Jessica Meeks
9/3/12

Chapter 1 American Political Culture (Ginsberg)

Outlines will provided to the students to assist them with their weekly reading assignments. Although the outlines will be graded (50pt per week), the purpose of the outlines are not to force students to just record information, but to allow the students to read and develop their ideas about the information. Please be as detailed as possible. I will answer part of this one as a model for you to follow. Remember, most of the questions will require more than one action; such as , list and discuss or itemize and explain. The constructive response questions are set up the same way. It is to your benefit to use your knowledge of the material and expand upon that knowledge in a constructive manner. I you should have any problems, please contact me as soon as possible. To use the outlines, copy and paste to a word document or similar type of format. Complete the outline and save the outline to a file folder for the class. (I use weekly folders for the material. You should save the material in case the system crashes and information is lost. You will then be able to resubmit with a minimum of difficulty) Then open the assignment and post the outline as a attachment. I will grade and post comments to you through the assignment section. If I see you have having difficulty with the material, I will post your assignment with corrections for your input.

1) In relationship to week's 1 readings about how the government affects our life on a daily basis, discuss why does the general public accept governmental regulations and restrictions on our lives?

For the first part of our short history, Americans did not accept the government's right to regulate what individuals or business did. As a matter of fact, Americans greatly resisted any interference by government, especially the federal branch. The government's input begin to change drastically with the period of 'Progressive' in the late 19th Century and into the 20th Century. But still during this period most Americans only accepted governmental regulations in the areas of business and safety in the workplace. Then what caused the American people to accept the government's interference in our daily lives? Usually, during times of disaster and war the American citizen is more likely to allow the government to take our granted liberties in the name of "public safety". Unfortunately, government is not so quick to give back the our liberties. Just think back to 9/11 and the changes this attack brought. We cannot even get on an airplane today without having our shoes being checked. So as Americans, we become accustom to the changes and move on with our lives, while government continues to grow beyond anything our Forefathers imagine.

2) Political efficacy is defined by the Ginsberg, et.al., as the ability to influence government and politics. The authors summarized their points about the declining political efficacy in America. In your own words, list and describe the authors' points with this decline.

a) One area that affects our country is the growing apathy about the political structure and the continuing declining participation in the political process. Many people, young and old, feel like their views and ideals are no longer represented by the governmental structure, but worse than this, many feel their views do not matter.

b) If political apathy continues, more and more fringe elements in our society will continue to gain power in the political process allowing extreme views to control the governmental process. After all, the man who many consider the worse leader and murder in the 20th Century was elected to office (Adolf Hitler).

c) As many individuals begin to distance themselves from the political process, the ensuing generations will also began to lose interest. After a period of years, we will find ourselves with a population that does not know why this country was founded or the