In the book Polity:Political Culture and the Nature of Politics, Craig L. Carr explains how bureaucracies work and how hierarchical they have to be; “ The centralized management necessary for bureaucratic efficiency requires hierarchical organization, and hierarchical organization entails layers of authority understandable in terms of superiors and subordinates.” (Carr, 2007, p.157) He goes on to explain the inefficiencies within the bureaucratic system and how these inefficiencies have contributed to tragedies such as the terrorist attack of september 11, 2001. The United States of America claims to be a democratic nation but in hindsight the ideals of bureaucracy conflict with democracy. We can see in Carr's argument that the bureaucratic system is flawed in many ways. And we can observe that “bureaucratic necessity is thus on a collision course with liberal ideals” that the United States claims to have.(Carr, 2007,p.175) At the end of page 174, Carr brings up an explanation of how rules are the reason that things get done in a bureaucratic system. It is the privates that listen to their commanding officers and follow the rules and direction that the commanding officers give them. Once again, this is how things get done. Carr states, “Like any bureaucracy, the military depends upon the expertise of its commanding officers and the loyalty of its subordinates. Everyone needs to understand her role in the organization, and everyone needs to meet her organizational responsibilities.”(Carr, 2007, p.157) So here, we think about if the loyalty of its subordinates, but what about the loyalty of the commanding officer? When we take a look at the system of bureaucracy and its efficiencies with its “foot soldiers”, I think it is ...
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...low blindly because we have no other choice but to trust the man above us. Whether that man is as corrupt as Hitler or as honest as everyone believes Pope Benedict to be, there is the full-fledged trust that remains in the higher man. Being human, that trust will fail and the availability for corruption caused by selfish people remains. Although there is not much of a solution to the selfishness of people and their own agendas, the people still somewhat control who is on top and who those people are that we are looking up to. In the end, we choose our will and we choose who we follow blindly. It’s not the faith itself that we put in people that is corrupt, but the people that we put our faith in that can sometimes be corrupt.
Works Cited
Carr, C. (2007). Polity: Political culture and the nature of politics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
There are thousands of years of history that have taken place. History is not like art(less subjective), but there is still plenty of room for speculation, criticism, and debate among historians, professors, as well as average citizens. However, not all these moments are documented, or done successfully specifically. Some of these moments end up becoming movies, books, or even historical fiction novels, but what about those fundamental moments that aren’t readily documented? In the book The Birth of Modern Politics Lynn Hudson Parsons claims that the 1828 election was momentous in the history of both political history, as well as our nation. Parsons not only discusses the behind the scenes of the first public election of 1828, but the pivotal events in Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams’ lives leading up to the election as well. Parsons succeeds in proving her thesis that the 1828 election was crucial to American politics as we know it today, as well as provoking evidence from various sources with her own logic and opinions as well.
Mintz Eric, Close David, Croc Osvaldo. Politics, Power and the Common Good: An Introduction to Political Science. 2009. Toronto: Pearson Canada. 15,147,183.
I got the Faith and Family Left result on my Political Typology Quiz. It says The Faith and Family Left combine strong support for activist government with conservative attitudes on many social issues. Fully 85% of the Faith and Family Left says religion is very important. Besides that, 51% of them want the government to do more to protect morality - the highest percentage of any typology group. This is an only typology group that is “majority-minority”.
"Trudeaumania" was arguably the most significant Canadian example of the important role culture plays in achieving political power. The course text Introduction to Politics, defines power as "the ability to make others do something that they would not have chosen to do" (Garner, Ferdinand, Lawson & MacDonald, 2009). The same text defines political culture as "the totality of ideas and attitudes towards authority, discipline, governmental responsibilities and entitlements, and associated patterns of cultural transmission such as the e...
Dye, Thomas R., L. Tucker Gibson, Jr., and Clay Robison. Politics in America. Ninth ed. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Longman, 2011. 337. Print.
According to Daniel Elazer, there are three separate manifestations of the American political culture. Daniel states that there wasn’t just one political culture that there was three, these being moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic. Daniel states that each individual state has a culture type of the three that were named above. He shows that the southern states are more of the traditionalistic type. Elazer goes on to explain that migration in the 19th century gave pattern to the dominant cultures, and that migration was happening from east to west. As these people migrated throughout the United States not only did they move to get a new life or so to say a fresh start, these people also took their values with them. Dominant culture
South University Online. (2013). POL2076: American Government: Week 4: People and Politics—Interest Groups. Retrieved from http://myeclassonline.com
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Romance, Joseph. Political Science 6 class lectures. Drew University, Summer 2004.
Schmidt, Shelley, and Bardes. American Politics and Government Today. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999, pgs. 325-327.
By definition, bureaucratic organization may not seem to be a bad thing. However, in practice, bureaucracies are known to have a negative effect on all its participants. As defined by Samuel Kernell and Gary Jacobson, "The model bureaucracy is, in short, a purposive machine with interchangeable human parts." Bureaucracies are dehumanizing, they train for obedience, and stifle creative thought. The characteristics of bureaucratic organization that have the worst effect on its participants and most compromise efficiency are its hierarchical structure in which all the power resides at the top and the specialization of tasks.
The idea of political culture is found within the state’s history. The history of the state is impacted by the people settled in the region, religious backgrounds, and geography. The history of the state influences the attitudes and beliefs that people hold regarding their political system. Daniel Elazar theorized a connection between the states’ history and attitude towards government by explaining differences in government between states. Every state is different with some common ground. Elazar’s theory divides states into three types: moralistic, traditionalistic and individualistic. The state’s constitution defines the powers of government with political culture bias. Because of the state constitution, the political culture influences the power and limitations of governors, legislative, and judiciaries.
Ken Kollman, The American Political System, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2012), 25, 322-323, 330, 449.
1) What is political culture? What is the makeup of the political culture in the United States? Give two examples of how the political culture of the United States helps to unite Americans, even in disagreement.
7th edition. London: Pearson Longman, ed. Garner, R., Ferdinand, P. and Lawson, S. (2009) Introduction to Politics. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
What Is Politics On hearing the word politics, what usually springs to mind are images of government, politicians and their policies or more negatively the idea of corruption and dirty tricks. The actual definition seems to have been obscured and almost lost by such representations and clichés that tend not to pinpoint the true essence, which defines this thing, called politics. In order to make an attempt at a definition of politics a systematic approach is required. To begin with, a brief historical overview will be considered, to understand the origins of politics. Following this, different core concepts, which are imperative to a definition of politics, will be discussed, in the hope to discover a true and fair interpretation of the word politics.