes-all system, the losing party,...

Anything can be considered as part of the political process if it is a process through which governmental institutions interact with the people. To understand what this means, look at Greenberg...

Like post #4, I place the highest importance on intelligence, but would actually use the word "wisdom" instead. Any leader, but especially the Commander in Chief of the United States, needs to be...

Money is so important in political campaigns because money reaches the voters. Not only does money pay advertising costs and staffing costs, it pays transportation and lodging and related cost so...

Although there are several variants of the phrase scattered among different authors, perhaps the best known within the context of the United States is from a speech by Wendell Phillips (1811–1888),...

The economic system of a country often determines how it is governed. For example, the United States moved from the mixed economy of the mid-twentieth century, in which there was both a strong...

This term is most commonly used to refer to the situation in which a political entity that has been at least relatively united splits up into smaller parts. This is, for example, something that...

There are similarities and differences between descriptive representation and substantive representation. Descriptive representation is when an elected official represents people based on some...

Part-time legislatures can improve representation by making legislators more in touch with the people they’re elected to represent. If legislators work part-time, so the argument runs, they will...

Both Pluralism and Elitism are political theories that attempt to explain what factions hold the most sway in the democratic process. On one hand, pluralism attempts to explain democracy under...

Government The major similarity between monarchy and democracy is that they are both forms of government. Government is dedicated to establishing hierarchy of authority, rule of law, social order...

The premise of the incumbency effect is that there are advantages to being an incumbent which puts challengers at an automatic disadvantage. The effect suggests that "the incumbent always wins."...

Liberalism is predicated on the idea of democratically elected governments, individual freedom, and religious toleration. Under liberalism, every person, at least in theory, has the equal...

The best answer to this is “it depends.” Some individuals are clearly made less important by the committee system. However, others are made more important than they otherwise would have been. In...