Are state government policies influenced by factors that characterize each state? If so, how are such factors influencing the state government policies? Political scientists try to answer these questions by analyzing aggregated data on the 50 states using correlation and regressions methods. A state government policy can be illustrated by the per capita state and local expenditure on public welfare. A factor that may affect the state government policy may be the ideology of the state. Ideology can be explained as the position or attitude towards the government based on the notion of freedom versus equality by which, in this case, the state can be considered either liberal or conservative based on their position. Liberals tend to support more government spending on public welfare compared to conservative who tend to support less spending. It can be hypothesized that a state that tends to be liberal will have a higher per capita state and local expenditure on public welfare compared to states with less tendency of being liberal. Additionally, in efforts to properly analyze the hypothesis, possible confounding variables need to be tested to see if it affects the association between expenditure and the tendency of states being liberal. In this case, public aid recipients in each state are the possible confounding variable.
The hypothesis may be conceptually defines as the level of spending of each state on public welfare and the level of ideology, specifically level of how liberal the state is. The operational definition of the hypothesis may be illustrated by measuring both variables. How much each state spends on public welfare can be measured by evaluating expenditures of each state and mathematically formulating the per capita ...
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...e in other words the ideology of the state is the per capita state and local expenditure on public welfare. It was hypothesized that liberal states were more likely to have higher per capita expenditure on public welfare compared to states that tend to be less liberal. A control variable was added in order to test a possible confounding variable; in this case the variable was percent of the population who are public aid recipients. The research demonstrates that there is a positive correlation between expenditure and how liberal each state is even with a control variable. It can be concluded that as the level of how liberal a state is increases so does the per capita expenditure on public welfare. Furthermore, it can be explained by the tendency of liberals favoring more spending on public welfare compared to conservatives who favor less spending on public welfare.
Despite American government being characteristically dominated by cooperative feudalism, there is a persistence of national supremacy elements, state’s rights, and dual fideism. The current situation can, therefore, be regarded as balanced federalism. A cooperative relationship between state government and the national government is specifically rooted in a transfer of payments done from the national government to government in lower levels, which is referred to as fiscal feudalism (Bednar, 2009). There are mainly two types of grants which are block grants and categorical grants. This is a federal aid which is spent by states within a given policy area, although with much state discretion. General revenue sharing (GRS) was used back in the 1970s and 1980s. GRS awarded the state maximum control over policies, but gaining political support was difficult for them.
A Democratic Party long ruled by moderates and conservatives succeeded in stunting what seemed like the natural growth of a successful Republican Party until the 1990s. Since then, various forces have contributed to the growth of the Republicans, and in the end, to an altering of the core membership of each party. Most recently, the state has seen the development of a dominant Republican Party that doesn't yet hold quite the dominion the Democrats enjoyed through most of the twentieth century. The Republican Party has certainly benefited from the defection of former Democrats, the arrival of Republicans and independents from out of state, and organizational difficulties in the Democratic Party. Thus, Republican officials dominate state government, and Democrats find themselves reduced, for the present, to the status of an embattled minority party seeking to recreate themselves among their voting and financial constituencies. This is showing that the newfound Republican dominance can be the beginning of a new strong party system, or if we are in a state of transition in which the terms of political competition are still in change. If it is a new party system, I don’t think it will be very durable or last too long for that matter. Now, it seems that Republican dominance of state government will
In the United States, for the last four decades, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan through the two Bush Presidencies, the Republican Party won the White House by amassing large margins among white voters (Lizza.) The state of Texas has been reliably Republican since the 1970s and there are various elements to Texas political culture that can be narrowed down to three essential ideological trends: economic liberalism, or faith in the free market economy, social conservatism, or favoring traditional values and moralism, and populism, or promoting the rights and worthiness of ordinary people (Texas Political Culture.) As a result, the dominant political mood in Texas favors low taxes, minimal government services, and policies that are pro-business. This phenomenon is not static, however, since changing demographics in the state are causing changes in the profile of Texas in reference to electoral politics, among other major issues. This paper will explore different perspectives about the changing demographics of Texas, and where they might lead the state politically, and will present a variety of viewpoints regarding this complex subject.
In the following essay I will be talking about the disadvantages and advantages of partisan elections for state politics. I will also examine the last couple year’s election results and costs. Finally, I will discuss if partisanship made a difference in the vote, as well as if a judge should be decided by partisan vote. In the next couple paragraphs I will talk more specifically about these topics.
