The American Paradox:(Data from the ANES)

HOW ARE AMERICANS’ CORE POLITICAL VIEWS DIFFERENT?

• What is: “politics”? What is “political culture”? • “American exceptionalism”? Do Americans really see things

all that differently from one another? From peoples in other advanced democracies?

• What shared culture? Don’t American’s have big differences in their political beliefs? – Conservatives Liberals/Progressives, & Libertarians– While they disagree on issues like the govt’s role in regulating

morality and business and on how much the govt. should focus on rectifying inquality, their differences are relatively small on these issues if you look at political factions in other advanced industrial democracies.

WHAT CORE VALUES DISTINGUISH AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE?

What values most define what it means to be an American? • Liberty means limited government: Why don’t Americans like

government?

• Individualism: Why do we believe in “self”-reliance and individual responsibility instead of communal responsibility?

• Equal opportunity: Why do Americans place a premium on egalitarianism (equal opportunity) instead of equal outcomes?

• What do Americans mean when they say that they support democracy? What is democracy (how is it different than authoritarianism)? Why do we think that the people should have a say in what happens? Are there better ways to pursue the common good than giving everyday people the final say?

WHERE DID AMERICA’S UNIQUE POLITICAL CULTURE COME FROM? THE KEY VARIABLES

Who founded the US? Immigrants• Why does political culture matter? How are immigrant-receiving

“fragment” countries & their “civic religions” different? Why has our political culture been so stable over time?

• Why did immigrants choose to come to America? • How did the immigrant experience shape attitudes towards higher

“authority” versus “community” in early America?

How did geography shape our political values and institutions?• How was being a poor colony a good thing for us?• How did our isolation impact the nature of state/church power?• Why did population and its dispersion matter? 3.9 million in 1790; 300m

today• Abundant fertile land

What key events and ideas most shaped our founding?• America was founded in an era of “Liberalism”: The Magna Carta

(1215), the Reformation, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith

• Why did early Americans believe that government should be constrained by a belief “social contracts” that require “consent of the governed”?

• Why did early Americans think that unjust governments invite revolt? To what extent is this language still part of American discourse?

• When did we start to think that parliament should share control over taxation & war?

• Why must property owners have the ability to participate in governance?

• If we have “natural law” and “inalienable” liberties, why did they to every “person”?