Assignment Example on Political Science

To what extent should the state be responsible for the welfare of the public?

Public welfare is bad because they harm the economic growth of a nation since people are being given an incentive not to work. Public welfare programs incentivize women to have children out of wedlock leading to the destruction of the family. An overwhelming amount of juvenile delinquency studies show the lack of fathers leads to increased criminality. For example, a whopping 76 % of African American children are born out of wedlock. These children of black single mother homes lead the nation in every study ever published in regards to juvenile violent crimes in the United States. The political criticism of public welfare programmes comes from the far left which says that they are an attempt to hide the problems in capitalism.

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Government run welfare programs can be useful when they don't make get involved in a war on poverty. For example, progressive government educational policies emphasize equality as a bedrock public policy. The problems in American public education were made worse because it may have been free but the quality was not the same. Academic success means graduating from college, but in this era, college admission had tests for knowledge in Latin, Greek, and algebra. These were usually not taught in public schools. College became a place for wealthy privately educated students. Racism also meant that not many colleges were accepting black students. These inequalities fueled the debate over what should be taught in public schools.

Progressive educators opted to address the low transition rates in public schools into college hence they advocated for changes to university admittance requirements. They also pushed for changes to public school curriculums. Progressives hoped to reform the whole education system. The lack of funding may have made the progressive not achieve all their targets but they managed to introduce the idea of equal educational opportunities for poor and middle-class children in public schools so that if they are competent, they can transition into college.

The difference between presidential and parliamentary systems of government?

John Locke theorized that people originally used to live in a "state of nature" where everyone was lived according to the laws of nature with equal natural rights to do as they pleased. However, living in this state of nature where might is right is difficult so people came together to create civil society by leaving the state of nature using a social contact. The work of government is to keep social order and this is facilitated by its citizens giving up some of their natural rights to the government necessary for it to do its job. Therefore, the legitimacy of a government depends on its ability to protect and vindicate the natural rights of its citizens that they retain even as they collectively enter the social contract.

A government has executive, legislative and judicial power. These types of power create three branches of government. The head of the executive in this system is an elected member of the legislature. This system doesn't have a complete separation of power between the three branches of the state. In a presidential system, the head of the executive is not a member of the legislature. Both systems of government being examined may have systems of checks and balances to ensure power is not being abused, however, the least desirable is the parliamentary system because it has an unpredictable election cycle. It also is inefficient because there is a duplication of roles. For example, in England, the House of Lords is not only a branch of the legislature but it is also the second highest court in the land.

What is state corporatism? What is pluralism?

Political pluralism is a liberal democratic theory which says political power must be shared among different interest groups instead of one or two elite interest groups. Pluralism suggests that politics and the process of making government policy is a competitive marketplace where interest groups have an equal opportunity to win. Pluralism is not a perfect system because it favors wealthy business. The system encourages public officers to side with big business.

This competition is what keeps liberal democracy safe from the tyranny of the majority since minority interest groups can lobby the government policymakers directly. Interest articulation is another name for lobbying by an interest group. These groups are formal associations of people or groups who come together because of shared concerns, and the desire to articulate these concerns to public policymakers or legislators. The term "lobbying" therefore means applying pressure on policymakers or lawmakers into addressing their concerns.

State corporatism is underpinned by voluntary agreement between the state, trade unions and business owners to encourage the kind of economic growth which can generate the kind of wealth needed to support an expansive welfare state. A criticism of this model is that big business and trade unions have an unfair special relationship with the state at the expense of other groups within society especially minority groups.