Walter M. Simon The American Political Science Review , Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jun., 1951), pp. 386-399
The idea of a welfare state was created from a misguided desire to gain social equality. This created a society dependent on the government, but with encouragement of individualism this dependence will be removed. The ideological perspective of the author is neoconservative, which in the message the author is trying to suggest that individuals in a welfare state will become dependent on the government to provide them with programs and initiatives. The author believes a state should not be involved within the economy and should encourage individualism. This is shown when the author says “a culture dependency on the state has emerged” and “only in a state that promotes individualism will such dependency be eliminated”. This relates to liberalism because of how it promotes self interest and self reliance compared to collective well being, this is shown when the author says “ only in a state that promotes individualism will such dependency be eliminated”. Society should rather embrace and develop the idea of a welfare state, which can improve and become beneficial to the state.
Kraft, Michael E., and Scott R. Furlong. 2013. Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives, Anonymous Anonymous , ed. Charisse Kiino . 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.
Wheelan, C. (2011). Introduction to Public Policy (1st ed.). United States: W.W. Nortion & Company, INC. (Original work published 2011).
Kraft, Michael E. Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives, 4th Edition. N.p.: CQ, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Elazar, Daniel. "Explaining Policy Differences Using Political Culture." Reading. West Texas A&M University. Political Culture Handout. Dr. Dave Rausch, Teel Bivins Professor of Political Science. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. < http://www.wtamu.edu/~jrausch/polcul.html.>
The northeast, northern Midwest and northwest part of the country tend to be moralistic states. The citizens of these states believe that the role of government should promote the interest and policy innovation that benefit the public. The expectations for government are that politicians make changes within the state with public services. The government tends to have higher budget, opposed to traditionalistic and individualistic, government spending is praised to promote for the greater good. The citizens are highly active with participation, dictating the laws and policies of their state. The competition is expected in these states, because popularity is essential for the politician. However, in traditionalistic states these characteristics vary.
When states try to find ways to restrain from non-essential areas, unfunded federal mandates are at the top of the list. These mandates often force state and local governments to spend much more than necessary on everything from medical care to welfare to road building. A complex web of federal programs bind together the tree treasuries of the local, state, and federal government. As much as 25 percent of state budgets now comes from the federal government, and up to 60 percent of some state budgets is spent on joint federal-state programs.
Many South Carolina voters agree that increase immigration has a profound impact on taxpayers. For example, immigrants impose costs on state government by using more in government services than they pay in taxes (Huddle, 1997). This causes taxes in taxpayers households to soar tremendously. Due to the increase in immigrants, Huddle (1997) found that low-skill American workers were moved from their jobs. Due to the displacement, taxpayers paid an abundance amount of money in public assistance. The public assistance consisted of Medicaid, unemployment compensation, and food stamps. Evidence suggests that South Carolina voters are likely to resist increased immigration due to the tremendous increase in taxes.
“The development of self is a lifelong process” (Brym and Lie, 1978: 69). Self-socialization is when one chooses socialization influences from the wide variety of mass media offerings (Brym and Lie 2012: 67). Mass media in today’s generation has an enormous impact in terms of communicating, passing a message across, knowing what’s right and what’s wrong. Self-socialization and mass media can create a very strong tie which makes one believe what they need in their life will be learned merely from media. When I was 10 years old, I started to build an interest in foreign modeling. I started to dress up, walk and talk similar to what I saw on the television and magazines. This influenced me to make my identity in the western field of modeling and to stand out as an individual. However, my parents were not satisfied with the idea of following the western modeling trends, they preferred for me to enrol myself into the Indian modeling industry where it was easy to get in but not very rewarding. I chose to develop myself into a higher status where my talents could be more appealing and successful. With my example, I think conflict theory best fits because it addresses the “submission and struggle between people of high and low social standing” (Brym and Lie 2012:12). Moreover, it can be related to feminist approach as well when gender roles play a large part as they are “widely shared expectations about how males and females are supposed to act”(Brym and Lie 2012:67). The feminist approach in India made me realize that my dreams were not acceptable since the country is not developed and considered as the “third-world”.
1.Based on the Midgley and Social Welfare Concepts (power point) write a brief definition of social welfare policy that makes sense to you at this point. Distinguish between the Institutional and Residual Models, and universal and selective programs, providing definitions and examples of each.