POLSCI 318 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Divided Government, Direct Democracy, Action Congress Of Nigeria
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Congress and the President
10.12.16 Lecture Notes – Congressional-Presidential Relations
Essay feedback
x Making an argument – thesis, paragraphs should support core thesis
x Thesis statements can be paragraphs – what we believe are the major forces – gives a map for the
type of evidence we should present – framing them to support the argument
x LAWMAKING PAPERS
o Assess relative importance of some procedures/some facets of the legislature
o Strategy – make an argument, identify which factors you think are most important
▪ Thesis – what these factors are and why they are so important
▪ Ex: major change to the underlying text of the statute that makes it more palpable
▪ Ex: massive change in partisanship, change in who is controlling the executive, his
priorities, use of orthodox and nonorthodox procedures
▪ Should also address counterarguments/alternative arguments
• Lay out briefly what an alternative argument is and say why my argument is
stronger
x Prof will read drafts!
Agenda
x Friction
x Characteristics of unified and divided governments
x Different frameworks for understanding presidential power
Lecture Notes
x Friction: slows down a process, generates heat
x Frictionless system example: movement of object in space, two magnets
x Our political system is designed to maximize friction – to slow down the policy-making process
x Frictionless political system can be a king with no conscious
x Political system w/friction – divided Congress, direct democracy
x Classic explanations for the amount of friction in the political system
o Different actors representing different interests (parochial, local interests) – each actor
serves an informal veto point in the legislative sector
▪ Filibustering in the Senate
▪ Going to public, throwing a fit to leadership House members can also slow down
the process
o Bicameral legislations – majorities necessary in both chambers
o Partisanship – increases the friction
▪ Increases friction in a same-party executive and legislative majority government
▪ Decreases friction in a different-party executive and legislative majority government
▪ Only a few legislative issues are going to make it through a high-friction
government, such as cybersecurity
▪ The most polarized issues in American politics have been on the agenda for a long
time – partisans have completely staked out their positions regarding those old
issues, such as abortion and gay marriage
▪ When new issues intrude on government, legislators do not really know how to map
out their ideological preferences on the issue
▪ Older issues that also have not been tracked into the left-right discourse, such as
infrastructure
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