7 Chapter 9: American Politics and Public Policy/Administration
7 Chapter 9: American Politics and Public Policy/Administration
The short answer is that this sub-discipline is unique to American academia. Higher education outside of the United States does not consider American politics to be its own sub-unit in the discipline of political science. American politics in international academia is rather a case to study—an important one, but just one case among many. The long answer is that political science has gone through enormous development in the history American academia, and has so shaped the disciplinary focus to regard American politics as a unique area of study populated with important insights, theories, questions, policy studies, and schools of thought. This sub-discipline covers a broad range of behavioral and institutional accounts of electoral and campaign politics, the legislative process, political parties, executive power and bureaucracy, the policy process and administration of policy, public law, cultural politics, state and local government, political development over time, and political thought. Furthermore, as discussed below, the study of American politics is hardly confined to one government—50 state governments in a federalist system can act as experimental arenas in which policy is tested and evaluated.
First, let’s briefly overview some aspects of American politics covered in previous chapters. The United States has a federal, not unitary, form of government that entails shared power among 50 states and a central, federal political body. As structured by the Constitution, this body is a federal government composed of a separation of powers among legislative, executive, and judicial branches (branches which correspond to the first three articles of the Constitution, respectively). The American legislature is a bicameral body composed of a House of Representatives, with 435 members serving non-limited 2-year terms, and a Senate, with 100 members (2 per state) serving non-limited 6-year terms. This Congress of the House and Senate hold lawmaking powers detailed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. In addition, the Senate advises and consents the executive on judicial appointments and treaties with foreign nations. In cases of impeachment of a president, the House initiates impeachment proceedings and the Senate holds an impeachment trial (presided over by the sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). Elections for Congress are majoritarian, which means that elections are for single seats and the candidate who wins a plurality of the vote wins the seat. This is also known as a “first-past-the-post system” and is contrasted with a proportional representation system in which votes are cast for political parties that receive a proportion of seats in a legislature.
The executive is comprised of a presidency, a vice presidency (who serve a maximum of two 4-year terms), a cabinet of secretaries who head the various executive departments that implement law. The executive branch also i