In general, people do follow the laws in the United States, because the law will protect them if they obey; whereas if they go against the law they could potentially go to jail, get fined, or punished for breaking the law. This is known as legal authority; where people believe in the validity of rules, and obedience is expected. Also, people in the United States will follow rules such as stopping at red lights, paying for things, etc. because of traditional authority.
People do not question things they are accustomed to, and follow laws because it’s ‘the way it’s always been’. Benedict Anderson saw the notion of a country as an imagined community because, “because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” Anderson says this because, despite the violence, inequality and misuse of power the nation is always perceived as a unified commandership. “Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (Anderson 1991).
The community is also imagined and limited due to its finite elastic boundaries; even if there are billions of people living within a nation it is not infinite, and at some point it can no longer expand any further due to boundaries being other nations. “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk says that “‘Every state is founded on force,’ whereas a nation is a country of common people whether that be ethnicities or ancestral lineage; there is a supreme ruler in charge of all their people.
The term ‘nation-state’ suggests an imagined community “imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign….” it is imagined as sovereign due to the time period in which the concept was born. Nation-state was first used when Revolutions and Enlightenment were putting an end to the Catholic Church’s rule over the people which lead people to search for a central power elsewhere, leading to the existence of the nation-state. The significant difference between the executive and legislative branches is that the executive power is vested and the legislative power is granted. The legislative powers are granted to the Congress through USCS Const. Art. I, § 1. All legislative powers including the senate and house of representatives are granted by the constitution, although it is a concern that the legislative branch will gain too much power. The executive branch and judicial branch were not herein granted, but possessed by the president through USCS Const. Art. II, § 1, Cl 1.
Members of congress must be an inhabitant of the state in order to be elected, Although to run for House of Representatives it’s required to be twenty-five years of age and a citizen in the United States for at least seven years (Dooley Textbook pg. 124). I think that House members should be members of their district so that they are aware of the specific issues and demographics within that area. If members are coming from outside of the district, they may not be able to help the people in the ways they need most, and have not lived through/experienced these issues first-hand.
The PR system created a system in both parties that allowed for equal representation, and relied on multi-member districts. Although plurality is easier to understand for the common voter, it is a less fair way to vote, and usually leads to two parties (democratic and republican) instead of many different viewpoints. Duverger found that plurality elections tended to create 2-party systems while PR elections tended to establish multi-party systems.
The parliamentary system is more effective than checks and balances because checks and balances was originally created in order to cause inefficiency due to the idea that inefficiency leads to a safe government according to Montesquieu, Madison, and Hobbes. As Richard Neustadt argued in Presidential Power, separate institutions share their powers, and is ultimately a system of paralysis. Checks and balances are able to limit power of each the branches, and prevents any bills or large changes within the government to happen due to the level of difficulty to get all the branches to agree, meaning the government is rarely able to accomplish anything.
To help with re-election, Fenno advises incumbents to go home and demonstrate to their voters that they will be represented correctly, and their issues will be addressed. He focuses what individuals do in their own districts instead of looking at the large picture (in Washington). By doing so, it helps candidates get re-elected into office, and the three components to home-styles that aid in re-election are; presentation of self, allocation of resources, and explanation of Washington activities.
In Mayhew’s “Continuous Campaign” it’s discussed that the system is a continuous campaign of good service, name recognition, and good ties. He believes that politicians seek re-election over everything else. Mayhew criticizes the political parties end goals of controlling the government. Although, it’s larger than just the politicians trying to get re-elected; it’s a party goal to alter the system and laws with their beliefs. Mayhew states that all members of congress will campaign by advertizing (to get names in a positive light) , credit claiming (claim responsibility to push government to make changes for a district), and position taking (casting the right vote on political issues).
The US uses the electoral college system while many other countries opt for popular vote. By using the electoral college system we oftentimes get presidents that were not popular to begin with, and Bolivia has a similar system to that of the US. Also, pularlity methods are vulnerable to candidates that have no chance of winning an election, but receives more votes because their presence could affect another candidate’s chance of success in an election. A common solution used in this situation is runoffs. Also, the electoral college stands against those two trends. In primary elections, presidential nominees are not as far behind, and these elections are indirect meaning voters are selecting party convention delegates rather than deciding on their nominee.
