A Primer on Politics v. 0.0 This is the book A Primer on Politics (v. 0.0). This book is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/ 3.0/) license. See the license for more details, but that basically means you can share this book as long as you credit the author (but see below), don't make money from it, and do make it available to everyone else under the same terms. This book was accessible as of December 29, 2012, and it was downloaded then by Andy Schmitz (http://lardbucket.org) in an effort to preserve the availability of this book. Normally, the author and publisher would be credited here. However, the publisher has asked for the customary Creative Commons attribution to the original publisher, authors, title, and book URI to be removed. Additionally, per the publisher's request, their name has been removed in some passages. More information is available on this project's attribution page (http://2012books.lardbucket.org/attribution.html?utm_source=header). For more information on the source of this book, or why it is available for free, please see the project's home page (http://2012books.lardbucket.org/). You can browse or download additional books there. ii Table of Contents About the Author .................................................................................................................. 1 Preface..................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1: Politics and Power ............................................................................................ 5 You Don’t Care About Government, and Maybe You Should ....................................................................6 Do We Need a Government?........................................................................................................................ 13 A (Very) Brief History of Government....................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2: Political Philosophy: Taking a Theorem to Keep From Getting Thick 31 What’s the Big Idea? .................................................................................................................................... 32 From Antiquity to Modernity ..................................................................................................................... 42 From Modernity to Today ........................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 3: Ideologies and Isms ........................................................................................ 56 Liberalism ..................................................................................................................................................... 58 Alternatives to Liberalism........................................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 4: Types of Governments: A Republic or a Democracy?.............................. 80 Direct Democracy......................................................................................................................................... 81 Indirect Democracy ..................................................................................................................................... 87 Constitutions ................................................................................................................................................ 95 Divisions of Power...................................................................................................................................... 102 Chapter 5: Citizens and Politics ..................................................................................... 110 Political Culture ......................................................................................................................................... 111 Media........................................................................................................................................................... 115 Interest Groups........................................................................................................................................... 125 Public Opinion ............................................................................................................................................ 131 Chapter 6: Voting and Elections .................................................................................... 139 Voting.......................................................................................................................................................... 140 Electoral Systems ....................................................................................................................................... 148 Political Parties .......................................................................................................................................... 162 Chapter 7: The Building Blocks of Government ......................................................... 168 Legislatures................................................................................................................................................. 169 Executives ................................................................................................................................................... 182 Courts .......................................................................................................................................................... 187 Sub-National Governments....................................................................................................................... 193 Bureaucracy................................................................................................................................................ 199 iii Chapter 8: Eee! Economics, Economic Systems, and Economic Policy .................. 203 Different Economic Systems ..................................................................................................................... 204 Basic Economics ......................................................................................................................................... 209 The Other Side of Markets ........................................................................................................................ 215 How Politics and Markets Intersect ......................................................................................................... 222 Measuring the Economy: GDP and Inflation ........................................................................................... 228 Government and the Economy ................................................................................................................. 233 Budgets and Fiscal Policy .......................................................................................................................... 236 Monetary Policy ......................................................................................................................................... 247 Regulation................................................................................................................................................... 252 Recessions and Depressions...................................................................................................................... 258 Summary..................................................................................................................................................... 265 Chapter 9: International Relations ............................................................................... 266 The Challenges of the State System ......................................................................................................... 267 Theories of International Relations ......................................................................................................... 272 The Problem of Morality ........................................................................................................................... 280 Post-Cold War International Relations.................................................................................................... 284 The Nuclear Question, Revisited .............................................................................................................. 289 Chapter 10: Applying What You’ve Learned: Three Issues ...................................... 293 Trade ........................................................................................................................................................... 294 Debt and Deficits ........................................................................................................................................ 305 The Environment ....................................................................................................................................... 312 iv About the Author T.M. Sell, Ph.D. I spent 20 years as a working journalist, covering business, the economy and politics, before finishing my Ph.D. and taking up teaching. I also worked for several years in the Washington state Legislature and saw real politics firsthand. I have been published in a variety of publications including salon.com, Washington Law